Occultism and Common Sense Part 12

was termed--thought she would be able to 'materialise' herself so far as to present the whole form, if we arranged the corner cupboard so as to admit of her doing so. Accordingly we opened the door, and from it suspended a rug or two opening in the centre, after the fashion of a Bedouin Arab's tent; formed a semicircle; sat and sang Longfellow's 'Footsteps of Angels.'

Therein occurs the pa.s.sage, 'Then the forms of the departed enter at the open door.' And, lo and behold! though we had left Miss B. tied and sealed to her chair and clad in an ordinary black dress somewhat voluminous as to the skirts, a tall, female figure, draped cla.s.sically in white, with bare arms and feet, did enter at the open door, or rather down the centre from between the two rugs, and stood statuelike before us, spoke a few words, and retired; after which we entered the Bedouin tent and found pretty Miss B. with her dress as before, knots and seals secure, and her boots on! This was Form No. 1, the first I had ever seen. It looked as material as myself; and on a subsequent occasion--for I have seen it several times--we took four very good photographic portraits of it by magnesium light. The difficulty I still felt, with the form as with the faces, was that it seemed so thoroughly material and flesh-and-blood-like."

It is not my intention to speak of the mult.i.tude of early materialisations. As Mr Podmore points out, at these manifestations practically no precautions were taken against trickery. There was nothing, so far as can be discovered, to throw any hindrance in the way of the medium, if she chose, impersonating the spirit by exhibiting a mask through the opening of the curtain or by dressing herself up and walking about the room. Nor were there any collateral circ.u.mstances to justify belief in the genuineness of the manifestations.

Nevertheless, Miss Cook's claims attracted the attention of Sir William Crookes. He attended several _seances_--one, once, at the house of Mr Luxmoor, when "Katie" was standing before him in the room. He had distinctly heard from behind the curtain the sobbing and moaning habitually made by Miss Cook during such _seances_. At another _seance_, held at his own house, 12th March 1874, "Katie," robed in white, came to the opening of the curtain and summoned him to the a.s.sistance of her medium. The man of science instantly obeyed the call, and found Miss Cook, attired in her ordinary black velvet dress, p.r.o.ne on the sofa. On another occasion he declares he saw two forms together in a good light; more than this, he actually procured a photograph of "Katie." But of this I will speak later, when I come to discuss spirit photography.

One of the most noted materialising mediums of to-day is Charles Miller, of San Francisco, of whom a certain Professor Reichel has recently written a lengthy account.

Miller's _seances_ are described as very conclusive. At the first one, after Miller had retired into the cabinet, "the curtain was pulled aside, showing the medium asleep, and six fully developed phantoms standing beside him. Two spoke German to friends from their native land," and one discussed matters of a private nature with Professor Reichel. Similar occurrences were many times repeated, and dematerialisations were often "made before the curtain, in full view of the sitters" and "in ample light to observe everything." Professor Reichel says:

"In the _seances_ with Mr Miller I heard the spirits speak in English, French, and German, but I have been a.s.sured repeatedly that in a _seance_ of seventy-five persons, representing many of the various nationalities in San Francisco, twenty-seven languages were spoken by materialised spirits, addressing different sitters."

Equally good results were obtained in a room taken at the Palace Hotel, for a special testsetting, the results of which were communicated to Colonel de Rochas, and again when Mr Miller visited the Professor at Los Angeles. The following incidents are of special interest, as throwing light on the forces made use of in the production of the phenomena, and in reference to allegations of fraud or personation:--

"A sitting took place at noon. Before it began, and while Miller was standing in front of the cabinet, I heard 'Betsy's'

voice whisper: 'Go out for a moment into the sun with the professor.' Accordingly I took Mr Miller by the arm, and together we went out into the sunshine. After a few moments we returned, and at the moment we entered the dark room the writer, as well as everyone else present, saw Mr Miller completely strewn with a shining, white, glittering, snowlike ma.s.s, that entirely covered his dark cheviot suit. This singular occurrence had been witnessed repeatedly--even when the medium had not previously been in the sun. At such times it appeared gradually after the room had been darkened."

This snowlike ma.s.s the author regards as "the white element of magnetism, which the phantoms use in their development." He also says:

"In another _seance_ held by Miller, 'Betsy' told me that she would show me something that often happened in _seances_ with other materialisation mediums--namely, that the medium himself frequently appeared disguised as a spirit. She asked me to come to the curtain, where she told me that the medium himself would come out draped in white muslin, and the muslin would then suddenly disappear. This was verified. When the medium came out in his disguise, I grasped him by the hand, and like a flash of lightning the white veiling vanished."

