The Problems of Psychical Research Part 3

Ochorowicz saw anything, but the letters "J. O." were seen to be imprinted upon it when developed.

This proved that the intelligence guiding the finger at least possessed memory and intelligence. The finger was to some extent self-luminous.

From these experiments Dr. Ochorowicz concluded that:

The actinic action of the emitted rays is feeble, comparatively speaking; and that the visible light of the fluidic hands is less actinic than the invisible light.

The relation of these rays to ordinary light is thus an interesting question. It is well known that all mediums shun light, and there are sound physiological and psychological reasons for this. Daylight has been found to be more destructive to the success of phenomena than any form of artificial light; moonlight is far better than sunlight. It has lately been shown that light exerts a powerful physical pressure, and is a disruptive agency, destroying protoplasm and many of the lower forms of life. We only have to see the effect of sunlight upon a photographic plate to appreciate its power. The absurdity of a.s.suming that light plays no part in such manifestations--where very delicate, subtle, and little understood forces are in operation--is thus manifest.

Still, the fluidic hands emit a light of their own; and the question is, Can this emitted light penetrate solid substances--"matter," as we understand it? As the result of a number of experiments, Dr. Ochorowicz ascertained that, in the majority of cases, these rays, like ultra-violet light, did not penetrate solid substances, as do the X-rays; yet their actinic action was found to be far stronger! Here is a field for long-continued observation and experiment. In thought photography, on the other hand, it has been ascertained that the rays can pa.s.s easily through solid matter, like the X-rays.

The next question of interest which presented itself for solution was this: To what extent can the fluidic hands change their form, size, and contour at will? Experiments were first tried in the reduction of the size of the hands, upon request.

Three plates were prepared and laid in a series upon the table at some distance from the medium. Through the entranced somnambule the "double"

was then informed of the experiment, and asked to place its hand upon the three plates in succession, willing on each occasion to make the fluidic hand smaller. This was done. An impression of the same hand was obtained on each plate, but it can be seen that, on each occasion, the hand is smaller in size. This was all accomplished within a few seconds.

Of these experiments Dr. Ochorowicz says:

"We are therefore justified in arriving at the following conclusions:

"1. At first, the double's hand is larger than that of the medium.

"2. It tends to decrease in length and general size.

"3. The palm of the hand, especially, tends to decrease.

"4. Only the little finger remains without appreciable change.

"5. The change is that of several millimetres, but not enormous.

"6. The fingers of the double tended to close nearer together, as well as become smaller--just as an ordinary hand would probably do."

The light which supplied the necessary illumination for these photographs seemed to have been emitted from a sort of "egg," near the wrist of the hand, which was intensely luminous. This was not expected, and came as a surprise. Two suggestions as to its nature at once present themselves: (1) that it is a self-created mediumistic light; and (2) that it is a ma.s.s of matter from which the hand derives its material sustenance.

In a further series of experiments, during which Dr. Ochorowicz was repeatedly touched by a cold hand, impressions of large left hands were left upon the plates--the medium's left hand being, meanwhile, a long way removed from the plate. The fingers were very large, the thumb enormous and abnormally shaped at the end.

Summing up the conclusions which, he thought, could be drawn from his researches, Dr. Ochorowicz said:

"1. Fluidic hands are detached more or less rarely--according to the condition of the subject's "forces." When these are strong, hands may even be produced unknown to the medium.

"2. The direction and character of these hands are determined by the subconscious mind of the medium; but also partially by the conscious mind.

"3. The properties of the fluidic hands are not constant; they change frequently.

"4. These changes represent transformations of energy--certain forms of energy being transformed into other forms. When the conditions are good, the forms of available energy are multiplied; when weak, they are lessened. They alternate, but do not blend. The mechanical effects are produced chiefly by the invisible hands, while the visible hands are inactive.

"5. I have never seen more than two hands formed by one medium at one time, and more usually only one. When there are two hands, however, they may be quite dissimilar, one from the other.

