Part 13

It must not be supposed that the errors of mal-description and lapse of memory thus committed are at all serious in themselves; on the contrary, they are mostly such as would be entirely pardonable in ordinary matters. Mr. Hodgson places them in four classes. In the first, the observer _interpolates_ a fact which really did not happen, but which he was led to believe had occurred; he records that he examined the slate, when he really did not. Secondly, for similar causes, he _substitutes_ one statement for another closely like it; he says he examined the slate minutely, when he really only did so hastily. Thirdly, he _transposes_ the order in which the events happened, making the examination of the slate occur at a later period than when it really took place. Lastly, he _omits_ certain details which he was carefully led to consider trivial, but which really were most important. Such slight lapses as these are sufficient to make a marvel of a clever piece of conjuring; add to this the increased temptations for mal-observation afforded by the dim light and mysterious surroundings of the medium, as well as by the sympathetic attitude of the sitters, and the wide divergence between the miraculous narratives of spiritualists and the homely deceptions which they are intended to describe, is no longer a mystery.

It cannot be too strongly insisted upon how slight may be the clue that holds the key to the explanation, how easy it is to overlook it, how mysterious the performance becomes without it. It may be the difference between placing the slate in a given position and starting to do so when the hand of the medium naturally comes forward to receive it; it may depend upon whether the slates were examined just before or just after a certain detail in the performance which was carefully not made prominent; it may depend upon the difficulty of really seeing a quick and unexpected sleight-of-hand movement on the part of a skilled performer; it may depend upon whether the question asked was really of your own choosing, or was deftly led up to; it may depend upon a score of other equally insignificant details upon which the assurance of the average person, that such mal-observation or misdescription did not occur, is almost worthless. These are some of the slighter factors in the case; there may be much more serious ones which lead not merely to exaggeration but to elaborate falsification and distortion of truth, and to the emphatic assertion of the most extravagant miracles, coupled usually with the assurance that there was no possibility or room for deception. Mr. Davey's performance was relatively a matter-of-fact test with critical and intelligent sitters; hence we should expect the divergence between report and reality to be far less serious than when the question at issue is the demonstration of the supernatural by an appeal to the religious fervor and to the emotional susceptibilities of would-be believers and sympathetic propagandists. I shall return to this difference of attitude in discussing the prepossession in favor of the belief in Spiritualism; for the present, it is sufficient to notice that under the most favorable combination of circumstances--that is, an able, educated, and experienced observer witnessing a definite performance in a calm, critical mood, and carefully preparing a written account of his observations--the difference between actual fact and the testimony of the witness is still considerable, and the divergence often upon essential points. We are accordingly justified in making allowance for double or treble or a hundredfold more serious divergence between fact and report, when we pass to decidedly less favorable conditions, such as those of the ordinary spiritualistic test or séance; for these surely present conditions least conducive to accuracy of observation or of record.

It is seldom that so direct and forcible an application of experimental results to actual mental experiences occurring under familiar circumstances can be made, as is the case in regard to this noteworthy investigation of Messrs. Hodgson and Davey. This investigation, almost at one stroke, throws a blinding light upon the entire field of the phenomena; accounting in large part for the vast aggregate of testimony in favor of miracles by actual witnesses, demonstrating the readiness with which we may unwittingly deceive ourselves by false observation and others by lapses of memory, as to what we actually witnessed; and again presenting the nature of these fallible characteristics of sense-perception and memory, of inference and judgment, so strikingly and tangibly as to serve as a classic illustration for the psychologist. The practical import of these considerations has been quite generally disregarded by upholders of the spiritualistic hypothesis, and has by no means been fully appreciated by those who lay claim to an opinion upon the significance of spiritualistic manifestations, and who discuss the psychological questions which they involve.

It is pertinent to add that after Mr. Davey's death, Mr. Hodgson felt free to publish a precise account of what Mr. Davey actually did during the slate-writing séances.[7] The description from before the footlights may thus be compared with the account from behind the scenes; and although verbal accounts must always be weak and lack the realistic touch of the _mise en scène_, yet this account makes possible a kinetoscopic reproduction, as it were, of the original sitting; we may observe the point at which the several sitters committed their faults of defective observation or report; we may examine at leisure the several steps in the performance which the eyes overlooked in the hasty single glimpse afforded by the sitting itself; we may attend to details which in the original sitting reached only the outlying and evanescent phases of consciousness. But, on the whole, the psychological comprehension of the "séance" was sufficiently manifest without this disclosure of the _modus operandi_; the disclosure has its value, however, in removing the possibility of certain forms of criticism of the results, in presenting data by which the specific nature of mal-observation may be more concretely studied, and in convincing the more obstinate and skeptical of how natural it is to err in matters beyond the range of one's intimate experience.

A corroborative illustration of the subjective contribution to deceptions of this type--the part that "always comes out of our head," in Professor James's phrase--is furnished by M. Binet's series of photographs, taken at the rate of ten or twelve per second, of the hands of the performer during a sleight-of-hand performance; for the photographs do not show the essential illusion which the eyes seem to see, but which is really supplied by the fixed interpretative habits of the spectators.

