A CHAPTER OF
AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
It was a quarter of a century after the
time when I had shocked the orthodoxy of New York by preaching Secularism, and had
dreamed dreams, and published them, of national industrial schools that were to
dissipate poverty and to regenerate a superstitious world. I had been
representative in the State legislature, member of Congress, delegate to the
Constitutional Convention of Indiana; and had finally been appointed to
represent my adopted country at a foreign court.
During all that
period, though my thoughts had been chiefly engrossed by public affairs, they
had turned, from time to time, to religion; and the theoretical opinions of
earlier years had insensibly undergone some change. I had gradually reached the
conclusion that our consciousness enables us to conceive of a great Originating
Mind; that such a Supreme Intelligence must be benevolent, and that it would be
well for man if he could obtain certain proof of a life to come. Then I began
to hope that there might be such proof; though, so far, I had failed to find it
in historical documents, sacred or profane.
I had been two
years and a half resident in picturesque and stand-still Naples, where, except
to the privileged foreigner, all spiritual studies were forbidden. I had heard
of the "Rochester Knockings," wondering what supreme folly would come
up next; and though, in passing through London on the way to Italy, my good
father, recently convinced that spiritual manifestations were a reality, had
taken me to two or three sittings, I saw nothing there to change my opinion
that it was all imposture or self-delusion.
Then
it was—in my fifty-fifth year, at about the same age when Swedenborg
turned from science to Spiritualism—that there came to me, by what men
are wont to call chance, one of those experiences, trivial at first sight,
which sometimes suffice to change the whole tenor of a life.
I was spending a
quiet evening at the house of the Russian minister, M. Kakoschkine. Some one
spoke of automatic writing whereby one could obtain answers to questions to
which the reply was unknown to the writer. It was proposed to test this; and,
as the wife of the Tuscan minister, a bright and cultivated English lady, who
happened to be present, had expressed incredulity, she was asked to put some
question the answer to which she was certain that no one present knew. Having
consulted in the anteroom with her husband, she asked, referring to three large
gold-headed pins that fastened her dress in front, "Who gave me these gold
pins?"
After a time the
hand of one of the ladies present, one who had barely heard of Spiritualism and
was much prejudiced against it, wrote, in a strange, cramped hand, the words:
"The one that gives you a maid and cook"—the last two words
being written backwards.
[For
fac-simile of writing and other particulars, see Debatable Land between this
World and the Next, pp. 282-286.]
Every one thought
the answer quite irrelevant, till the lady whose question had called forth this
strange reply, after carefully examining the paper, turned pale and confessed
that it was not only relevant but strictly true. The pins had been given to her
by her cousin Elizabeth, then living in Florence, and that lady, at her
request, had recently sent to her, from that city, two servants: namely, a
lady's maid who had been in her service ten days, and a cook who had arrived
two days before.
It is a strange,
soul-stirring emotion—and one which, till of late years, few persons have
ever known—the feeling which, like a lightning-flash, comes over an
earnest and hopeful mind, when it has the first glimpse of the possibility that
there may be experimental evidence of another world. I sat for hours that
evening in silent reflection; ’ere I slept, I had registered in my heart
a vow, since religiously kept, that I would not rest or falter till I had
proved this possibility to be a probability, or a certainty, or a delusion. At
last, at last (that was my exultant thought) I may be approaching a phenomenal
solution of the world's most momentous, most mysterious problem!
Feeling thus, it
amazed me to observe with what light indifference the other assistants at this
astounding experience looked upon the matter. They went away wondering,
perplexed, indeed; but wonder and perplexity appeared to fade out without
practical result, in a week or two. I doubt whether, after the lapse of a
month, any of them adverted to the incident at all, except, perhaps, in the way
of relating, to incredulous listeners of a winter evening, that very odd
coincidence about three gold-headed pins and a maid and cook. A numerous class
of men, illogical or indifferent, seem incapable of realizing the relative
importance of new and unexpected things, as they come to light.
Was it a chance coincidence? As soon as I
had satisfied myself, past all doubt, that everything had occurred in good
faith, that query suggested itself. If the written answer had been
"Elizabeth," such a solution might have been accepted; since, among a
dozen of the most common female names, that of Elizabeth would probably be
included; and if so, the chances against a correct answer were only twelve to
one. But who or what was it that went out of its way to give such a roundabout
answer to a simple question? How incredible, how difficult even to imagine,
that any agency other than a thinking entity could have selected so unexpected
a form of reply! And if there was an external intelligence involved, how intensely
interesting the field of inquiry thus disclosed!
