Studies in the Out-Lying Fields of Psychic Science Part 4

Evidence of the truth of clairvoyance was given in the _Brooklyn Eagle_, soon after the loss of the "Arctic," in 1854. The wife, son and daughter of Captain Collins were making the tour of Europe, and the Captain, to gratify a pa.s.sing whim, consulted a clairvoyant as to their locality.

The answer was that they were at that time visiting a church, which was accurately described. When the wife's letter came, it contained a narrative of a visit to a church at exactly the same hour, describing it as the clairvoyant had done, thus showing that the communication was quite correct.

As the family had arranged to return on the "Arctic," and as the ship was a day late, of course Captain Collins became anxious. Sunday and Monday pa.s.sed without news from the ship, and his anxiety increased. He thought of the clairvoyant and called on her. At first, although apparently deeply entranced, she could see nothing. Everything was in a cloud. At length she was able to see the three persons standing on the deck of a ship, amid great confusion, and almost concealed in fog and mist. This was all she could discern. This was nearly two days before the telegraph announced the loss of the "Arctic," and the arrival of a boat-load of survivors on the Canadian coast. But the Collins family were not among the saved.

If we compare what may be called artificially induced with the spontaneous clairvoyance, we shall find them similar. The first example is of a sensitive, a youth of seventeen, who was blindfolded by means of soft paper folded double, and then gummed over his eyelids, and a silk handkerchief tied over this paper. Under these circ.u.mstances the sensitive was able to take a pack of cards and select any one called for, read the pages of a book, although those present were ignorant of the words, his sensitiveness being entirely independent of the knowledge of those around him.

CLAIRVOYANCE FROM DISEASE.--There are instances where persons have fallen into this sensitive or clairvoyant state by disease or a nervous shock, and in the prolonged trance which followed, manifested all the phenomena usual to the induced somnambulic or clairvoyant state, even in higher degree. Of these Mollie Fancher is one of the best examples. She was called the "sleepless girl of Brooklyn," and for nine years, it is claimed by competent authority, did not sleep, and ate so little food that it was claimed she did not partake of any. She was, at fifteen years of age, healthy, but delicately organized. At that time she was thrown from a street car, and her head and body injured. A day or two afterwards she was seized with violent spasms. One by one her senses failed. Sight was first to leave, and hearing followed. Then she lost her speech, and then the ability to swallow. This last she had not been known to exercise for nine years, and during the same length of time her eyelids were closed. She took no sleep, unless the intervals of trance be called sleep. She was breathless and rigid as dead. These spasms lasted less than a minute, and were accompanied with, or followed by, violent muscular contortions.

Her lower limbs became twisted entirely around each other. Her right arm was bent upward and doubled under her head. She had no use of her right hand at all, and of the left hand only the thumb and little finger.

Lying all the time, night and day, upon her right side, her right hand cramped under her neck, and only her left free, with closed eyes, and working back of her head, as she was forced to do, she wrought the most exquisite worsted work and wax flowers. The darkness or light were all the same to her; in fact, the light was painful to her, and even the gas-light was placed in the further corner of the room and shaded. She regained hearing and speech after several years, but otherwise her conditions remained unchanged. She knew the thoughts of those who came near her; printed pages or a sealed letter held in her hand back of her head were readily read. Mr. Henry Parkhurst made many experiments to test her powers. She repeatedly read sealed letters he gave her, and, as a crucial test, he took a letter at random from the waste basket of an acquaintance, tore it in strips, and then cut the stripes into squares.

He shook the pieces well together, put them into an envelope, and sealed it. This he handed the blind girl. She pa.s.sed her hand over it several times, took a pencil and wrote the letter verbatim. Mr. Parkhurst opened the envelope, arranged the pieces, and found she had made a perfect copy.

Not satisfied, with the a.s.sistance of two friends, Mr. Parkhurst secured an ancient mining report, yellow with age, and with averted face, so that he might not see the contents, he tore out a page of tabulated figures with explanation. This he folded and tore into scores of pieces.

Some of the pieces fell on the floor and were allowed to remain there.

