Adventurings in the Psychical Part 7

It is only a short transition from such a dream as this to a waking hallucination in which--as in the cases of experimental occurrence mentioned above, and those other cases detailed in the preceding chapter--phantom forms are discerned at the moment when the person seen is threatened by some danger or is pa.s.sing through the supreme crisis of death.

But now, accepting telepathy as an established fact, the problem remains: How are we to explain it? What is the mechanism by which one person is able to transmit messages directly and instantaneously to another person although they may be half the world apart?

To this question, it must frankly be admitted, no positive answer can as yet be returned. But some extremely plausible hypotheses have been advanced, not by mere theorists but by eminent men of science, who, themselves affirming the actuality of telepathy, have given much thought to the problem of its mode of operation.

Sir William Crookes, for example, calling attention to the marvelous but undisputed facts of ethereal vibration as evidenced by the phenomena of wireless telegraphy and the Rontgen rays, urges that here we have quite possibly an adequate explanation of the mystery of telepathy on a wholly naturalistic basis--that is to say, a basis which enables us to accept telepathy without dislocating our entire conception of the physical universe.

"It seems to me," he suggests, "that in these rays [Rontgen rays] we may have a possible way of transmitting intelligence which, with a few reasonable postulates, may supply the key to much that is obscure in psychical research. Let it be a.s.sumed that these rays, or rays of even higher frequency, can pa.s.s into the brain and act on some nervous center there. Let it be conceived that the brain contains a center which uses these rays as the vocal chords use sound vibrations (both being under the command of intelligence), and sends them out, with the velocity of light, to impinge on the receiving ganglion of another brain. In this same way the phenomena of telepathy, and the transmission of intelligence from one sensitive to another through long distances, seem to come into the domain of law and can be grasped."[15]

[15] Presidential Address to the Society for Psychical Research, January 29, 1897.

This undoubtedly is the explanation that most strongly commends itself to those scientists who courageously acknowledge their belief in telepathy. Nor do they see any objection to it in the fact that people apparently are affected by the telepathic impulse only at certain times.

For the brain of both sender and receiver may conceivably, on the a.n.a.logy of wireless telegraphy, be set to transmit and receive telepathic communications only when attuned to vibrations of a certain amplitude. There is, however, as Sir William Crookes himself has recognized, another and really formidable objection to this vibratory hypothesis.

It is found in the fact that, a.s.suming telepathic messages to be conveyed by a system of infinitely minute waves in the ether, we logically have also to a.s.sume that these waves would still obey what is known as the law of inverse squares. By this is meant that, spreading on every side in ever-expanding waves, they would lose power in proportion to the square of the distance from their source. Consequently, it would not only require a tremendous initial energy to project them any great distance, but the farther they were sent the feebler they would become, so that in the case of a percipient remote from the agent, either the telepathic message would not be received at all or at most it would be received in exceedingly attenuated fas.h.i.+on. Whereas the fact is that, according to the results of such experimentation as that which I have described, complete failure often occurs when the experimenters are only a few yards apart, and brilliant successes are sometimes achieved at distances of hundreds of miles.

This consideration has led some thinkers--notably Sir Oliver Lodge, Professor W. F. Barrett, and the late F. W. H. Myers--to abandon outright all attempt at an explanation on a naturalistic basis, and to advance instead the view that telepathy is not explicable in physical terms because it is a wholly psychical process--"a direct and supersensuous communion of mind with mind." After all, though, as Mr.

Frank Podmore has pointed out, this view rests simply on a negation--our present inability to conceive a thoroughly satisfactory explanation; and at any time scientific research may remove that inability, as has happened again and again in the past in the case of other and seemingly equally inexplicable phenomena.

Meanwhile, all that we, scientists and laymen alike, need do, is to remember that inability to explain gives us of itself no warrant to deny. We must acquaint ourselves with the facts before accepting or rejecting them. And for myself I can only say that the actuality of telepathy has to my mind been absolutely proved. With Sir Oliver Lodge:

"I am prepared to confess that the weight of testimony is sufficient to satisfy my own mind that such things do undoubtedly occur; that the distance between England and India is no barrier to the sympathetic communication of intelligence in some way of which we are at present ignorant; that just as a signaling-key in London causes a telegraphic instrument to respond instantaneously in Teheran--which is an everyday occurrence--so the danger or death of a distant child, or brother, or husband, may be signaled without wire or telegraph clerk, to the heart of a human being fitted to be the recipient of such a message."

CHAPTER III

CLAIRVOYANCE AND CRYSTAL-GAZING

The word clairvoyance has acquired a decidedly sinister meaning in most people's minds. It is a.s.sociated with professional spiritistic mediums, who lay claim to supernatural powers which they are ready, at a moment's notice, to exercise for all who are credulous enough to pay the fee they demand. Newspapers throughout the country daily contain advertis.e.m.e.nts of clairvoyants of this type, arrant humbugs, most of them, but often able, through cunningly acquiring information regarding their "sitters'"

lives and family relations.h.i.+ps, to persuade their victims that while "entranced" they are actually in contact with the "spirit world."