Excited but
unconvinced, I went to work in good earnest, devoting my entire leisure to the
study that had opened before me. We had, of course, no professional mediums;
nor, though I found among our acquaintances three ladies and two gentlemen who
had more or less of the mediumistic gift,—the lady who had written at the
Russian minister's having the most,—were any of them of much force; not
approaching, in power, others whom I have met since. And, all inexperienced, we
had to grope our way.
However, in
sixteen months I had held two hundred sittings, of which I kept a minute and
scrupulous record extending over more than a thousand foolscap pages. These I
had bound up in three volumes, labeled Personal Observations; and, at the close
of each, I entered a careful digest of the evidence obtained, and a summary of
apparent results.
The first volume
was devoted chiefly to experiments in automatic writing in reply to mental
questions. The result, satisfactory in some respects, was a puzzle to me in
others. [These questions were written out, usually before the sitting began,
folded up, and laid on the table, with the simple request: "Please answer
this written question." To insure a pertinent reply, I had, as a general
rule, to keep my mind fixed on the substance of the question, until the table
began to move.]
I verified the
reality of the phenomenon so far as this, that out of seventy-three mental
questions, one half of the answers (37) were strictly relevant; while of the
remainder, one third (12) were doubtful, and two thirds (24) were irrelevant;
irrelevant answers being most frequent in dull, wet weather.
The questions put
usually referred to the phenomena themselves, and their character. The replies,
many of them ingenious and some philosophical, were adverse to the spiritual
hypothesis, as witness these extracts:—
"The
phenomena of table-moving, rapping, and the like, are not supernatural, not
spiritual; they are electrical, and magnetic…. Involuntary writing is a
phenomenon growing out of magnetic affinity, and similar in character to
somnambulism: it exhibits the electrical action of mind on mind…. There
is, in certain individuals, such a wonderful electric and magnetic force, and
so peculiar a combination of elements, that, in their presence, inexplicable
results occur. But we must not therefore suppose that we can hold communion
with the spirits of the departed; for such power does not belong to man."
Soon after getting this reply, I learned
through Mr. Kinney, formerly our minister to Turin, and through Powers, the
sculptor, that they had verified the phenomena of unmistakable spirit-hands,
musical instruments when suspended in the air played on without visible agency,
communications from deceased relatives, and the like. Reciting these
allegations in one of my (mental) questions, and asking an explanation, I got
nothing more satisfactory than this:—
"It is not
possible now to know whence come these phenomena…. But we cannot communicate with the
spirit-world. To push inquiries in that direction is unavailing, and productive
of confusion without utility."
The question
called up by this phenomenon was: "What intelligence gave these
replies?" All the more important answers were obtained through a lady of
an ordinary, practical turn of mind, to whose cast or thought philosophical
inquiry was absolutely foreign. Yet through her there came to me such
allegations as these:—
Question (mental).—Is it of any consequence
in what language I write out my questions, even if it be in a language which
the person who answers does not understand?
Answer.—Coming to a knowledge of the
distinction between the positive state and that which is partial only, in the
one it is probable that the language is not material; in the other, unless the
magnetizer's thought he in a language known, there may he only confused
results.
Question (mental).—What is the difference
between the positive state and that which is partial only?
Answer.—It is not the same influence. The
concentration of magnetic force which is used for the one is not requisite for
the other. The ordinary individuality is lost in one, while in the other both
powers act at once.
When I conversed
with the writer on such subjects as these, in her normal condition, I found
that they were not only without interest, but quite unintelligible to her. But
I knew it was claimed by writers on vital magnetism that, under magnetic
influence, the patient often obtains clearer perceptions and higher knowledge.
I had read what one of the most modest and cautious of these writers has said,
namely: "The somnambule acquires new perceptions, furnished by interior
organs; and the succession of these perceptions constitutes a new life,
differing from that which we habitually enjoy: in that new life come to light
phases of knowledge other than those which our ordinary sensations convey to
us. [Traite du Somnambulisme, by Bertrand, member of the Faculty of Medicine in
Paris; Paris, 1823, pp. 469, 470.]
I concluded that
this might be the true explanation; and that the answers I received might be
due to the action of the writer's mind in what Andrew Jackson Davis calls its
"superior condition." Whether the writer's own ideas were occasionally
mixed in I sought to ascertain, asking:—
Question (mental). Are the opinions which you
have expressed in writing in part the opinions of your ordinary individuality?
Answer.—It is so to a certain extent.
As the lady who
wrote was an utter skeptic in the spiritual theory, I set down the opinion
expressed that communion with the spirits of the departed was impossible, as
due to that state of unbelief.
Thus, after sixty
sittings, running through three months and a half, I had made but little progress
toward the solution of the great problem. I was the rather disposed to set down
what I had witnessed so far as merely a mesmeric phenomenon, because an
intimate and valued friend and colleague, the Viscount de St. Amaro, then
Brazilian Minister at the Neapolitan court, had brought to my notice many of
the wonders of what has been called animal magnetism, together with cognate
subjects of study.