The others he put in an envelope and sealed, and handed to one of his a.s.sistants, who put it in another envelope, which he also sealed and handed to the third, who enclosed it in the same manner. Then the party went to Miss Fancher's room, and asked her to give them the contents of the envelope. She took it in her hand and wrote, "It is nonsense; figures in which there are blank places, words that are incomplete, and sentences in which words are missing." She wrote on, in some sentences skipping three or four words, and began with the last five letters of a word having ten letters. The table of figures she made contained blank s.p.a.ces, but she wrote it out; and the gentleman returned to Mr.

Parkhurst's, where they arranged the pieces in their original form. They found that the copy made by Miss Fancier was absolutely correct, and the blank s.p.a.ces represented the pieces left on the floor. When these were fitted in, the broken sentences were complete.

Dr. Spier, from the first her attending physician, watched her case with unrelenting vigilance, and made a full record of her changing symptoms.

One day he received a note from her, warning him that an attempt would be made to rob him, and the next day the attempt was made. She knew when he was coming, and would mention the moment he started from his residence, a mile away. In the early stages of her illness, Dr. Spier administered an emetic to test whether the claim that she had not partaken of food was true. It gave her great pain, and proved that her stomach was empty. She well knew the nature of the medicine, although purposely he attempted to keep it from her. Soon after she went into the rigid condition which lasted nine years. When she began to recover, the memory of these nine years was gone, and she only remembered the incidents of the previous. Nine years and a half after administering the test, when Dr. Spier entered the room, Miss Fancher broke out with: "You thought I didn't know you gave me that medicine, but I did. You wanted to learn if food was in my stomach, but found none there. It made me very sick. You will not do so again, will you?"

Thus she returned after all that time to the thought which she had at the moment of entering on that strange experience. She had a double life, and did not remember anything which occurred in her trance.

A SIMILAR CASE IN ENGLAND.--The case of Mollie Fancher is not alone, although, perhaps, not more remarkable than that of Miss Eliza Hamilton of England. A physician visited her in 1882, when she was fourteen years of age. He found that in 1881 she had met with a severe injury which had caused paralysis of her limbs and right arm. She had been treated at the hospital for four months, at the end of which time she ceased to take food and returned home. He saw her about two months thereafter, and thus speaks of her: "She frequently pa.s.ses into a trance condition, in which her left arm becomes as stiff and immovable as her right one. She sings hymns and repeats pa.s.sages from the Bible, but is quite insensible to pain when pinched or p.r.i.c.ked with a pin; nor does she hear or speak when addressed. When she revives, she tells her friends that she has been to various places and seen various people, and describes conversations which she has had, and objects she has seen in the rooms of persons she has been visiting. These descriptions, on inquiry, are found to be correct.... At times she speaks of having been in the company of persons with whom she was acquainted in this world, but who have pa.s.sed away; and she tells her friends that they have become much more beautiful, and have cut off the infirmities with which they were afflicted while here.

She often describes events which are about to happen to her and are always fulfilled exactly as she predicts."

Her father read in her presence a letter he had received from a friend in Leeds, speaking of the loss of his daughter, about whose fate he and his family were very unhappy, as she had disappeared nearly a month before and left no trace. Eliza went into the trance state, and cried out, "Rejoice! I have found the lost girl! She is happy in the angel world." She said the girl had fallen into dark water where dyers washed their cloths; that her friends could not have found her had they sought her there, but now the body had floated a few miles and could be found in the River Aire. The body was found as described.

Now, knowing that her eyes were closed, that she could not hear, that her bodily senses were in profound lethargy, how are we to account for the intensivity and keenness of sight, the quick deftness of figures enabling her to make the most beautiful contrast of colors in her worsteds, or the delicate adjustment of the petals of her flowers? Her mental powers were exceedingly exalted, and scarcely a question could be asked her but she correctly answered.

In this case the independence of the mind of the physical body shown in every instance of clairvoyance, is proven beyond cavil or doubt. If it is demonstrated that the mind sees without the aid of eyes, hears when the ears are deaf, feels when the nerves of sensation are at rest, it follows that it is independent of these outward avenues, and has other channels of communication with the external world essentially its own.

It must be here observed that as long as the mind is united with the body, usually the physical senses overlay and conceal the higher psychic faculties. The mind seemingly is dependent on the body, and is changeful to corporeal conditions. It becomes enfeebled by disease, by accidents to the brain, and at times disappears, like a lingering spark from a flame, in the dotage of age. This, however, is only external appearance, arising from the limitations fixed by the contact with physical matter, as the light of the sun may be shut out by an opaque body.