Reichel quotes Kiesewetter to the effect that in these cases "there is a kind of pseudo-materialisation, in which the medium, in hypnosis, walks in a somnambulistic condition, playing the part of the spirit, in which case the mysterious vanishing of the spiritual veilings points to an incipient magical activity on the part of the _psyche_."

Large numbers of Miller's materialisations were photographed, showing, besides the fully materialised forms, "several spirits who could not be seen with the physical eyes, one of whom was immediately recognised."

The experiments of Sir William Crookes and others by Mr Cromwell Varley, with various mediums, supply us with the best proof we have that medium and spirit possess separate ident.i.ties. Of course there were, and are still, numerous so-called exposures of mediums in the act of materialisation. On other occasions the materialised form has been seized and found to be the medium himself.

A typical incident of this kind was the exposure of the mediums William and Rita, which took place in Amsterdam, under circ.u.mstances which made it difficult for the most hardened believer to lay all the blame upon the spirits. The incident took place in the rooms of a spiritualist; the members of the circle were spiritualists; and it was aggrieved and indignant spiritualists who made the facts public. Suspicion had been aroused; one of the sitters clutched at the spirit form of "Charlie,"

and grasped Rita by the coat collar. Up to this point, no doubt, the spiritualist theories already referred to were elastic enough to cover the facts. But when the mediums were searched there were found in their pockets or hidden in various parts of their clothing--on Rita a nearly new beard, six handkerchiefs, a.s.sorted, and a small, round scent bottle, containing phosphorised oil, bearing a resemblance all too convincing to "Charlie's" spirit lamp; on Williams a dirty black beard, with brown silk ribbon, and several yards of very dirty muslin--the simple ingredients which represented the spiritual make-up of the repentant pirate, John King--together with another bottle of phosphorised oil, a bottle of scent, and other "properties."

But we have not to deal here with the obviously fraudulent features of modern spiritualism. Years ago Mr H. W. Harrison summed up the position.

He pointed out that there were two cla.s.ses of so-called materialisations: (1) forms with flexible features, commonly bearing a strong resemblance to the medium, which move and speak. These are the forms which come out when the medium is in the cabinet; (2) Forms with features which are inflexible and masklike (the epithet is not Mr Harrison's) and which do not move about or speak. Such inflexible faces are seen chiefly when the medium is held by the sitters, or is in full view of the circle. Mr Harrison then continues: "We have patiently watched for years for a living, flexible face, in a good light, which face bore no resemblance to that of the medium, and was not produced on his or her own premises. Hitherto this search has been prosecuted without success. Mr A. R. Wallace and Mr Crookes have witnessed a great number of form manifestations, without once recording that off the premises of the medium they have seen a living, flexible, materialised spirit-form bearing no resemblance to the sensitive. Neither has Mr Varley made any such record."

The presumption must be one of fraud, especially when conditions are laid down which serve to prevent full investigation. I have before me the printed conditions of a North London Spiritualistic society:

"As a member of the society you must bear in mind that you will be bound _in honour_ to accept all the rules laid down by our Spirit controls, and by the leader of the meeting, as to the conditions under which the meetings are held, such as the darkened room, the holding of hands so as to form a strongly magnetic ring in front of the medium, etc.--and it is interesting to note that the great Mesmer, when he was conducting his experiments in magnetism more than one hundred years ago, had discovered the advantage of 'a circle' formed in this way, for he writes: 'The power of magnetism is augmented by establishing a direct communication between several persons.

This can be done in two ways: the more simple is to form a chain, with a certain number of persons made to hold each other's hands; it can also be done by means of the 'baquet' (a mechanical contrivance invented by himself)."

"No one should ever attempt to touch a spirit unless invited to do so by the spirits themselves, and the circle, once formed, must never be broken by unloosing of hands. If this becomes _really_ necessary at any time, permission should first be asked, when the controlling spirit will give instructions as to how it is to be carried out."

I cannot forbear from quoting further the following pa.s.sage addressed to members of the society:--

"You will greatly a.s.sist us in obtaining good results if you will kindly use a little discretion in the matter of your food, especially on the day of the meeting, when fish, vegetables, fruit (especially bananas), and light food of that description are most helpful, but meat, wine, beer, or spirits (wine and spirits especially) should be carefully avoided; and we find that it is better to make a good meal in the middle of the day, a substantial tea at 5.30, and supper after the meeting, as by following this plan the members of the circle are able to give off more of the spiritual _aura_ which is used by the controls in building up the forms which appear to us, each member of the circle contributing his or her share unconsciously.