As these opened
on me I found it expedient to enlarge my sphere of research and to consult the
best professional works on physiology, especially in its connection with mental
phenomena; on psychology in general, on sleep, on hallucination, on insanity,
on the mental epidemics of Europe and America; together with treatises on the
imponderables, including Reichenbach's curious observations, and the records of
interesting researches then recently made in Prussia, in Italy, in England, and
elsewhere, in connection with the influence of human electricity on the nervous
system and the muscular tissues.
I collected, too,
from London and Paris, the most noted works containing narratives of
apparitions, hauntings, second sight, presentiments, and the like, and toiled
through formidable piles of chaff to reach a few gleanings of sound grain.
Gradually I
reached the conclusion that what had been regarded by many as new and
unexampled phenomena are but modern phases of what has always existed. And I
finally became convinced that for a proper understanding of much that had
perplexed the public mind under the name of spiritual manifestations,
historical research should precede every other inquiry; that we ought to look
throughout the past for classes of phenomena, and seek to arrange these, each
in its proper niche.
Nor meanwhile did
I neglect my Personal Observations. In the second volume of these I find
recorded the results of fifty sittings, running through five months. These were
chiefly devoted to the obtaining of communications through table-tipping, and
occasionally by means of raps. And here I came upon certain manifestations,
often (as at the Russian minister's) incidental and at first blush unimportant;
yet, when more closely scrutinized, of startling and suggestive character.
Take this one, as
example. August 23, 1856, we had a sitting at the house of an English physician
resident in Naples; all present being English or American, yet familiar with
the Italian language. The table was boisterous and unmanageable, tilting
violently from side to side. At the word of command it waltzed, beat time to
the polka, went into the next room, returned, and would hardly remain still.
Unable to get any communication, we asked: "Is there any one in the circle
who ought to go out?"
Answer.—Sophia Iggulden.
She left the
table accordingly, and as soon as she did so the manifestations were quiet.
Question.—Why did you object to Miss
Iggulden?
Answer.—She is antipatichissimat—
Here I remarked
that it was spelling nonsense. Soon after, we suspended our sitting. Later in
the evening a lady who was present for the first time at a spiritual seance,
looking over my minutes, said: "I understand that sentence; it means: 'She
is anlipatichissima t—' and the ‘t’ is probably the beginning
of another word."
When the table
was then asked to complete the sentence, it did so, thus: "She is antipatichissima
to-night"
It was quite
accidentally that we discovered the meaning here; but, once discovered, it was
unmistakable. The Italian word antipatico, of which the. above is the
superlative, feminine gender, is much in use, corresponding to "not sympathetic;"
so that the meaning was: "She is very unsympathetic to-night."
It was evident
that such an answer, thus obtained, could not be explained on the theory of the
reflection of ideas, or that of expectant attention: to us all it was utterly
unexpected.
Again, October
19, 1856, at a sitting in my own parlor, present the medium, Mrs. Owen, and
myself. The evening before, an alleged spirit, purporting to be a deceased
sister of the medium, named Maria, had announced herself, and had promised to
return this evening. Her sister (the medium), beginning to have faith in the
spiritual theory, asked, when the table began to move: "What spirit is
here to-night?"
Myself (skeptical).—Oh, don't put it in
that way. Ask what force moves the table.
Medium (persisting).—Please tell us your
name.
Of course we all
expected the name Maria: instead of which we got "Do fo": and when we
asked if that was right, it answered, "Yes."
The medium was
much disappointed, and I said: "That can't be right. There is no name beginning
Dofo; but let us see what it will, say."
It went on to
spell r-c-e-s and then the word speak. It had spelt as far as s-p-e before any
of us had the least idea what was coming. Then suddenly it flashed on me: I had
said, "Ask what force moves the table." And the table replies by
another question: "Do forces speak?"
I stood
self-convicted; forces do not speak: I had been properly rebuked for asking an
absurd question. But who, thus tersely, thus logically, was showing up its
absurdity? What intelligence had undertaken thus to reason the matter with me?
reminding me—that if a mere force moved the table, it was ridiculous to
ask it a question or to expect an answer. I gave it up, for there was not a
word to say in reply.
Yet again,
November 1, 1856; place and assistants the same as before; spelling steady and
regular.
The name Maria
announced. The medium, taking it for granted that it was her sister, asked
several questions, but got no reply. Then Mrs. Owen spoke, and obtained several
answers. The medium was surprised and hurt at this apparent preference.
Conjecturing that she might be misled, I asked: "Is it Maria
N——?" (the sister's name.)
