Part 11

With these all-powerful magicians--an expected result and the willingness to credit a marvel--clearly in mind, let us proceed from those instances in which they have least effect up to the point where they form the chief factor. First come a host of conjuring tricks performed on the stage in slightly modified forms, but which are presented as "spiritualistic." So simple a trick as scratching a name on one's hand with a clean pen dipped in water, then writing the name on a slip of paper, burning the slip and rubbing the part with the ashes, thus causing the ashes to cling to the letters formed on the hand and reveal the name, has been offered as a proof of spirit agency. Whenever an article disappears or rapidly changes its place, the spiritualist is apt to see the workings of hidden spirits; and over and over again have the performances of professional conjurers been declared to be spiritual in origin in spite of all protest from the conjurers themselves. Here everything depends upon the possession of certain technical knowledge; judging without such knowledge is apt to be mere prejudice. Another very large class of phenomena consists of those in which the performer is placed in a position apparently inconsistent with his taking any active part in their production; rope-tying tests, cabinet séances, the appearance of a "spirit-hand" from behind a screen, locking the performer in a cage, sewing him in a bag, and so on. The psychologist has very little interest in these; their solution depends upon the skill with which knots may be picked, locks unfastened, and the other devices by which security may be simulated. The chief interest in such performances is the historical one, for these have done perhaps more than anything else to convince believers of the truth of Spiritualism. Here, where everything depends upon the security of the fastenings (for once free, the medium can produce messages from the spirit-land limited only by his ingenuity and boldness), upon the particular moment when the examination was permitted or the light turned down, upon the success with which an appearance of security and intactness of seals and knots may be simulated, it might be supposed that all possible precautions had been taken to control and eliminate these possibilities; while, as a matter of fact, the laxity of most investigators in this regard is well known. These performances deceive because people overlook the technical acquisitions needed to pronounce upon the possibility or impossibility of a fastening having been tampered with and apparently restored without detection. If manufacturers of safes were equally credulous, and gave equally little time to the study of the security of locks, "safe" would be an ironical expression indeed.

Passing next to the most interesting of spiritualistic manifestations, those in which self-deception comes to the foreground, I need hardly dwell at length upon the tilting of tables, the production of raps by movements of which the sitters are unconscious; for these have been so often and so ably presented that they must now be well understood. Suffice it to say that it has been objectively proven that it is almost impossible not to give some indication of one's thoughts, when put upon the strain; and that under excitement, these indications may become palpably plain and yet remain unperceived by the individual who gives them. The extreme subtlety of these indications is met by the unusual skill of the professional mind-reader, who takes his clue from indications which his subject is "absolutely confident he did not give." The assurances of sitters that _they know_ they did not move the table are equally valueless; and nothing but objective tests will suffice. The most wholesome lesson to be derived from the study of these phenomena is the proof that not all our intentions and actions are under the control of consciousness, and that, under emotional or other excitement, the value of the testimony of consciousness is very much weakened. Again, it is almost impossible to realize the difficulty of accurately describing a phenomenon lying outside the common range of observation. Not alone that the knowledge necessary to pronounce such and such a phenomenon impossible of performance by conjuring methods is absent, but with due modesty and most sincere intentions the readiness with which the observing powers and the memory play one false is overlooked. In the investigation of Mr. Davey, above referred to, the sitters prepared accounts of the "slate-writing" manifestations they had witnessed, and described marvels that had not occurred, but which they were convinced they had seen--messages written on slates utterly inaccessible to Mr. Davey, and upon slates which they had noticed a moment before were clean. The witnesses are honest; how do these mistakes arise? Simply a detail omitted here, an event out of place there, an unconscious insertion in one place, an undue importance given to a certain point in another place--nothing of which any one needs feel ashamed, something which it requires unusual training and natural gifts to avoid. The mistake lies in not recognizing our liability to such error.