The case of Laura Bridgeman is an ill.u.s.tration and evidence from another point of view that the intellect is, in a measure at least, independent of the senses. Completely deprived of sight and hearing at an early period of childhood, she was a blind and deaf mute. She never had any knowledge, through the eyes, of the bright landscape, of the glorious sun, morning and evening, the blue sky, the floating clouds, the waving trees, the green hills, the beautiful flowers. All was darkness and profound night. She never heard the exquisite notes of harmony, of instrument or modulated voice, the sigh of winds, the carol of birds. To her all had been unbroken silence. Dr. Howe, her kind and angelic teacher, says: "As soon as she could walk she began to explore the rooms of the house. She became familiar with forms, density, weight, and heat, of every article she could lay her hands upon.... An attempt was made to give her knowledge of arbitrary signs by which she could interchange thoughts with others. There was one of two ways to be adopted: Either to go on and build up a language of signs which she had already commenced herself, or to teach her the purely arbitrary language in common use; that is, to give her a sign for every individual thing, or to give her a knowledge of letters, by combinations by which she could express her ideas of the existence, and the mode and condition of existence of anything. The former would have been easy, but very ineffectual; the latter seemed difficult, but if accomplished, very effectual. I determined, therefore, to try the latter."

After describing the process by which he taught her to a.s.sociate names with things, he goes on to say; "Hitherto the process had been mechanical, and the success about as great as teaching a knowing dog a variety of tricks. The poor child had sat in mute amazement, and patiently imitated everything her teacher did. But now the truth began to flash upon her; her intellect began to work; she perceived that here was a way by which she could herself make up a sign of anything that was in her mind, and show it to another mind, and at once her countenance lighted up with a human expression. It was no longer a dog or a parrot; it was an immortal soul, eagerly seizing upon a link of union with other spirits! I could almost fix upon the moment the truth first dawned upon her mind, and spread its light to her countenance. I saw that the great obstacle was overcome, and henceforth nothing but patient perseverance, and plain, straight-forward efforts were to be used."

At the end of the year, a report of the case was made, from which the following extract is taken: "It has been ascertained beyond a possibility of a doubt, that she can not see a ray of light, can not hear the least sound, and never exercises her sense of smell if she has any. Thus her mind dwells in darkness and stillness, as profound as that of a closed tomb at midnight. Of beautiful sights, sweet sounds, and pleasant odors, she has no perception; nevertheless, she is happy and playful as a lamb, a bird, and the enjoyment of her intellectual faculties, or the acquirement of a new idea, gives her a vivid pleasure, which is plainly marked in her expressive features.... In her intellectual character, it was pleasing to observe an insatiable thirst for knowledge and a quick perception of the relation of things. In her moral character, it is beautiful to behold her continued goodness, her keen enjoyment of existence, her expansive love, her unhesitating confidence, her sympathy with suffering, her conscientiousness, truthfulness and hopefulness."

Her spirit was locked within her body without the least contact with the world through the most useful senses; yet she not only thought, but thought in the same manner as those who possess these senses in perfection. If thought depends on the senses, then the quality of thought should change when deprived of the senses. It is true that when thus fettered in expression, it does not escape the limitations of its surroundings, yet in the struggle we see the indication of the limitless possibilities of the spirit when these are cast aside.

Sensitiveness Proved by Psychometry.

Light emanating from suns and worlds, as it wings its swift way across the regions of s.p.a.ce, bears on its rays the pictures of every object from which it is emptied or reflected, and hence the universe, from center to remotest bounds, is filled with pictures; is a vast storehouse of photographs of all events from the fading of a leaf to the revolution of a world since time began. Thus a ray of light leaving the earth during the coal age bears a picture of the then existing gigantic forests and inky seas, and is yet somewhere pa.s.sing the remote coastlines of unknown systems, and could some swifter messenger overtake it, he would have a view of the world as it was when that ray was reflected from the carboniferous period. The messenger is not needed to overtake the fugitive ray, for the light thus reflected, struck against rock and tree, and photographed the images of every moment since the stars first sang together. Every atom still vibrates to the molding hand of life under which it has at some time pa.s.sed, and the sensitive mind is able to catch these vibrations and interpret their meaning in forms of thought. The discovery of this wonderful faculty of the mind is not of recent date.