Answer.—No.
Myself.—What name, then?
Answer.—W——.
Myself.—Was that your married name?
Answer.—No; it was F——.
A lady intimately
known to us, more than thirty years ago, at New Harmony, but since deceased. As
a test I asked her (mentally) what was her favorite song; thinking of
Fairy-like Music, which I had often heard her sing. But the reply was Long,
Long Ago; and then Mrs. Owen and I both recalled the fact that that was her
chief favorite. Then I put this mental question:—"But was there not
another song that you used often to sing at our house?”
No reply for a
time. In the interval occurred the following conversation:—
Mrs. Owen.—Poor Maria! How much she suffered
in life!
Medium.—Was she unhappily married?
Mrs. Owen.—Very unhappily. She was of a
warm, frank, impulsive disposition; while he was cold and bitter. He treated
her with great and persistent cruelty.
Medium.—How did she happen to marry such
a man?
Mrs. Owen.—They had only known each other
about a month, but Maria was to blame in that affair.
Shortly after
came five raps (the conventional call for the alphabet) and there was spelled
out:—
"Feeling
drives pride away." Mrs. Owen asked whether that was a reply to my mental
question or to her remark, and got for answer: "Remark.”
The
reply itself (very unexpected, since I was looking for the name of a song)
puzzled me, till Mrs. Owen recalled, what I had partially forgotten, the
circumstances of Maria's marriage, as follows:—
When Mr.
F——first came to New Harmony, he lodged at the house of Maria's
father, seemed much pleased with the daughter, asked her in marriage, and was
accepted. A day or two, however, before that set for the nuptials, he wished to
break off the match, alleging that he did not love Maria as much as he ought,
to make her his wife. But she, doubtless much attached to him (as she proved
afterwards by a life's devotion), held him to his engagement, saying she was
sure John would love her when she came to be his wife. So the marriage took
place on the day appointed.
It was with
reference to all this that Mrs. Owen had remarked: "Maria was to blame in
that affair." Then how touching, at once, and appropriate the
apology:—"Feeling drives pride away."
It would be
difficult, in the same number of words, to reply more pertinently, or probably
more truly, to the imputation in question.
I think that
brief sentence converted Mrs. Owen—a woman of strong logical
mind—to the spiritual theory. It staggered my life-long skepticism. I
could not but think of poor Maria as actually making to us, from her home in
another world, this excuse for a natural weakness; and I recalled those tender
words, spoken of a far greater sinner than she: "To her shall much be
forgiven, because she loved much."
I think I should
have surrendered my unbelief, as my wife did, seeing that I was wholly unable,
on the apneumatic theory, to explain the sudden and startling presentation of
these four words, but for the fact that, shortly before, we had received,
through the table and purporting to come from three several spirits, detailed
information touching the death of two friends of the medium, every word of
which proved false. And in that case we had tried the (alleged) communicating
spirits by asking sundry test questions, which were correctly answered; the
true answers, however, all being known to us. It had not then occurred to me
that spirits from the other world might deceive, as so many men and women do
here; and that while some communications, truly spiritual, might be a mere
giving back to us of what had been read in our own minds, others might be
strictly truthful and wholly independent of our thoughts or knowledge.
But there was
something more to come, appealing to the heart as well as to the reason.
I have already,
at the close of my last paper, spoken of Violet, and of my grief at her early
death. When I first began to receive, through the table, communications
purporting to come from the spirits of the deceased, the thought did cross my
mind that if those who once took an interest in us were able still to commune
with us from another world, Violet's spirit, of all others, might announce
itself to me; but when month after month passed without sign, I had quite
ceased to expect it, or even to dwell on such a possibility. Great was my
surprise and my emotion when, at last, the silence was broken.
The place and
persons were the same as in the last two examples. The name of Violet was
suddenly spelt out. When my astonishment had somewhat subsided, I asked
mentally with what intent a name so well remembered had been announced.
Answer.—Gave pro—
There the spelling
stopped. Invitations to proceed were unavailing. At last it occurred to me to
ask: "Are the letters p-r-o correct?"
Answer.—No.
Question.—Is the word "gave”
correct?
Answer.—Yes.
“Then,”
said I, "please begin the word after ‘gave’ over again;”
whereupon it spelled out,—
"Gave a
written promise to remember you even after death."
Few will be able
to realize the feeling which came over me as these words slowly connected
themselves. If there was one memento of my youth valued above all others, it
was a letter written by Violet in the prospect of death, and containing, to the
very words, the promise which now, after half a life-time, came back to me from
beyond the bourn. I have the letter still, but it has never been seen by any
one else.
Though many
results similar to this have been obtained by others, few reach the public. It
needs, as prompting motive to overcome a natural reluctance, the earnest wish
by such disclosure to serve truth and benefit mankind.