If, however, the spectator is once convinced that he has evidence of the supernatural, he soon sees it in every accident and incident of the performance. Not only that he overlooks natural physical explanations, but he is led to create marvels by the very ardor of his sincerity. At a materializing séance the believer recognizes a dear friend in a carelessly arranged drapery seen in a dim light. Conclusive evidence of the subjective character of such perceptions is furnished by the fact that the same appearance is frequently recognized by different sitters as the spiritual counterpart of entirely different and totally dissimilar persons. A "spirit-photograph" is declared to be the precise image of entirely unlike individuals. In the "Revelations of a Spirit Medium," we read that a wire gauze mask placed in front of a handkerchief, made luminous by phosphorus, and projected through the opening of the cabinet, was "recognized by dozens of persons as fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, cousins, sweethearts, wives, husbands, and various other relatives and friends." Each one sees what he expects to see, what appeals to his interests the most intensely. What the unprejudiced observer recognizes as the flimsily disguised form of the medium, the believer transforms into the object of his thoughts and longings. Only let the form be vague enough, the light dim enough, the emotions upon a sufficient strain, and that part of perception in which the external image is deficient will be readily supplied by the subjective tendencies of each individual. In the presence of such a mental attitude the possibilities of deception are endless; the performer grows bolder as his victim passes from a watchful, critical attitude to one of easy conviction, and we get scientific proofs of the fourth dimension of space, of the possibility of matter passing through matter, of the levitation or elongation of the medium's body, of the transcendence of the laws of gravity. And the same performance that convinced Professor Zoellner of the reality of the fourth dimension of space would prove to the spiritualist the intercourse with deceased friends, would convince the theosophist of the flight of the performer's astral body; and, it may not be irrelevant to add, it was the same type of performance that served and yet serves to terrify the minds of uncultivated and superstitious savages. All depends not upon what is done, but upon the mental disposition of the spectator. Little by little, through neglect, through mal-observation and lapses of memory, through an unwillingness to mistrust the reports of an excited consciousness, caution is abandoned and credulity enters. Mediums are actually seen flying out of one window and in through another. The wildest and most far-fetched fantastic explanation is preferred above a simple one; the bounds of the normal are passed; real hallucinations set in; conduct becomes irrational, and a state hardly distinguishable from insanity ensues. If this seems improbable, turn to the records of witchcraft persecutions and read upon what trifling and wholly imaginary evidence thousands of innocent lives were sacrificed; and this not by ignorant, bloodthirsty men, but by earnest, eminent, and religious leaders. A child is taken sick, is remembered to have been fondled by an old woman; therefore the woman has put the child under a spell and must be burned. A man sees an old woman in the woods, and, on turning about, the old woman is gone and a hare flies across his track; he concludes that she turned herself into a hare, and the witch test is applied. When the personal devil was believed in, he was seen daily clothed in the garments that imagination had given him, and engaged in mischief and villainy of all kinds. When witchery was the dominant superstition, all things gave evidence of that. So long as Spiritualism forms a prominent cult with a real hold upon the beliefs of its adherents, the number of mediums and manifestations will be correspondingly abundant. Create a belief in the theory, and the facts will create themselves.

V

In the production of this state of mind a factor as yet unmentioned plays a leading rôle, the power of mental contagion. Error, like truth, flourishes in crowds. At the hearth of sympathy each finds a home. The fanatical lead, the saner follow. When a person of nervous temperament, not strongly independent in thought and action, enters a spiritualistic circle, where he is constantly surrounded by confident believers, all eager to have him share their sacred visions and profound revelations, where the atmosphere is replete with miracles, and every chair and table may at any instant be transformed into a proof of the supernatural, is it strange that he soon becomes affected by the contagion of belief that surrounds him? He succumbs to its influence imperceptibly and hesitatingly at first, and perhaps yet restorable to his former modes of thought by the fresh air of another and more steadfast mental intercourse, but more and more certainly and ardently convinced the longer he breathes the séance atmosphere. No form of contagion is so insidious in its onset, so difficult to check in its advance, so certain to leave germs that may at any moment reveal their pernicious power, as a mental contagion--the contagion of fear, of panic, of fanaticism, of lawlessness, of superstition, of error. The story of the witchcraft persecutions, were there no similar records to deface the pages of history, would suffice as a standing illustration of the overwhelming power of psychic contagion. To illustrate with any completeness its importance in the production of deception or in the dissemination of error, would carry us beyond the proper limits of the present discussion. It enters at every stage of the process and in every type of illusion. Although it has least effect when deception is carried on by external arrangements, by skilful counterfeits of logical inferences, yet even then it enters into the distinction between a critical, skeptical, and irresponsive body of spectators, and one that is sympathetic, acquiescent, and cordial; it renders it easier to effect bold and striking impressions with a larger audience than with a smaller one; its power is greatest, however, where the subjective factor in deception is greatest, more particularly in such forms of deception as have been last described.

In brief, we must add to the many factors which contribute to deception the recognized lowering of critical ability, of the power of accurate observation, indeed of rationality, which merely being one of a crowd induces. The conjurer finds it easier to perform to large audiences because, among other reasons, it is easier to arouse their admiration and sympathy, easier to make them forget themselves and enter into the uncritical spirit of wonderland. It would seem that in some respects the critical tone of an assembly, like the strength of a chain, is that of its weakest member. "The mental quality of the individuals in a crowd," says M. Le Bon, "is without importance. From the moment that they are in the crowd the ignorant and the learned are equally incapable of observation."

VI

In this review of the types of deception I have made no mention of such devices as the gaining of one's confidence for selfish ends, preying upon ignorance or fear, acting the friend while at heart the enemy, planned connivance and skilful plotting, together with the whole outfit of insincerity, villainy, and crime. It is not that these are without interest or are unrelated to the several types of deception above considered, but that they are too complex and too heterogeneous to be capable of ready or rigid analysis. When deception becomes an art of life, consciously planned and craftily executed, there must be acting and subterfuge and evasion to maintain the appearance of sincerity. The psychology of the processes therein concerned is almost coincident with the range of social, intellectual, and emotional influences. Complex as these operations may be, they have, in common with the less intricate forms of deception, the attempt to parallel the conditions underlying the logical inferences which it is desired to induce. If we add this great class of deceptions to those already enumerated, we may perhaps realize how vast is its domain, and how long and sad must be the chapter that records the history of human error.