"The use of non-actinic light, such as that obtained from a small dark lantern, is defended on the grounds that the actinic rays coming from the violet end of the spectrum are so rapid in their movements that they immediately break up any combination of matter produced under such circ.u.mstances. Any form of light, except the red, or perhaps the yellow, rays would have this effect. That is one reason why the cabinet is employed, because that would shut off any form of light from the medium whilst the forms are building up; although on several occasions, from time to time, when the form has thus been built up fully, we have been able to use a red light strong enough to illuminate the whole of the room."

So long as spiritualists, as I have before remarked, maintain this att.i.tude, so long must they meet with incredulity on the part of official science. In nearly all these private circles the precautions taken against trickery are absurdly lacking, and, as we have just seen, frequently purposely omitted. Thus we have to fall back in considering the genuine character of the phenomena on the good faith of the medium.

When the medium is known to be a man of blameless life, and has long been before the public undetected in any deception, the presumption would certainly appear to be in favour of his bona-fides. But of what value is this presumption should the medium not be conscious of his actions when his impersonation of this or that character is wholly undertaken by his secondary or subliminal self? Here we begin to have glimmerings of the great truth which may conceivably underlie the parable of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and investigations into the marvels of multiple personalities lead us further towards the light.

On the whole, the conclusion I have arrived at is that, where the element of fraud is eliminated, we might rationally seek for an explanation in hallucination. Take the famous case of Archdeacon Colley and Mr Monck. The Archdeacon actually declared that he saw the psychic or spirit form grow out of his left side:

"First, several faces, one after another, of great beauty appeared, and in amazement we saw--and as I was standing close up to the medium, even touching him--I saw most plainly, several times, a perfect face and form of exquisite womanhood partially issue from Dr Monck, about the region of the heart.

Then, after several attempts, the full-formed figure, in a nebulous condition at first, but growing solider as it issued from the medium, left Dr Monck and stood, a separate individuality, two or three feet off, bound to him by a slender attachment, as of gossamer, which, at my request, 'Samuel,' the control, severed with the medium's left hand, and there stood embodied a spirit form of unutterable loveliness, robed in attire spirit-spun--a meshy webwork from no mortal loom, of a fleeciness inimitable, and of transfiguration whiteness truly glistening."

Now, as Mr Podmore somewhat satirically points out:

"It is difficult to believe that the exquisite spirit form which presented itself to Mr Colley's glowing imagination was merely a confection of masks, stuffed gloves, and muslin, actuated by a jointed rod, but we cannot help remembering, if Mr Colley did not, that articles of this kind had, a twelve-month previously, been found, under compromising circ.u.mstances, in the possession of Dr Monck."

The recognitions which take place at _seances_ are undoubtedly to a large extent sense deceptions. There is now a professional medium at whose _seances_ spirit faces are constantly being recognised. Of course the performance takes place in the dark. A faintly illuminated slate shows the profiles against the background, and one or other of the members generally recognises it. The mouth and chin of the female faces shown at these _seances_ are generally veiled, but this does not appear to affect the recognition.

On the whole, the testimony for and against the reality of spirits at the better cla.s.s of _seance_ is pretty evenly balanced. I hesitate to disturb it, although remarking, parenthetically, that the believers have the most, if not the best, of the literature on the subject.

And for those who are deeply perplexed there is always the theory of hallucination to fall back upon.

CHAPTER XII

SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPHY

If the claim of the spiritualists to having achieved the materialisation of the spirits of deceased persons were restricted to the mere ocular, oral, and tactile evidence of the dark _seance_, the theory of hallucination would account for much that is perplexing. But the problem becomes complicated when the spiritualists come forward with proof that their senses have not misled them. It is only a few months since that a young man in the north of England, on photographing his mother and sisters, was greatly startled to find his late father's face also on the plate. He had not made use of the camera, we are told, for eighteen months. Recently, too, a professional photographer in London was commissioned to photograph a grave which was surmounted by a beautiful basket of flowers. To his consternation, within the handle appeared the facial lineaments of the deceased.