The circumstances
were peculiar. What came was utterly unforeseen. When long-slumbering
associations were called up by the sudden appearance of a name, it was in
response to no thought or will or hope of mine. And if not traceable to me, it
was still less so to either of the others. They knew nothing of my question,
for it was mentally propounded; nor of the letter; not even that it existed.
Let us take note
of this also. When, at the first attempt to reply to my question, the
unlooked-for sentence had been partly spelled out,—“Gave
pro,”—it did occur to me that the unfinished word might be
“promise;” and it did suggest itself that the reference might be to
the pledge made to me, long years before, by Violet. Observe what happened. The
letters p-r-o were declared to be incorrect; and I remember well my surprise
and disappointment as I erased them. But how was that surprise increased when I
found that the correction had been insisted on only to make way for a fuller
and more definite wording. It is certain that my mind could have had nothing to
do in working out this result. If a spirit-hand had visibly appeared, had
erased the three letters, had inserted the word "written," and had
then completed the sentence, it would have been more wonderful, certainly; but
would the evidence have been more perfect that some occult will was at work to
bring about all this?
The above
incident impressed me deeply, yet it needed strong additional evidence,
cumulative throughout after years and elsewhere recorded, [In The Debatable
Land, pp. 437-450] thoroughly to assure me that it was Violet who had given me
this proof of her identity. At the close of the minutes of the sitting, part of
which I have here given, I find recorded this scruple:—
“There is,
however, in such results as the above, no proof of an occult intelligence which
can distinguish and repeat to us things not in our minds; but further experiments may disclose a
greater power than has yet shown itself.” It was some years, however,
before this occurred.
Leaving out a few
sittings, as to which I had doubts whether the results were fairly obtained,
the character of the sittings for communications, through the table recorded in
this volume was, as nearly as they could be classified, as follows:—
Serious. Frivolous. False. Boisterous. Total.
30
3 3 2 38
One example of
profanity—the only one throughout my experience of eighteen
years—occurred October 11, 1856; and for that I was prepared. For, two
months before, the Baroness Suckow, of Bavaria, then on a visit to Naples and
having brought a letter of introduction to me, related to me some of her
spiritual experiences; this among the rest: On one occasion, while sitting in a
circle with several young ladies of rank, cultivated and refined, the table
gave some answer so evidently absurd that one of them, "That's not
true!” Whereupon the table, by the alphabet, spelled out such shocking
oaths that the ladies, ashamed and terrified, broke up the sitting. The
character and demeanor of the baroness, stamped with German earnestness and
with a touch of enthusiasm, was to me sufficient voucher for this narrative.
Our experience was similar. At our private circle an (alleged) spirit, assuming
to be Mrs. Owen's mother, made several replies so irrelevant and inconsequent
that Mrs. Owen said:—“You have been deceiving us all the time. You
are not my mother.”
Whereupon there
came this: “Mary lies, dam you” (thus spelled).
I may add, as to
the sittings classified as “frivolous” and
“boisterous,” that these occurred, as a rule, when the assistants
were numerous and were chiefly young people, or others, who had come together
for an evening's amusement. In a summing up, at the close of this volume, I
find my conclusions, so far, thus recorded:—
"As to the
great question touching the alleged agency of spirits in framing communications
through involuntary writing, or through the table, I regard it, after eight
months' patient experiments, as still undecided, either in the affirmative or
negative. If the proofs for are numerous and striking, the difficulties against
are serious and unexplained." [Personal Observations, MS. page 298.]
Of these
difficulties the chief were: false intelligence given; occasional failure, by
tests, to detect a spirit afterwards discovered to have assumed a false name;
occasional giving back of our own ideas, even when these proved afterwards
incorrect; promises to execute certain tests not fulfilled; but chiefly the
failure to communicate anything not known to us at the time, and of which we
afterwards verified the truth.
But if, on the
one hand, I withheld assent from the spiritual theory until further
investigation; on the other, my reason rejected the speculations which were put
forward, in those days, to disparage the phenomena, or to sustain the
apneumatic hypothesis. Of these the most accredited were by two French authors
of repute: the Marquis de Mirville [Des Esprits et do tours Manifestations
fluidiques Paris, 3d ed. 1854. This work reached its fifth edition in 1859] and
the Count de Gasparin. [Des Tables tournantes, do Surnaturel en general et des
Esprits. Paris, 1855. This work was translated into English, and obtained, both
from the English and the French periodical press, many favorable notices.] They
attracted much attention, and obtained a wide circulation. Both writers
admitted the reality of the phenomena, as I did; both traced them to the agency
of a mysterious fluid; but at that point their conclusions diverged.
