CHAPTER XIII.
The Confessions of Medium.--Spiritualistic Phenomena
Explained on Theory of Telepathy.--Interesting Statement of Mrs. Piper,
the Famous Medium of the Psychical Research Society.
The subject of spiritualism has been very thoroughly
investigated by the Society for Psychical Research, both in England and
this country, and under circumstances so peculiarly advantageous that a
world of light has been thrown on the connection between hypnotism and
this strange phenomenon.
Professor William James, the professor of psychology at
Harvard University, was fortunate enough some years ago to find a perfect
medium who was not a professional and whose character was such as to
preclude fraud. This was Mrs. Leonora E. Piper, of Boston. For many years
she remained in the special employ of the Society for Psychical Research,
and the members of that society were able to study her case under every
possible condition through a long period of time. Not long ago she
resolved to give up her engagement, and made a public statement over her
own signature which is full of interest.
A brief history of her life and experiences will go far
toward furnishing the general reader a fair explanation of clairvoyant and
spiritualistic phenomena.
Mrs. Piper was the wife of a modest tailor, and lived
on Pinckney street, back of Beacon Hill. She was married in 1881, and it
was not until May 16, 1884, that her first child was born. A little more
than a month later, on June 29, she had her first trance experience. Says
she: "I remember the date distinctly, because it was two days after my
first birthday following the birth of my first child." She had gone to Dr.
J. R. Cocke, the great authority on hypnotism and a practicing physician
of high scientific attainments. "During the interview," says Mrs. Piper,
"I was partly unconscious for a few minutes. On the following Sunday I
went into a trance."
She appears to have slipped into it unconsciously. She
surprised her friends by saying some very odd things, none of which she
remembered when she came to herself. Not long after she did it again. A
neighbor, the wife of a merchant, when she heard the things that had been
said, assured Mrs. Piper that it must be messages from the spirit world.
The atmosphere in Boston was full of talk of that kind, and it was not
hard for people to believe that a real medium of spirit communication had
been found. The merchant's wife wanted a sitting, and Mrs. Piper arranged
one, for which she received her first dollar.
She had discovered that she could go into trances by an
effort of her own will. She would sit down at a table, with her sitter
opposite, and leaning her head on a pillow, go off into the trance after a
few minutes of silence. There was a clock behind her. She gave her sitters
an hour, sometimes two hours, and they wondered how she knew when the hour
had expired. At any rate, when the time came around she awoke. In
describing her experiences she has said:
"At first when I sat in my chair and leaned my head
back and went into the trance state, the action was attended by something
of a struggle. I always felt as if I were undergoing an anesthetic, but of
late years I have slipped easily into the condition, leaning the head
forward. On coming out of it I felt stupid and dazed. At first I said
disconnected things. It was all a gibberish, nothing but gibberish. Then I
began to speak some broken French phrases. I had studied French two years,
but did not speak it well."
Once she had an Italian for sitter, who could speak no
English and asked questions in Italian. Mrs. Piper could speak no Italian,
indeed did not understand a word of it, except in her trance state. But
she had no trouble in understanding her sitter.
After a while her automatic utterance announced the
personality of a certain Dr. Phinuit, who was said to have been a noted
French physician who had died long before. His "spirit" controlled her for
a number of years. After some time Dr. Phinuit was succeeded by one
"Pelham," and finally by "Imperator" and "Rector."
As the birth of her second child approached Mrs. Piper
gave up what she considered a form of hysteria; but after the birth of the
child the sittings, paid for at a dollar each, began again. Dr. Hodgson,
of the London Society for Psychical Research, saw her at the house of
Professor James, and he became so interested in her case that he decided
to take her to London to be studied. She spent nearly a year abroad; and
after her return the American branch of the Society for Psychical Research
was formed, and for a long time Mrs. Piper received a salary to sit
exclusively for the society. Their records and reports are full of the
things she said and did.
Every one who investigated Mrs. Piper had to admit that
her case was full of mystery. But if one reads the reports through from
beginning to end one cannot help feeling that her spirit messages are
filled with nonsense, at least of triviality. Here is a specimen--and a
fair specimen, too--of the kind of communication Pelham gave. He wrote out
the message. It referred to a certain famous man known in the reports as
Mr. Marte. Pelham is reported to have written by Mrs. Piper's hand:
"That he (Mr. Marte), with his keen brain and marvelous
perception, will be interested, I know. He was a very dear friend of X. I
was exceedingly fond of him. Comical weather interests both he and
I--me--him--I know it all. Don't you see I correct these? Well, I am not
less intelligent now. But there are many difficulties. I am far clearer on
all points than I was shut up in the prisoned body (prisoned, prisoning or
imprisoned you ought to say). No, I don't mean, to get it that way. 'See
here, H, don't view me with a critic's eye, but pass my imperfections by.'
Of course, I know all that as well as anybody on your sphere (of course).
Well, I think so. I tell you, old fellow, it don't do to pick all these
little errors too much when they amount to nothing in one way. You have
light enough and brain enough, I know, to understand my explanations of
being shut up in this body, dreaming, as it were, and trying to help on
science."