"6. There are several degrees of materiality, which succeed each other rapidly. The hands are so fugitive that it is almost impossible to seize them. When the imperfectly formed hands are grasped, however, they are cold, slippery, and unpleasant to the touch. The better materialized hands, on the contrary, are warm and life-like.

"7. The well-materialized hands can be photographed; even the poorly-developed hands can give radiographs.

"8. The ultra-violet light necessary to produce these photographs can be produced by the hand of the medium or by the double itself.

"9. Radiographs are difficult to obtain; a materialization generally loses its luminosity.

"10. The hands are sometimes like, and sometimes unlike, those of the medium.

"11. The fluidic hands can be moulded plastically, and altered as to their dimensions."

To resume the experiments: Dr. Ochorowicz desired to see whether the fluidic hand of the double could pa.s.s through a very small hole or s.p.a.ce. He accordingly proposed placing a rolled-up film in a bottle, leaving only the small hole at the top, and see whether the hand could impress itself under these circ.u.mstances. Upon this being proposed to the medium, she exclaimed: "Make it more difficult than that; you will make the double lazy! Cork up the bottle!"

Dr. Ochorowicz accordingly cut a film, rolled it into a small roll, placed it in the bottle, and held the latter between his two hands, the right-hand palm acting as a cork, the left supporting the bottle; the medium placed her hands on either side of the bottle, on the outside.

She soon complained that her hands were paining her, seeming to swell and get larger. She was soon after seized with cramps, and the experiment was at this point discontinued.

Dr. Ochorowicz tried to draw the film from the bottle, but failed; he was finally obliged to break the bottle to extract it. The film was then developed, and upon it was the imprint of a hand--larger even than his own, to say nothing of the medium's--clearly formed. Fraud was absolutely out of the question. There seems only the alternative choice of invoking the fourth dimension, or a.s.suming that the fluidic hand could curve itself round and round the film after having entered the bottle in some manner! The facts seem incredible; but I give them as recorded.

The question now arises: is the fluidic hand two-dimensioned? It could hardly have any thickness, to accomplish the last experiment. Dr.

Ochorowicz determined to try a novel experiment, to test this theory.

Two photographic plates were placed face to face, separated by small pieces of cardboard at the corners. The "double" was requested to insert its hand between the plates when the medium was entranced. Upon the plates being developed, the imprint of a hand (the same hand) was found on both plates; i.e. a photograph of the top, and of the under side of a hand. This was repeated again, under more stringent conditions. The hand again appeared.

It was then decided to repeat the experiment with the rolled film in the bottle. The experiment was again made; the film was developed when the medium reclined on the couch on the opposite side of the room, and a very large hand was again found to have impressed itself upon the film.

It had evidently succeeded in curling itself round the rolled film in the closed bottle!

The question is: First, Do the facts occur? And if they do, what is the cause of them? What is the nature of these fluidic hands?

To whom do they belong? Of what are they const.i.tuted? Are they the hands of a spirit, or mere exteriorizations from the body of the medium--materializations, only partially independent?

Without attempting to answer these questions in this place, I will conclude by pointing out two facts, which seem to me of considerable importance. The first is that many nervous and mentally abnormal patients may be mediums were the pains taken to ascertain that fact. I know of one famous alienist who confided to me his belief that a very large percentage of mediumistic cases could be found in hospitals for hysterical patients or in wards for the mentally unbalanced. The trouble is that experiments tending to ascertain the truth of such a theory are never tried. Had not Dr. Ochorowicz been interested in things psychic, Mlle. Tomczyk would simply have been cured by him in the general routine manner and dismissed. The world would thus have been deprived of one of the most remarkable mediums on record!

In the second place, these fluidic hands are almost identical in many ways with those presented by Eusapia Palladino at her best. The materialized hands, of varying degrees of density and formation, attached to long, shadowy arms, are exactly like the hands so often materialized at her seances--hands which are at times small, and at other times enormous. They no more resembled the hands of the medium than chalk resembles cheese.