De Mirville, a
Roman Catholic, admitted an ultramundane agency, but asserted that, except when
under ecclesiastical sanction and within the limits of one privileged church,
these "fluidic manifestations" (as he called them) were demoniac
only. As I never believed in the doctrine of human depravity, so neither could
my mind admit the idea that if, under cosmical law, there was influx or
intervention from another world, such influence could be accursed in its
nature, be controlled by a vagrant devil, seeking whom he might devour.
De Gasparin, on
the contrary, rejected all intermundane agency, as cause; assenting to a theory
which had previously been set forth by Monsieur de Mousseaux, [Moeurs et
Pratiques, pp. 294, 295. But M. de Mousseaux himself dissents from this
opinion] and thus expressed: "That spirit which you have the generosity to
attribute to the table is nothing more than your own spirit replying to your
own questions. The act is accomplished by the operation of a fluid which
escapes from you, which moves the table unconsciously to you, and which governs
it in conformity with your sentiments." I took pains to make clear to
myself the objections to this opinion; and these I recorded at the close of the
manuscript volume from which I have been extracting. As they have never been
published, I here reproduce them:—"Let us look narrowly to this
theory, and examine what it is that it takes for granted. First, a fluid
escapes from our bodies and enters the table; and when "we will or request
the table to move, that fluid moves it.
"I do not
assert that, so far, the theory is necessarily incorrect. But yet this, of
itself, would be wonderful, beyond any natural phenomenon with which I am
acquainted. [Except, perhaps, the deflection, under certain circumstances, of a
delicate electrometer. But M. de Gasparin succeeded in getting a table, loaded
with one hundred and fifty-two pounds, to raise each leg successively; and at
last the weight broke the table. (Des Tables tournantes, vol. i. p. 46.)] What
other example have we, in the whole circle of physical experiments ever made by
man, of the human will passing out of the living frame of which it determines
so mysteriously the movements, and acting on an inert, inanimate mass which it
causes to obey each varying command that may be given?
"The
advocates of this theory remind us, in explanation, [Des Tables tournantes,
vol. 1. pp. 93, 94.] that every day—each moment almost—we transmit
motion to external inanimate matter by mechanical action; then why not in some
other way? Mechanical action is not the only mode of action in the world:
caloric expands bodies; the lodestone draws toward itself the distant iron.
"But the
analogy does not hold good. If the fluid, passing from our bodies into the
table, uniformly caused it (let us suppose) to split into pieces; or if, in every
case, it acted upon it so as to produce rotary or oscillatory motion; then,
indeed, we might liken its action to that of heat or mineral magnetism, as
being determinate and constant. But, on the contrary, its manifestations are as
various as the commands which human caprice can issue. I bid the table lift the
leg next to me, it lifts it; the opposite leg, it obeys. I request it to beat
polka time or to dance a jig; it conforms, with efforts grotesque and
ludicrous, to each requirement. Did the command of any mortal creature ever
cause the thermometer to rise one degree beyond the point to which the
temperature pervading the surrounding atmosphere had contracted or expanded it?
Could the combined will of thousands determine the action of the magnet in a
direction at right angles to a straight line drawn from the iron to itself?
"But,
secondly, supposing it possible to explain these phenomena on physical
principles, we have but touched the threshold of the mystery, disposing but of
the first and least difficulty. Others far greater are yet to be met.
"A fluid
(according to Dc Gasparin), passing from our bodies into inert matter, not only
moves that matter at our bidding, but, from its inanimate abode, it enters into
intellectual correspondence with us; it answers, with pertinence, our various
questions; it joins in the conversation, and replies, assentingly or
dissentingly, to incidental remarks made (as I suppose we must express it) in
its hearing. Sometimes, even, it comments on these remarks. Its conversation,
though at times carried on with apparent hesitation, as if under the difficulty
of a novel attempt, is, in a general way, reasonable and consistent; seldom
exhibiting contradictions.
"Let us
consider what all this involves. Do we engage in conversation with a fluid?
Does one portion of ourselves talk to another portion and receive an answer
from it? Is the nervous fluid (if it be a nervous fluid) endowed with
intelligence? And does that portion of this intelligent fluid which has passed
out of our bodies, to lodge in the table, comment upon what the portion which
remains within us thinks and says?
"And yet,
even this is not the entire case. A second installment of difficulties remains
to be encountered still.
"The fluid
gives many indications of being an independent entity. Like any living thing,
it shows personal preferences, and, still more strange! it exhibits chanceful
moods. Usually quiet and earnest, it is yet sometimes boisterous and
rollicking; to-day frivolous or petulant, to-morrow mischievous or abusive. And
these moods do not uniformly correspond to the state of mind of the assistants.
