Adventurings in the Psychical Part 9

"Why, yes," was the unexpected reply. "When you were a little girl, two or three years old, I often took you to it."

But not all crystal visions may thus be attributed to the emergence of subconscious perceptions or the recrudescence of forgotten memories.

There are some in which the telepathic action of mind upon mind is clearly manifested, and in which the crystal seems to serve as a mechanical aid, enabling the percipient to become aware of the telepathic message. In no case, however, as I have already said, is it necessary to go beyond telepathy to find an adequate explanation.

The same applies to the still more singular phenomena to which we shall turn next--the phenomena of automatic speaking and writing, regarded by many as affording incontrovertible proof of the validity of the spiritistic belief that the dead can and do communicate with the living.

CHAPTER IV

AUTOMATIC SPEAKING AND WRITING

There is a widespread belief that spiritism--or spiritualism, as it is more commonly known--is on the wane, and will soon be relegated to the limbo of extinct religions. But the facts indicate otherwise. At a conservative estimate, there are to-day, in the United States alone, no fewer than 75,000 avowed spiritists, in more or less regular attendance at the meetings of nearly 450 spiritist societies, and possessing church property valued at $2,000,000; and more than 1,500,000 believers who, without openly identifying themselves with any society, accept the ministrations of 1,500 public and 10,000 private mediums. Spiritism has even "followed the flag" into the Philippines, seances being held at Manila and elsewhere.

This certainly is a remarkable showing for a moribund religion, and what makes it more remarkable is the fact that spiritism, from its very beginnings sixty years ago, has been permeated with fraud. Its founders, the Fox sisters, daughters of a New York farmer, were naughty little girls who amused themselves by making strange noises which superst.i.tious persons interpreted as communications from the dead. This proving profitable to the sisters Fox, the business of producing "spirit knockings" spread from town to town, and forthwith modern spiritism was born. Since then its record has been a long and dismal catalogue of swindles exposed by skeptical investigators. Scarcely a month pa.s.ses without a story of some sensational expose; yet, disproving all predictions to the contrary, spiritism continues to expand, constantly welcoming new recruits to its ranks.

Several reasons account for its amazing progress under what would appear to be the most adverse conditions imaginable. One is the innate tendency of many people to dabble with the occult and mysterious. Another is the appeal spiritism makes to the most sacred emotions of humanity. Its central doctrine is that it is possible for the dead to communicate with their surviving relatives and friends, through the mediums.h.i.+p of "psychics" gifted with extraordinary powers. Thus the hope is raised that messages of good cheer may be received from loved ones who have pa.s.sed to the great Beyond--that their voices may be heard, their faces seen, and their hands clasped by those from whom death has separated them.

To the spiritistic seance, consequently, go grief-stricken men and women, skeptical perhaps, but fervently hopeful that their skepticism will be overcome. To borrow Professor James's striking phrase, they are already deeply imbued with "the will to believe," and are in no mood for close observation of what happens in the seance room. Usually, to speak plainly, they are utterly lacking in the qualities that make a scientific investigator. The sense of their loss is all-absorbing, and in this state of mind it is easy for any trickster who poses as a medium to delude them into fancying that they have actually been in touch with the dead.

But the main reason why spiritism has survived repeated exposes, and persists as a force to be reckoned with in the religious life of to-day, is the fact that it is by no means altogether synonymous with swindling.

There are certain phenomena, particularly so-called automatic speaking and writing, which it is out of the question to attribute invariably to trickery and deceit. While one need have no hesitation in dismissing as fraudulent[22] all "physical" mediums--that is to say, mediums whose stock in trade is the production of such phenomena as the "materialization" of spirit forms and faces, the levitation and flinging about of furniture, and the striking of the "sitters" by unseen hands--the case of the automatists, or "psychical" mediums, is decidedly different.

[22] Of course, strictly speaking, the term "fraudulent"

should not be applied to those mediums who are the victims of a peculiar form of hysteria. This is discussed in detail in the next chapter.

These are mediums who, after pa.s.sing into a peculiar condition of trance, and occasionally while seemingly in their usual waking state, appear to be controlled by some outside intelligence, and, when so controlled, utter or write information which it is hard, if not impossible, to believe they could have obtained by any ordinary means.

To be sure, there is a host of spurious automatists, against whom one cannot be too watchfully on guard. Some of these are out and out cheats, as brazen as the most rascally materializers. Some depend for their success on guessing and on inferences shrewdly drawn from hints unconsciously dropped by their patrons. Quite a number, however, undoubtedly seem to exercise a gift not possessed--or, at all events, not utilized--by everyday men and women.

One Sunday evening, in the late nineties, I visited the spiritist church on Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn, of which the late Ira Moore Corliss was then pastor. In his day Mr. Corliss was probably the most prominent medium in Brooklyn, a city where spiritism has always flourished. He was an obviously religious-minded man, and one who sincerely believed that it was his mission to act as an intermediary between this world and the next. That evening the usual order of services in spiritist churches was followed--a prayer, some hymn singing, a sermon, or "inspirational discourse," and, lastly, the giving of "test messages," in which the medium pa.s.sed rapidly up and down the aisles, pausing here and there to deliver oral communications alleged to come from the world of spirits.