Some people would say that Pelham had had a little too
much whisky toddy when he wrote that rambling, meaningless string of
words. Or we can suppose that Mrs. Piper was dreaming. We see in the last
sentence a curious mixture of ideas that must have been in her mind. She
herself says:
"I do not see how anybody can look on all that as
testimony from another world. I cannot see but that it must have been an
unconscious expression of my subliminal self, writing such stuff as dreams
are made of."
In another place Mrs. Piper makes the following direct
statement: "I never heard of anything being said by myself while in a
trance state which might not have been latent in:
"1. My own mind.
"2. In the mind of the person in charge of the sitting.
"3. In the mind of the person who was trying to get
communication with some one in another state of existence, or some
companion present with such person, or,
"4. In the mind of some absent person alive somewhere
else in the world."
Writing in the Psychological Review in 1898, Professor
James says:
"Mrs. Piper's trance memory is no ordinary human
memory, and we have to explain its singular perfection either as the
natural endowment of her solitary subliminal self, or as a collection of
distinct memory systems, each with a communicating spirit as its vehicle.
"The spirit hypothesis exhibits a vacancy, triviality,
and incoherence of mind painful to think of as the state of the departed,
and coupled with a pretension to impress one, a disposition to 'fish' and
face around and disguise the essential hollowness which is, if anything,
more painful still. Mr. Hodgson has to resort to the theory that, although
the communicants probably are spirits, they are in a semi-comatose or
sleeping state while communicating, and only half aware of what is going
on, while the habits of Mrs. Piper's neural organism largely supply the
definite form of words, etc., in which the phenomenon is clothed."
After considering other theories Professor James
concludes:
"The world is evidently more complex than we are
accustomed to think it, the absolute 'world ground' in particular being
farther off than we are wont to think it."
Mrs. Piper is reported to have said:
"Of what occurs after I enter the trance period I
remember nothing--nothing of what I said or what was said to me. I am but
a passive agent in the hands of powers that control me. I can give no
account of what becomes of me during a trance. The wisdom and inspired
eloquence which of late has been conveyed to Dr. Hodgson through my
mediumship is entirely beyond my understanding. I do not pretend to
understand it, and can give no explanation--I simply know that I have the
power of going into a trance when I wish."
Professor James says: "The Piper phenomena are the most
absolutely baffling thing I know."
Professor Hudson, Ph.D., LL.D., author of "The Law of
Psychic Phenomena," comes as near giving an explanation of "spiritualism,"
so called, as any one. He begins by saying:
"All things considered, Mrs. Piper is probably the best
'psychic' now before the public for the scientific investigation of
spiritualism and it must be admitted that if her alleged communications
from discarnate spirits cannot be traced to any other source, the claims
of spiritism have been confirmed."
Then he goes on:
"A few words, however, will make it clear to the
scientific mind that her phenomena can be easily accounted for on purely
psychological principles, thus:
"Man is endowed with a dual mind, or two minds, or
states of consciousness, designated, respectively, as the objective and
the subjective. The objective mind is normally unconscious of the content
of the subjective mind. The latter is constantly amenable to control by
suggestion, and it is exclusively endowed with the faculty of telepathy.
"An entranced psychic is dominated exclusively by her
subjective mind, and reason is in abeyance. Hence she is controlled by
suggestion, and, consequently, is compelled to believe herself to be a
spirit, good or bad, if that suggestion is in any way imparted to her, and
she automatically acts accordingly.
"She is in no sense responsible for the vagaries of a
Phinuit, for that eccentric personality is the creation of suggestion. But
she is also in the condition which enables her to read the subjective
minds of others. Hence her supernormal knowledge of the affairs of her
sitters. What he knows, or has ever known, consciously or unconsciously
(subjective memory being perfect), is easily within her reach.
"Thus far no intelligent psychical researcher will
gainsay what I have said. But it sometimes happens that the psychic
obtains information that neither she nor the sitter could ever have
consciously possessed. Does it necessarily follow that discarnate spirits
gave her the information? Spiritists say 'yes,' for this is the 'last
ditch' of spiritism.
"Psychologists declare that the telepathic explanation
is as valid in the latter class of cases as it obviously is in the former.
Thus, telepathy being a power of the subjective mind, messages may be
conveyed from one to another at any time, neither of the parties being
objectively conscious of the fact. It follows that a telepathist at any
following seance with the recipient can reach the content of that message.
"If this argument is valid--and its validity is
self-evident--it is impossible to imagine a case that may not be thus
explained on psychological principles."
Professor Hudson's argument will appeal to the ordinary
reader as good. It may be simplified, however, thus:
We may suppose that Mrs. Piper voluntarily hypnotizes
herself. Perhaps she simply puts her conscious reason to sleep. In that
condition the rest of her mind is in an exalted state, and capable of
telepathy and mind-reading, either of those near at hand or at a distance.
Her reason being asleep, she simply dreams, and the questions of her
sitter are made to fit into her dream.
If we regard mediums as persons who have the power of
hypnotizing themselves and then of doing what we know persons who have
been hypnotized by others sometimes do, we have an explanation that covers
the whole case perfectly. At the same time, as Professor James warns us,
we must believe that the mind is far more complex than we are accustomed
to think it. |