"More
extraordinary yet is the fact that the replies given by this fluid, and the
comments and suggestion as made by it, are frequently far from being echoes of
the opinions or expectations of the questioners. It makes, unexpectedly to all
present, original suggestions, and these of a rational character. [As, for
example, that by dipping our hands in water, we should facilitate the spelling;
which, in effect, proved to be so. (Personal Observations, vol. ii. p. 244.)
The difference was immediate and remarkable.] "It sometimes calls up, from
the recesses where they have slumbered for half a life-time, the secret images
of the past; and presents these to us in a sudden and startling manner.
Occasionally, even, the answers and allegations are contrary to the
expectations or belief of the individuals from whose persons the fluid is
alleged to have gone out.
"It does
more yet. The fluid within the table originates an argument with the fluid
within us, objecting to a chance expression which the other has employed. On
another occasion, instead of replying, as we expected, to a question asked, it
goes out of its way to defend the individual whom it impersonates against an
unfavorable opinion casually expressed by one of the assistants; thus, as it
were, reproving for undue severity that bodily portion of the fluid of which,
but an hour before, it had been a constituent part.
"Then here
is not only a duality of intelligence caused by the alleged division into two
portions (the internal and the external) of the nervous fluid of the human
system, but there is not even harmony between the two. Not only does the
external portion, rummaging in the store-house of the mind, drag forth thence
unlooked-for thoughts and recollections, but it still more evidently exhibits
the attributes of a distinct, reflecting existence. It takes that portion of
itself from which it had recently parted by surprise. It begins a controversy
with it. It conveys a reproof to it. Finally one portion of this dualized fluid
occasionally tells the other portion of it what that other portion knows to be
a lie!
"Where, in
all human experience, within the entire range of natural science, have we
hitherto encountered phenomena bearing any analogy to these?"
It seems to me,
as I copy this argument, that I had already obtained what should have sufficed
to convince me of the reality of an outside thinking entity, not mundane a
conviction which virtually involves the spiritual theory. The recollection of
the fact that I still held back, awaiting further evidence, has taught me
charity for persistent doubters who must have proof on proof ere they believe.
I think my hesitation was chiefly induced by this, that I had not yet become
reconciled to the idea that in the next phase of existence there are the same
varieties of intelligence and of power as we find in this world; and that,
there as here, success in a novel experiment is achieved only by practice and
persevering effort.
But I had already
abandoned one error; seems clearly that, whatever else this phenomenon might
be, it was not a reflex of one's own opinions.
It needs not, and
might be tedious, to go through my third volume of observations. They corroborate
substantially former results, with a few further proofs, toward the spiritual
theory, added. Of these last one or two may be worth citing; the first touching
that difficult question, identification of spirits.
January 21, 1857,
at a private circle, my brother William, who died in 1842, unexpectedly
announced himself. he had lived with us, being a widower, during the last few
years of his life, and thus Mrs. Owen was intimately acquainted with his
habitual feelings. She asked: "If this is really you, William, will you
spell out something to assure us of it?"
Answer.—I
am cured: death cured me.
Mrs. Owen.—I do believe it is William
himself.
For five or six
years before his death, William Owen was a perfect martyr to dyspepsia; he
suffered cruelly, and the care of his health was his constant and absorbing
thought. If spirits, when they return to earth, recur to what were their ruling
passions and hopes ere they left the body, Mrs. Owen might well accept this
congratulatory statement touching an escape from daily suffering to perfect
health, as one of the strongest tests which her brother-in-law could have given
in proof of his personal identity.
July 9, 1857,
again our own circle. We had ascertained by repeated experiments, that while
the table could spell out any word which I thought of, it never, in any
instance, seemed able to read a word in Mrs. Owen's mind; and, if urged to
persevere in the attempt, would reply: "All dark," or "No
light," or employ some similar expression. On one occasion she had thought
of the word soap; and it declared, as usual, that it could see nothing. Then
Mrs. Owen said: "I will go into my bed-chamber and touch what I thought
of." She did so, the room being quite dark; then returned and asked:
"What did I touch?"
[We followed up
this clew, and ascertained, after repeated trials, that while the table
remained unable to spell out the name of any object of which Mrs. Owen thought,
yet if she touched the object (either in the room in which we sat "or
elsewhere), or if she wrote the word and showed it (even if only under the
table), or if she whispered it to me—in each and all of these cases it
was spelled out at once. Something saw and heard]
Answer. "No"
Mrs. Owen. It is going to spell "no
light."
I said: "Let
us make sure of it. Please go on:" and it spelled s-e. I urged it in vain
to finish the word; I could get nothing more. "Is that all?" I asked.
"Yes." "Does it mean that you cannot see?" "No."