Ethics is so closely related to psychology--right knowing to right doing--that a brief _hæc fabula docet_ by way of summary may not be out of place. We find, first, a class of sense-deceptions which are due to the nature of our sense-endowment, and deceive only so long as their true character remains unknown. These are neither pernicious nor difficult to correct. Next comes a class of deceptions that deceive because we are ignorant of the possibilities of technical devices, such as those used in legerdemain, and pronounce upon the possibility or impossibility of a certain explanation in advance of complete knowledge. But still another class, and that the most dangerous and insidious, are the deceptions in which self-deception plays the leading rôle. The only safeguard here is a preventive; the thorough infusion of sound habits of thought, a full recognition of the conditions under which the testimony of consciousness becomes dubious, an appreciation of the true value of objective scientific evidence, and an inoculation against the evils of contagion by an independent, unprejudiced, logical schooling. When once the evil spirit of self-deception, fed by the fire of contagion and emotional excitement, begins to spread, reason has little control. As Tyndall tells us, such "victims like to believe, and they do not like to be undeceived. Science is perfectly powerless in the presence of this frame of mind.... It [science] keeps down the weed of superstition, not by logic, but by slowly rendering the mental soil unfit for cultivation." With the spread of an education that fosters independence and self-reliance, with the growth of the capacity to profit by the experiences of others, with the recognition of the technical requisites that alone qualify one for a judgment in this or that field, with a knowledge of the possibilities of deception and of the psychological processes by which error is propagated, the soil upon which superstitions, psychic delusions, mental epidemics, or senseless fads are likely to flourish will gradually be rendered unfit.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] By Norman Triplett, "The Psychology of Conjuring Deceptions," _American Journal of Psychology_, xi. 4, July, 1900. This most recent and extensive treatment of this topic furnishes a well-selected storehouse of fact, together with suggestive and able interpretations of the material of conjuring deceptions. I shall draw from this material in several portions of this essay, without further detailed acknowledgment.

[4] Mr. Triplett went through a similar performance with a ball in the presence of school children; and of 165 children, 78 described how they saw the ball go up and disappear; of those who were thus hallucinated 40 per cent. were boys and 60 per cent. were girls. Hallucinations of perfumes in children were obtained by another experimenter when water was sprayed from bottles labeled as perfumes; 76 per cent. of 381 pupils saw a toy camel move when a crank attached to the camel by a string was turned, although the camel remained quite motionless. The experimental tests, though rather cold and lifeless when compared with the dramatic stage deceptions, illustrate the same process, and make possible a comparative study of the degree of deception in different individuals and under different circumstances.

[5] "Again, a mere tap with the wand on any spot, at the same time looking at it attentively, will infallibly draw the eyes of a whole company in the same direction."--_Houdin._

Robert Houdin, often termed "the king of the conjurers," was a man of remarkable ingenuity and insight. His autobiography is throughout interesting and psychologically valuable, and his conjuring precepts abound in points of importance to the psychologist.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SPIRITUALISM

I

In 1848, from the town of Hydeville, New York, came the somewhat startling announcement that certain knockings, the source of which had mystified the household of one of its residents, seemed to be intelligently guided and ready to appear at call. Somewhat later, communication was established by agreeing that one rap should mean _no_, and three raps _yes_; to which was afterwards added the device of calling off the alphabet and noting at which letters the raps occurred. In this way, the rapper revealed himself as the spirit of a murdered peddler. Within a short period the news of this simple and childish invention had called into existence thousands of spirit-circles; had developed wonderful "mediums" to whose special gifts the manifestations were ascribed; had amassed a vast store of strange testimony; had added to the rappings such performances as moving tables, causing objects to be mysteriously thrown about, playing on instruments by unseen hands, materializing spirit flowers, producing spirit forms and faces, gathering messages from spirits on sealed slates, and so on. In brief, the movement became an epidemic; and that despite the fact that from the beginning and continuously satisfactory and rational explanations were offered of what really occurred, and that mediums were constantly detected in the grossest fraud. So early as 1851 the peculiar rappings occurring in the presence of the Fox sisters, the originators of the movement, were conclusively traced to the partial dislocation and resetting of a joint of the knee or foot; and the raps failed to occur when the girls were placed in a position in which the leverage necessary for this action was denied them. Many years thereafter, in 1888, Margaret Fox (Mrs. Kane) and Katie Fox (Mrs. Jencken) publicly confessed that the raps to which they as children gave rise were produced by dislocation of the toes; and one of them added to their confession a demonstration of how this was done. It is unfortunate alike that the character of the confessers leaves much to be desired, that the confession was both belated and made under sensational surroundings, and that the sinners have no better excuse to offer for their long silence than that the movement was started when they were too young to appreciate what was being done, and that when they realized the fraud which they were fostering and the success with which they were meeting, it was too late or too difficult to retract. None the less, these circumstances do not destroy the interest in tracing the evidence of deception and the presence of a moral taint to the very starting-point of one of the most widespread delusions of modern times.