Seated next to me was an elderly gentleman of dignified appearance, who watched the proceedings with a quiet smile of contempt. It was evident that this was the first time he had ever seen anything of the kind, and that he was both amused and disgusted. Suddenly Mr. Corliss, halting directly in front of him, said, in the quick, nervous way common to him when under "spirit control":

"I have a message for you, sir."

"For me?" repeated the elderly gentleman, incredulously.

"Yes, sir, for you. There is a spirit here that wants to thank you for your kindly thought of him to-day. It is the spirit of a rather tall man, heavily built, clean-shaven, with bright, tender eyes. He says his name is Henry Ward Beecher."

The smile faded from the other's face. He bent forward, listening intently.

"Go on," he said.

"This spirit," continued the medium, "says that he is glad to know you have not forgotten him. He says that he was with you this afternoon, when you went to the cemetery and took this flower from his grave."

With a dramatic gesture Mr. Corliss drew from the lapel of his astonished auditor's coat a sprig of geranium, and held it up so that all could see it.

"Am I not right?" he demanded.

"You are. Quite right."

Afterward I joined the elderly gentleman on the sidewalk, and plied him with questions. I found him greatly mystified.

"This is too much for me," said he. "I am a stranger to Brooklyn, and had never attended a spiritualist meeting until to-night. I only dropped in out of curiosity. But it is true that this afternoon I visited the cemetery where Henry Ward Beecher is buried, and picked this flower from near his grave, as a memento of my visit. Mr. Beecher was a very good friend to me in my younger days. How the medium could know these facts I cannot imagine. I had told n.o.body of my trip to the cemetery, and I am positive that no one saw me pick the flower."

On another occasion I took an artist friend to the first seance he ever attended. The medium was a psychic of the Corliss type, an automatist who delivered his "spirit messages" by word of mouth. There were perhaps a dozen other sitters present. To one of these, a thin, gaunt, haggard-looking young woman, the entranced medium announced the presence of "a spirit named Wagner." It was none other, it appeared, than the spirit of the great musician, who promised he would aid her with her musical compositions. A smile of infinite content transformed her careworn features, as she leaned over and whispered to my friend:

"The spirit of Liszt is already helping me. With Wagner's aid I cannot fail."

One could not smile in face of the story of boundless faith and pitiful struggle these few words told. And with the next sitter pathos rose to positive tragedy.

"There is the spirit of a man here, whose name is Frederick," the medium declared, "and he comes to you, madam. Take my hand."

Slowly a woman, dressed in deep mourning, stood up and extended her hand. Intensity was written in every line of her face.

"There were two Fredericks," she said. "Which is it?"

"It is the Frederick--it is the Frederick, who, while on earth, did this."

And he struck her sharply on the arm. Tears filled her eyes.

"I understand," she murmured, "I understand. What does he say?"

All this was interesting, but not convincing. For aught we could tell to the contrary, the medium had familiarized himself with the life stories of these women, who doubtless were regular attendants at his seances.

But now he pa.s.sed to the friend by my side.

"A message for you, sir," said he, "from the spirit of a military-looking man. Yes, he says that when he was in this sphere he was a commander of soldiers, a general. This is what he looks like."

He launched into a long description, which I could see was making a profound impression on my friend.

"Has he anything particular to say to me?" he asked.

"He says that you must on no account decline the offer that has been made to you to go West--that you will never regret going."

Less than two hours earlier my companion had told me of a commission unexpectedly tendered him, involving a long sojourn in California. At the medium's words he turned pale, and glanced around as though half expecting to see a ghost standing behind his chair.

When the seance had come to an end, and we were walking home together, he solemnly a.s.sured me that the medium had accurately described a dead friend, an army officer of the rank of general, whose advice, had he been alive, he would have sought with regard to his projected journey to California.

Again, there is an interesting case reported from New England by the Reverend Willis M. Cleaveland. Among Mr. Cleaveland's paris.h.i.+oners was a young woman, Miss Edith Wright, who developed mediumistic abilities, being controlled at times by what purported to be a discarnate spirit.

Dreading notoriety, Miss Wright gave very few seances, and then only to her closest friends or to sitters with whom her friends were well acquainted, and in whose discretion they could place reliance.

One of these was Mr. Cleaveland, who, being interested in psychical research, undertook to obtain, if possible, proof of the ident.i.ty of the supposed communicating spirit. If you really are a spirit, he said in effect, you ought to be able to give us some facts about yourself, something about your history while you were on earth, with data that will enable us to obtain confirmation of what you say. The "control"

readily conceded the reasonableness of this, and in the course of several seances made twenty-six personal statements, of which the most significant were:

That her name was Amelia B. Norton.

That she had been the daughter of an orthodox clergyman, of the "water type."