Then first it occurred to me that it had spelled the word nose.
When I suggested
this, Mrs. Owen, after reflecting a little, burst into a hearty laugh and
asked: "What did I touch it with?"
Answer. Soap.
Thereupon she
explained to us that when she entered the dark room, groping about, she had
laid her hands on a cake of scented soap and smelled it; and that she
distinctly recollected (but not until the table recalled the fact) that she did touch her nose with it. After telling us
this, she relapsed into thoughtful gravity. "The Thing," she exclaimed at last, "must have followed
me in the dark, and seen everything I did!"
The Rev. Mr.
Godfrey, an English clergyman experimenting in table-moving, recognized the
Thing as we did; but he, somewhat hastily, concluded that it was Satan himself.
The reason he assigns for this belief is that his table remained stationary as
often as he laid the Bible upon it, but went on moving under any other book.
The experiment may have been suggested to him by a perusal of Saint Anthony's
biography, in which we read that the devil appeared to him as "a spirit
very tall, with a great show, who vanished at the Saviour's name." As the
reverend gentleman's work, then recently published, had obtained a notice from
the London Quarterly Review, we decided to spend a few minutes in verifying or
disproving his theory. [Table-Turning the Devils Modern Masterpiece, by the
Rev. N. S. Godfrey; London, 1854, pp. 38, 39.] Having put a volume of
Tennyson's poems on the table, we asked for three tips, and got them. When we
replaced this book by the Bible, the tips came just as freely. A second time we
placed Tennyson on the table, and asked to have it shaken: the table obeyed.
Again we replaced it by the Bible, and the table was shaken as distinctly as
before.
So our table,
unlike Mr. Godfrey's, exhibited no inkling of the diabolical. I find the
sittings in this volume thus classified:—
Serious, apparently truthful and
exhibiting good feeling 75
Frivolous 3
During which false intelligence was
communicated 11
In which a spirit evinced revengeful
sentiments 1
—
Total sittings 90
Thus, five sixths
of our sittings were of a serious and satisfactory character: a considerable
improvement on last volume. Also I find recorded that, out of more than two
hundred mental questions (216), ninety-three per cent. (202) received strictly relevant
answers: a very satisfactory proportion. These were important not only as
experiments in thought-reading, but as enabling me to eliminate all expectation
except my own, as influence in determining, or modifying the replies.
The above may
suffice as a sketch of my early studies in this field, then little explored.
The point of progress which I had reached is indicated by a document recorded
at the close of my third volume, and which I here reproduce.
SUGGESTED THEORY.
"A theory
for which I have not yet found sufficient proof, but which harmonizes with the
phenomena, so far as observed, is the following:—
"1. There is
a phase of life after the death-change, in which identity is retained; the same
diversity of character being exhibited among spirits, as here on earth, among
men.
"2. Under
certain conditions the spirits of the dead have the power to communicate with
the living.
"3. Spirits,
when in communication with earth, have the power of moving considerable
weights, and of producing certain sounds: also the power of reading in the
minds of some men and women, but perhaps not of all. They experience many
difficulties in communicating; and partly because of this, but partly also for
other reasons, their communications are often uncertain and unreliable.
"4. Spirits
communicate more readily when the communications happen to coincide with the
thoughts or expectations of the questioner: yet they do, in—many
instances, declare what is unthought of and unexpected by those to whom the
communications are made.
"5. One of
the conditions of spiritual communion is the presence of one or more of a class
of persons peculiarly gifted, and who are usually called mediums.
"6. This
communion occurs, not through any suspension of the laws of nature, but in
accordance with certain constant laws, with the operation of which we are very
imperfectly acquainted."
To this document
I find appended the following :—
"Note. Under the above theory all the
chief phenomena we have observed find ready explanation. I have heard of no
anti-spiritual hypothesis of which the same can be said. It remains to be seen
whether further experiments will confirm or disprove this theory; or whether any
other theory can be suggested, involving less of marvel than the above, yet
adequate to the explanation of the phenomena in question."
No further than
this, and with hesitation, had I made my way, after two hundred sittings,
running through sixteen months! Yet I have heard certain persons—cautious
and sensible in other things—unscrupulously assume, as the result of a
few weeks' experience, that they had probed this matter to the bottom, and
ascertained, beyond possible doubt, that it was all mere imposture or delusion!
I purpose, in my
next paper, briefly to set forth some general results from my spiritual
experience; proposing simply to state these and to glance at their connection
with civilization and cosmical progress, not to argue their truth. The arguments
for and against modern Spiritualism swell to volumes, and can be found
elsewhere.
From: The Atlantic Monthly—A
Magazine of Literature, Science, art, and Politics Vol. XXV, No. 205
(November 1874) pp 578-589. New York.
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