Repeated exposures of their fraudulent methods have not driven them out of business, but have inspired a widespread and healthy distrust of their pretensions.

Nevertheless, it would be rash to conclude, as many of us do, that there is no such thing as genuine clairvoyance, by which is meant the ability to perceive distant scenes and events as if one were bodily present at the place of their occurrence. That such a faculty exists, although usable only on rare occasions, and that there is nothing in the least supernatural about it, are facts definitely established by the scientifically trained investigators who have been diligently attacking this and other psychical problems the past twenty-five years. Their researches have made it evident that in order to explain genuine clairvoyant phenomena it is not necessary to postulate the intervention of "spirits," or the flight through s.p.a.ce of the clairvoyant's "astral body." At most, clairvoyance is simply a special form of telepathy, differing in degree but not in kind from the phenomena discussed in the preceding chapter.

There is absolutely no evidence to justify the hypothesis of so-called "independent clairvoyance," advocated by occultists of every shade of spiritistic belief, and utilized by unscrupulous tricksters to dazzle the imagination of their dupes. On the other hand, as I hope to make convincingly clear, there is plenty of proof that the scenes which the true clairvoyant perceives, and is frequently able to describe with graphic detail, are in reality only mental images, visual hallucinations, developed by the same process that enables any ordinary telepathic message to be apprehended.

It must be acknowledged, however, that the telepathic connection is sometimes extremely difficult to trace; as, for example, in the few indisputable instances, reported by Professor James and other trustworthy investigators, in which the services of clairvoyants have been successfully invoked to find the bodies of persons drowned or otherwise accidentally killed under circ.u.mstances seemingly precluding any one from having knowledge of the place or manner of their death.

A typical case of the kind occurred a few years ago in connection with the mysterious death of a New Hamps.h.i.+re girl, Miss Bertha Huse, of Enfield, who was drowned in Mascoma Lake.

For three days after the disappearance of Miss Huse, one hundred and fifty of her townspeople searched vainly for her. She had last been seen alive on a long bridge crossing the lake, and it was supposed that she had fallen from it or had deliberately committed suicide. The waters were dragged but without result, and failure also attended the efforts of a professional diver from Boston employed by a sympathetic citizen.

Meantime, in the little town of Lebanon, some miles distant, a Mrs.

t.i.tus fell into a trance, during which she talked to her husband and described to him a spot in the lake where she said the body of the Huse girl was lying. So strongly was Mr. t.i.tus impressed by her statements that, next day, he took her to Enfield, where the diver, following her instructions, quickly found the body in the place located by her.

Mrs. t.i.tus afterwards gave other, if less sensational, demonstrations of a similar character; and Professor James, who made a close study of her case, publicly stated his belief that her experiences form "a decidedly solid doc.u.ment in favor of the admission of a supernormal faculty of seers.h.i.+p--whatever preciser meaning may later come to be attached to such a phrase."

There are also on record certain well-attested dreams presenting the same difficulty of identifying the agent, or sender, of the clairvoyant vision. A characteristic dream of this sort is reported by Mrs. Alfred Wedgwood, daughter-in-law of the English savant, Hensleigh Wedgwood.

"I spent the Christmas holidays with my father-in-law in Queen Anne Street," says Mrs. Wedgwood,[16] "and in the beginning of January I had a remarkably vivid dream, which I told to him next morning at breakfast.

[16] _Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research_, vol. vii, pp. 47-48.

"I dreamed I went to a strange house, standing at the corner of a street. When I reached the top of the stairs I noticed a window opposite with a little colored gla.s.s, short muslin blinds running on a bra.s.s rod.

The top of the ceiling had a window veiled by colored muslin. There were two small shrubs on a little table. The drawing-room had a bow window, with the same blinds; the library had a polished floor, with the same blinds.

"As I was going to a child's party at a cousin's, whose house I had never seen, I told my father-in-law I thought that that would prove to be the house.

"On January tenth I went with my little boy to the party, and, by mistake, gave the driver a wrong number. When he stopped at number twenty, I had misgivings about the house, and remarked to the cabman that it was not a corner house. The servant could not tell me where Mrs.

H. lived, and had not a blue-book. Then I thought of my dream, and, as a last resource, I walked down the street, looking up for the peculiar blinds I had observed in my dream. These I met with at number fifty, a corner house, and, knocking at the door, was relieved to find that it was the house of which I was in search.

"On going up-stairs, the room and windows corresponded with what I had seen in my dream, and the same little shrubs in their pots were standing on the landing. The window in which I had seen the colored gla.s.s was hidden by the blind being down, but I learned on inquiry that it was really there."