Almost fifty years ago an Episcopal Bishop remarked to Dr. Buchanan that when he touched bra.s.s, even in the night, when he could not know with what substance he came in contact, he at once felt a disagreeable influence and recognized an offensive metallic taste. Such experience had been common to a great number of persons, and frequently observed, but this time it was called to the attention of the right man. All the world for ages had seen bodies fall to the ground, and countless millions of eyes have seen the phenomenon with no more thought than the brute, until a falling apple drew the attention of Newton. Dr. Buchanan at once saw that there was a profound philosophy back of this fact which transcended the senses. He began a lengthy series of experiments, by which he discovered that it was by no means rare for persons to be affected by metallic and other substances. In a cla.s.s of one hundred and thirty students at the Eclectic Medical College, forty-three were sensitive in greater or less degree. Medicines held in the hand without any knowledge of their properties, produced the same effect, varying only in degree as when taken into the stomach. By placing the hand, or merely coming into the atmosphere of a deceased person, the sensitive was able to locate and describe the disease. In this field Dr. Buchanan has stood almost alone, until recently M. Bourru and M. Burot of the Naval Medical School at Rochfort, have made extended experiments on the "action of medicines at a distance," which is really another way of stating the facts observed by him a generation ago. They held the metals and drugs six inches or so from the back of the head of the patients and proved all that Dr. Buchanan claimed for his discovery.

But the discoverer did not rest here; he went a step further and found that a letter or any article having been brought in contact with the person, when taken in the hand or placed on the forehead of one sufficiently sensitive, gave the character of its writer or owner.

Repeated experiments, such as any one may make, prove beyond question that the sensitive can in this manner read the character of the writer from his writings, his state of health, better than the most intimate friend, or even the writer himself. It is a marvelous statement, but only marvelous in our not understanding its cause. When this is revealed, and mystery removed, the subject allies itself with other phenomena of mind, having their origin in impressibility.

Prof. Denton carried the results of psychometry far beyond the boundaries reached by Dr. Buchanan. If the world is one vast picture gallery of every act and thought since the beginning of time, the fossil sh.e.l.l, the rock-fragment, the broken arrow head, the shred of mummy, and the rush leaf from the banks of the Nile should reproduce in the sensitive the story of their origin and age. By a great number of experiments, the details of which fill three volumes, Prof. Denton sought to establish this generalization and write the geological and pre-historic history of the earth. That he found a kernel of truth can not be denied, but he allowed sources of error to creep in and vitiate his wonderfully suggestive and patient research. A person sensitive to the degree that enables him to feel the influences given to a fragment of stone thousands of years ago, would be more strongly impressed with the influence imparted by the one who secured it, and held it in his hands before the experiment. It is from this cause that uncertainty rests on his otherwise well-planned experiments. Yet he has proved that such sensitiveness exists, and that by it the story of history from fragments of ruined architecture may be read, and scenes in geological ages by fossil, bone or sh.e.l.l be described.

How? Really psychometry, depending on the sensitiveness of the brain, is a lower degree of clairvoyance, and is merged, in its clearest forms, therein. Sensitiveness means the capability of receiving the psycho-ether waves as they pulsate from some center, and as everything touched by life is in a state of such vibration, the recognition is only a question of the delicacy of the receiving organization.

There is a vast acc.u.mulation of narratives of ghosts, witches, apparitions, hallucinations, illusions, dreams, etc., which it is the present fashion to relegate to the sphere of superst.i.tion and ignorance.

Many of these, however anomalous, have a foundation in fact, and will be found, when stripped of the portions superst.i.tion has added, readily explainable, either as subjective, arising from impressions on the sensitive, or as objective and manifested by the same principles. As sensitiveness to these subtile influences greatly varies in different individuals and at different times in the same individual, and at times becomes clairvoyance, scarcely an ill.u.s.tration can be given of one without introducing the other. We must constantly bear in mind that there is one fundamental cause back of all these so-called occult phenomena, varying in the degree of its manifestation in accord with the channel through which it flows.