16. This brings me to a final reflection, which I should like to mention before leaving this branch of our discussion. It concerns the question of darkness and its effect upon genuine mediumistic phenomena. Whether this effect be primarily physical, physiological, or psychological, the _fact_ remains that it exists; and the researches of Dr. Ochorowicz have tended to confirm this very strongly. His work has shown us (or rather confirmed us more strongly in the belief) that the question of _light_ is a highly important one, and that the greater the degree of darkness, _ceteris paribus_, the better and the more startling the phenomena.

Now, there has always existed a sort of _a priori_ a.s.sumption that this should be so. Light, as we know, does bring about chemical reactions, and even exerts a definite physical force or pressure. Even so gross and so powerful a form of physical energy as wireless telegraphy is greatly interfered with by reason of the sun's rays (ultra-violet rays), and, of course, photographic plates are at once rendered useless by an instant's exposure to the sun. Again, it is known that sunlight has a more or less destructive influence upon all forms of animal and vegetable protoplasm, and it is very soon fatal to many of the lower forms of life. This being so, it has always appeared to me perfectly reasonable to suppose that the energy of the light-rays should interfere most seriously with the delicate and subtle forces and forms of energy which are liberated in the seance room. The old objection: "Why must these things always be done in the dark?" has appeared to me very short-sighted and inconsistent with all the facts above mentioned.

But, further! It is highly probable that life of any kind can only originate in the dark. Certainly, conception invariably takes place in complete darkness, and the whole period of embryonic development is pa.s.sed in that condition. Again, inter-stellar s.p.a.ce is, of course, absolutely black and devoid of any form of light save the faint twinklings of the far-off stars. Without the surface of some globe to reflect the sun's rays, no light of any kind would be possible; so that if life were conveyed across s.p.a.ce, from star to star, upon infinitesimal specks of dust, under the influence of light pressure, as postulated by Arrhenius (_Worlds in the Making_, pp. 212-30), this life must exist, and in a sense originate, in the blackness of inter-stellar s.p.a.ce.[10] And, finally, if life on our globe originated, as many think, in the ocean's depths,[11] this must have been in the densest darkness, since light penetrates but a few fathoms below the surface of the ocean.

Below that all is blackness, complete and eternal. No light penetrates to that depth--nor has it for millions of years! Yet it is in this region that life is thought to have originated! As G. W. Warder expressed it (_The Universe a Vast Electric Organism_, pp. 60-1):

"During this period of primeval 'darkness upon the face of the waters' the resistless electric waves of the sun were beating upon the cloud-enwrapped surface of the planet. It was the formative period of elementary life, and the descendants and successors of that mighty host of living beings have to this day to lay the foundations of their being in similar conditions of darkness.

_Creative energy in its first stages of living form operates in dense darkness_, and the first life upon the planet began and perfected itself in the age when midnight gloom enveloped the globe."

This fact--that life originated in darkness, and that the power of life can only be exercised in darkness--is, it seems to me, a most significant one when viewed in the light of our studies, and seems to point to the conclusion that the "darkness" said to be essential at spiritistic circles is indeed necessary; and that, when delicate and subtle forms of life and energy are being manifested, they are likely to become disrupted by the sudden introjection of a coa.r.s.e and powerful form of energy, such as light, so that this "condition," said to be necessary by all mediums, is probably in reality essential; and their claim, far from being absurd, is well founded, and in accordance with well-established scientific facts.

17. So far as to the physical phenomena. We must now turn to the mental manifestations, and discuss one or two points in connection with them before concluding.

Hitherto we have considered the process of communication (granting such to exist) solely from the physical and physiological sides, and not from the psychological. There is a great deal to be said in this latter connection, however, though I shall endeavour to be as brief as possible.

Take, for instance, the question of _symbolism_.