In this case the dream, though devoid of any dramatic feature, served a useful purpose, as did a much more spectacular dream occurring to Doctor A. K. Young, an Irish magistrate and land-owner.[17] In his dream he suddenly found himself standing at the gate of a friend's park, many miles from home. Near by were a group of persons, one a woman with a basket on her arm, the rest men, four of whom were tenants of his own, while the others were unknown to him. Some of the strangers seemed to be making a murderous attack on one of his tenants, and he ran to his rescue.

[17] The evidence relating to this dream will be found in "Phantasms of the Living," vol. i, pp. 381-383.

"I struck violently at the man on my left," he says, "and then with greater violence at the man to my right. Finding to my surprise that I did not knock either of them down, I struck again and again, with all the violence of a man frenzied at the sight of my poor friend's murder.

To my great amazement, I saw that my arms, although visible to my eye, were without substance; and the bodies of the men I struck at and my own came close together after each blow through the shadowy arms I struck with. My blows were delivered with more extreme violence than I think I ever exerted; but I became painfully convinced of my incompetency.

I have no consciousness of what happened, after this feeling of unsubstantiality came upon me."

Next morning Doctor Young awoke feeling stiff and sore, and his wife informed him that he had greatly alarmed her during the night by striking out "as if fighting for his life." He then told her of his curious dream, and asked her to remember the names of the actors in it recognized by him. The following day he received a letter from his land agent stating that the tenant whom he had dreamed he saw attacked had been found unconscious, and apparently dying, at the very spot where Doctor Young had in his dream tried to defend him; and that there was no clue to his a.s.sailants.

That night Doctor Young started for the scene of the tragedy, and immediately upon his arrival applied to the local magistrate for warrants for the arrest of the three men whom, besides the injured tenant, he had recognized in the vision. All three, when arrested and questioned separately, told the same story, confirming the details of the dream, even to the incident of the presence of the woman with the basket. They had said nothing about the affair because they were afraid it would make trouble for them, but they denied any complicity in it, a.s.serting that while walking home with them between eleven and twelve at night, the tenant--who, by the way, ultimately recovered--had been attacked by a couple of strangers, whose companions had prevented them from interfering to protect him.

According to Mrs. Young, it was between eleven and twelve o'clock on the night of the fight that her sleeping husband had frightened her by his violent actions.

Here the telepathic impulse causing the clairvoyant dream may have come either from the injured tenant himself or from one of the three spectators known to Doctor Young. The difficulty is to conceive an adequate reason for any of them thinking of him, even subconsciously.

But, granting for argument's sake the possibility of independent clairvoyance, the still more th.o.r.n.y question at once arises why his "astral body" should have chosen to journey to that precise spot at that precise moment.

The obstacles in the way of such a conception as independent clairvoyance are too serious to be overcome. Nor is it necessary to resort to it, in view of the fact that in the vast majority of clairvoyant cases it is possible to establish definitely the telepathic a.s.sociation.

Here, by way of ill.u.s.tration, is a typical case, fully as impressive as Doctor Young's, but leaving no doubt as to its origin. It was reported to the Society for Psychical Research by Mrs. Hilda West, daughter of Sir John Crowe, who was at the time British consul general for Norway.

"My father and brother," runs Mrs. West's narrative, "were on a journey during the winter. I was expecting them home, without knowing the exact day of their return. I had gone to bed at the usual time, about eleven P. M. Some time in the night I had a vivid dream, which made a great impression on me.

"I dreamed I was looking out of a window, when I saw father driving in a Spids sledge, followed in another by my brother. They had to pa.s.s a cross-road, on which another traveler was driving very fast, also in a sledge with one horse. Father seemed to drive on without observing the other fellow, who would, without fail, have driven over father if he had not made his horse rear, so that I saw my father drive under the hoofs of the horse. Every moment I expected the horse would fall down and crush him. I cried out 'Father! Father!' and woke in a great fright.

"The next morning my father and brother returned. I said to them: 'I am so glad to see you arrive quite safely, as I had such a dreadful dream about you last night.' My brother said: 'You could not have been in greater fright about him than I was.' And then he related to me what had happened, which tallied exactly with my dream. My brother in his fright, when he saw the feet of the horse over father's head, called out: 'Oh, father! Father!'"

Compare with this the very similar instance of clairvoyance in a waking or semi-waking state, experienced by Mrs. Helen Avery Robinson, of Anchorage, Kentucky, and communicated by her, with a corroborative letter from her son, to Professor Hyslop:

"My son and a friend had driven across the country to dine and spend the evening with friends. The rest of the household had retired for the night. I was awakened by the telephone, and looked at the clock, finding it eleven-thirty. I knew my son would soon be in, and thought of a window down-stairs, which I felt might not have been locked, and I determined to remain awake and ask my son to make sure it was secure.

"As I lay waiting and listening for him, I suddenly saw their vehicle, a light break-cart, turn over, my son jump out, land on his feet, run to the struggling horse's head, his friend hold on to the lines, and in a moment it was gone and I knew all was right and felt no disturbance.