SUBJECTIVE SPECTRAL ILLUSIONS.--Dr. Abercrombie is authority for the following ill.u.s.tration of subjective spectral illusions: "A gentleman of high mental endowments, and now upwards of eighty years of age, of spare habits and enjoying uninterrupted health, has been for eleven years subject to the daily visits of spectral figures. They in general present human countenances; the head and body are distinctly defined, the lower parts are for the most part, lost in a kind of cloud. The figures are various, but he recognizes the same countenances repeated from time to time, especially of late years, that of an elderly woman, with a peculiarly arch and playful expression, and a dazzling brilliancy of eye, who seems just ready to speak with him.... This female is dressed in an old-fashioned Scottish plaid of Tartan, drawn up and brought forward over the head, and then crossed below the chin, as the plaid was worn by aged women in his younger day. He can seldom recognize among the spectres any figure or countenance which he remembers to have seen; but his own face has been presented to him, gradually undergoing the change from youth to manhood, and from manhood to old age."

It is not necessary to call in the aid of an invisible being to explain such appearances. The house had been occupied by Scotch who dressed as described, and the influence they left impressed itself on the gentleman's sensitive brain.

"All houses where men have lived and died are haunted houses," not by actual ghosts, but by the subtile force which persons impart to everything with which they come in contact. That he was subject to some influence outside of himself is shown by the appearances always being of some one that he had never seen, and hence they could not have been revived pictures from his own brain. After he had been in the house for a long time he began to see his own face; that is, after he had imparted his own influence to his surroundings, he received them back as from a mirror.

Dendy, in his "Philosophy of Mystery," mentions "M. Andral, who in his youth saw, in La Pitie, the putrid body of a child covered with larvae, and during the next morning the spectre of this corpse lying on his table was as perfect as reality." He could not see it by a mental effort, nor any where else than on his table, and whenever he looked at that, the appearance at once came. It may be said in explanation, that the sight of the disgusting object produced a strong impression on the optic nerves and mind, and a suggestive object, as the table reproduced the same state. We have no evidence that one object, under the same light, affects the optic nerves more than any other would under the same circ.u.mstances. Vivid mental impressions are more readily reproduced than those that scarcely ruffle the surface of thought; but this does not account for the student not seeing the appearance at any other time or place than on the table where it had laid, and which we would say retained the influence imparted to it by the body having lain there.

Professor Hitchc.o.c.k says that during a severe sickness, "day after day visions of strange landscapes spread out before him--mountain, lake and forest; vast rocks, strata upon strata piled to the clouds; the panorama of a world shattered and upheaved, disclosing the grim secrets of creation, the unshapely and monstrous rudiments of organic being." His son, Professor Charles. .h.i.tchc.o.c.k, adds that his father saw the sandstone beds of the Connecticut valley spread out before him, covered with tracks, and by the superior insight wrought by sickness, cleared up some doubtful points to which he had vainly given his attention. Professor Hitchc.o.c.k became, in consequence of his sickness, exceedingly sensitive, and the geological specimens near him, or that he had handled, brought up in his mind the pictures of their primeval age.

HALLUCINATIONS.--The received definition of an hallucination is a false perception without any material basis, being formed entirely in the mind. An individual who sees pictures on a blank wall, or who hears voices when no sound reaches his ear, is hallucinated. "The reason for this being that the erroneous perception const.i.tuting the hallucination is found in that part of the brain which ordinarily requires the excitation of sensorial impressions for its functions." In this view, hallucination is evidence of mental derangement and incipient insanity.

This explanation is by no means sufficient for this cla.s.s of facts. That a certain tract of brain can of itself give the mind complicated representations, never before seen or imaged in the mind, is not established. The reappearance of objects that have been seen is better explained, and still more satisfactorily, by causes which unite them all together, and with all like phenomena. George Combe says of a painter who inherited much of the patronage of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and believed himself to possess a talent superior to his, was so fully engaged that he had painted three hundred large and small portraits in one year. The fact appeared physically impossible, but the secret of his rapidity and astonishing success was this: He required but one sitting of his model.

His method was as follows, as given by himself: "When a sitter came, I looked attentively on him for half an hour, sketching from time to time on the canvas. I did not require a longer sitting. I removed the canvas, and pa.s.sed to another person. When I wished to continue the first portrait, I recalled the man to my mind. I placed him on the chair, where I perceived him as distinctly as though really there, and, I may add, in form and color more decidedly brilliant. I looked from time to time at the imaginary figure and went on painting, occasionally stopping to examine the picture exactly as though the original was before me; whenever I looked towards the chair I saw the man. This method made me very popular, and as I always caught the resemblance, the sitters were delighted that I spared them the annoying sittings of other painters."