The earliest spirit photograph, as far as can be ascertained, dates from 1862, when an American photographer named Mumler, on developing a photograph of himself, discovered the likeness of a cousin who had been dead some dozen years previously. The case was investigated by Dr Mumler of Boston, who considered that many of the "spirit photographs"

afterwards taken by Mumler were genuine, but that others were, in our modern phrase, indubitably faked. This was put down to Mumler's desire to cope with the unusual demand and satisfy his host of sitters.

Mumler, after twelve years' experience, writing to Mr James Burns, says:

"I have been investigated by the best photographers in America, and have their testimony in my favour, given under oath; I have been tried in a court of justice, and been honourably acquitted; and, lastly, I have the evidence of thousands of people who have had pictures taken, and recognised the likenesses of their spirit friends, many of whom never had a picture taken during life. I have been a humble instrument in the hands of the Almighty, to place a link in the great chain of evidence that binds the two worlds together. Flowers, birds, and animals have frequently appeared upon the plates and one lady was delighted to recognise by her side her faithful old black retriever."

Not till ten years later did a photographer named Hudson succeed, with the aid of a medium, in producing spirit pictures. The _modus operandi_ appeared simple. The sitter was posed before the camera, and the picture was subsequently developed, when besides the sitter's own image there appeared another figure or figures usually draped, with the features blurred or only partly distinguishable. Usually these figures were recognised unhesitatingly by the sitters as portraits of deceased relatives or friends. Afterwards the practice of spirit photography received a rude shock. They were examined carefully by professional photographers, and some of them were found to bear clear marks of double exposure, the background in each case being visible through the dress of the sitter--a fatal defect in spirit photography. Moreover it was found that in some cases the medium had dressed up to play the role of spirit.

Whereupon several of those who had professed to recognise the "ghosts"

now hastened to repudiate their recognition. But spirit photography was not to be quashed so easily. The experiments went on, and faces and figures appeared on the developed plate which seem to have considerably baffled the experts. Sir William Crookes now resolved to put the matter to a test by attempting to obtain a photograph of "Katie," the famous "control" of Miss Cook, the medium. The young lady gave a series of sittings in May 1874 at Sir William's house for the purpose. These sittings took place by electric light, no fewer than five cameras being simultaneously at work. The medium lay down on the floor behind a curtain, her face m.u.f.fled in a shawl. When the materialisation was complete "Katie" would appear in the full light in front of the curtain:

"I frequently," writes Sir William Crookes, "drew the curtain on one side when Katie was standing near; and it was a common thing for the seven or eight of us in the laboratory to see Miss Cook and Katie at the same time, under the full blaze of the electric light. We did not on these occasions actually see the face of the medium, because of the shawl, but we saw her hands and feet; we saw her move uneasily under the influence of the intense light, and we heard her moan occasionally. I have one photograph of the two together, but Katie is seated in front of Miss Cook's head."

I have not seen these photographs of "Katie," but Mr Podmore has, and when comparing them with contemporary portraits of Miss Cook herself he is inclined to consider the likeness between the two sets unmistakable.

"The apparently greater breadth of 'spirit' face," he writes, "may well be due to the fact that, whereas Miss Cook wore hanging ringlets, 'Katie's' hair is effectually concealed by the drapery, which in most cases comes down over the forehead, and falls in two thick folds on either side of the head, something like the headgear of a sphinx. Again, as Miss Cook, when photographed, wore her ordinary dress, which concealed her feet, the apparent difference in height on some occasions between herself and the spirit figure cannot be relied upon. One piece of evidence would, indeed, have been conclusive--that the ears of the spirit form should have appeared intact, for Miss Cook's ears were pierced for earrings. But the encircling drapery effectually concealed both the ears and the hair of the spirit 'Katie.'"

The evidence for photographs of invisible people which we sometimes hear abduced as adequate is surprisingly feeble. For instance, in a recent anonymous and weak book, said to be written by a member of the Society for Psychical Research, two photographs are reproduced which are said to have been obtained under what are considered crucial conditions; but the narrative itself at once suggests a simple trick on the part of the photographer--viz. the provision of backgrounds for sitters with vague human forms all ready depicted on them in sulphate of quinine.

Sir Oliver Lodge is of opinion that it is by no means physically impossible that some of these temporary semi-material accretions might be inadequate to appeal to our eyes, and yet be of a kind able to impress a photographic plate; but here he confesses that the evidence, to his mind, wholly breaks down, and he admits that he has never yet seen a satisfying instance of what is termed a spirit photograph; nor is it easy to imagine the kind of record apart from testimony which in such a case would be convincing, unless such photographs could be produced at will.