This painter was far from incipient insanity. He was sensitive to impressions, and able by that organization to recall the image of the sitter, but not that of one who had not occupied the chair.

The Rev. T. L. Williams, Vicar of Porthleven, in _The Journal of the Society for Psychical Research_, July, 1885, gives his personal experience: "On an occasion when I was absent from home, my wife awoke one morning, and to her surprise and alarm saw me standing by the bedside looking at her. In her fright she covered her face with the bed clothes, and when she ventured to look again the appearance was gone. On another occasion, when I was not absent from home, my wife saw me, as she supposed, coming from church in surplice and stole. I came a little way, she says, and turned round the corner of the building, where she lost sight of me. I was at the time in the church in my place in the choir, where she was much surprised to see me on entering the building.... My daughter has often told me, and now repeats the story, that she was pa.s.sing my study door, which was ajar, and looked in to see if I was there. She saw me in my chair, and as she caught sight of me, I stretched out my arms, and drew my hands across my eyes, a familiar gesture of mine. I was in the village at the time. Now, nothing occurred at or about the times of these appearances to give any meaning to them."

He adds: "A good many years ago there was a devout young woman living in my parish, who used to spend much of her spare time in church in meditation and prayer. She used to a.s.sert that she frequently saw me standing at the altar when I certainly was not there in the body." Mr.

Williams must have been a man peculiarly endowed with psychic force to thus impress himself.

The following is from the pen of the gifted Mary Howitt, and not only gives a remarkable fact, but her explanation of the same: "I conducted Mrs. Nenner through a room which contained some ancient furniture and a quant.i.ty of valuable old china. This china had been left in our care by a friend during his lengthened absence abroad. His thoughts from his place of sojourn at the antipodes constantly reverted to these heirlooms.

"'Who are these six gentlemen, evidently brothers, sitting where the old china is?' asked Mrs. Nenner, when we had pa.s.sed through the room.

"'There was no one there at all,' I said, much surprised.

"'Then,' said she, 'I must have seen six brother spirits. There they were sitting; tall, fair men, light haired, all strikingly alike, all the same age. They must be brothers!'

"I recognized in her description the owner of the china. Before Mrs.

Nenner left, we showed her a portrait of the owner of the china, our friend on the other side of the world. She at once said, 'Oh, that is one of the six brothers!' In some mysterious manner the intensity of thought fixed by the possessor of the china upon his possessions--we knew that his thoughts constantly reverted to them--had been able to manifest itself to the sight in the form of the man himself, but multiplied into six forms. It should be observed that this gentleman was of what now we should term a 'mediumistic' temperament. It is possible, that being at the antipodes, he might be, at the time his multiplied form was beheld, asleep--it being night there when it is day with us--and that his thoughts might have, in a dream, revisited England."

Since civilization began, mankind have held certain stones and metals as precious, and attributed rare qualities to charms, relics and amulets. We may indulge our mirth over the miraculous qualities ascribed to the bones of martyrs and the teeth of saints, a bit of wood from the true cross; but casting aside the rubbish gathered by imposture and credulity, we discover a great truth. Precious stones and metals have become so because of the subtile power of their emanations. In a true relic the sensitive perceives the full expression of the original owner's life, and feels it reproduced in him. As the phonograph treasures up the tone, the accent, the quality of the voice, and the thought of the speaker, so the relic preserves and constantly gives forth the character of the one it represents.

Shrines and holy places have cause for being regarded as sacred, and their preservation in purity for the one and only purpose is correct in science. The church devoted to the worship of Jehovah holds its devotees with the invisible bonds reaching out from the walls forged from the psycho-aura of all preceding worshippers. That the members hold their houses exclusively for certain uses may be the result of superst.i.tion, but they are right in thus doing. A church building given over during the week to shows and entertainments, and nightly filled with the cla.s.s such would draw, would become so saturated with worldly influences as to be unfit for the promulgation of the highest religious thought on Sunday. Both audience and minister would feel the depressing effect, and religious zeal would reach zero.