The conclusion thus experimentally arrived at by Messrs. Hodgson and Davey is reinforced by other investigators. After witnessing a séance that was merely a series of the simplest and most glaringly evident tricks, Mrs. Sidgwick was expected to have had all her doubts entirely removed, and was assured that what she had seen was better than the materializations at Paris. "Experiences like this make one feel how misleading the accounts of some completely honest witnesses may be; for the materializations in Paris were those which the Comte de Bullet had with Firman, where near relatives of the Count were believed constantly to appear, and which are among the most wonderful recorded in spiritualistic literature. And, after all, it appears that these marvelous séances were no better than this miserable personation by Haxby."

The Seybert Commission finds that "with every possible desire on the part of spiritualists to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, concerning marvelous phenomena, it is extremely difficult to do so. Be it distinctly understood that we do not for an instant impute willful perversion of the truth. All that we mean is that, for two reasons, it is likely that the marvels of spiritualism will be, by believers in them, incorrectly and insufficiently reported. The first reason is to be found in the mental condition of the observer; if he be excited or deeply moved, his account cannot but be affected, and essential details will surely be distorted. For a second reason, note how hard it is to give a truthful account of any common, everyday occurrence. The difficulty is increased a hundredfold when what we would tell partakes of the wonderful. Who can truthfully describe a juggler's trick? Who would hesitate to affirm that a watch, which never left the eyesight for an instant, was broken by the juggler on an anvil; or that a handkerchief was burned before our eyes? We all know the juggler does not break the watch, and does not burn the handkerchief. We watched most closely the juggler's right hand, while the trick was done with his left. The one minute circumstance has been omitted that would have converted the trick into no-trick. It is likely to be the same in the accounts of the most wonderful phenomena of spiritualism."

If we desire a concrete instance of this omission of an important detail, we may turn once more to Dr. Furness's narrative. Certain highly intelligent observers had described to him the marvelous accomplishments of a Boston medium; and this is his own account: "There are two tables in the room of séance, at one of which sits the medium, at the other, the visitor. The visitor at his table writes his question in pencil at the top of a long slip of paper, and, after folding over several times the portion of the slip on which his question is written, gums it down with mucilage and hands it to the medium, who thereupon places on the folded and gummed portion his left hand, and in a few minutes with his right hand writes down answers to the concealed questions; these answers are marvels of pertinency, and prove beyond a cavil the clairvoyant or spiritual powers of the medium." Dr. Furness went to the medium, prepared his slip of paper about as described, and thus continues: "As soon as he took his seat, and laid the strip on his table before him, I rose and approached the table so as to keep my paper still in sight; _the row of books entirely intercepted my view of it_. The medium instantly motioned to me to return to my seat, and, I think, told me to do so. I obeyed, and as I did so could not repress a profound sigh. Why had no one ever told me of that row of books?"

III

I have thus passed in review a series of facts and considerations in pursuance of the general inquiry as to why the manifestations produced in evidence of spirit agency deceive, and as to the origin of the vast testimony in favor of spiritualistic marvels. It is not necessary for the purposes of the psychological discussion to demonstrate that all such manifestations are fraudulent; it is not even necessary--although with limitless time and energy it might be desirable--to examine all of the various kinds of manifestations which the ingenuity of mediums has devised, or which have been presented through mediumistic agency.[8] All that is necessary is to examine a sufficient number of manifestations of acknowledged standing and repute among spiritualists,--manifestations, be it clearly understood, which have actually brought hundreds and thousands of converts to its ranks, which have been persistently brought forward as indisputable evidence of supernatural agency--and to show that in reference to these, actual and extensive deception has taken place. It would not be proper to declare that at this point the psychologist's interest ends; for the centre of interest in such problems may shift from one point to another. The central point in the present discussion, however, is not what is the evidence in favor of the spiritualistic hypothesis logically worth,--although the considerations here presented have obvious and radical bearings upon that question. If that were our quest, we should put the spiritualists upon the defensive; for the burden rests upon them to show the inadequacy of the natural explanation of the phenomena, and to present the special facts that point to the correctness of the spiritualistic as opposed to other explanations. We may recognize, in passing, to what sorry excuses they are driven in its defense: writing, they are driven to explain, is best produced in the dark, because dark is "negative," and light is "positive"; if the spirit that appears resembles the medium, that is an effect of the materializing process; if a piece of muslin is found in the medium's cabinet (and obviously used as drapery in the materializations), it is supposed to have been brought by the spirits to clothe their nakedness, or that the spirit which had brought the muslin "had to vanish so quickly that it had no time to dematerialize the muslin;" if writing does not appear when the slates are looked at, that is because the "magnetism" of the eye interferes with this spiritual process of writing; and did not Slade receive an express command from the spirits forbidding him, on penalty of cutting off all communication, to attempt to write on sealed slates? Some even claim that fraud and genuine manifestations go hand in hand, or that the former are the work of evil spirits counterfeiting conjuring tricks. A prominent spiritualist openly announces that Slade "now often cheats with an almost infantile audacity and naïveté, while at the same or the next séance, with the same investigators," genuine spiritualistic phenomena occur; while another disciple holds that the true spirit in which to approach the study is an "entire willingness to be deceived." Surely there is no duty resting upon scientific men to consider the claims of a system that resorts to such idle and extravagant hypotheses, and that fosters and prospers in such a moral atmosphere.

We may therefore profitably confine our attention to the psychological lessons to be drawn from the record of fraud and deception which the exploitation of Spiritualism has produced.[9] When the day comes when the manifestations above considered shall be definitely conceded to have a natural explanation along the general lines here presented, and the spiritualists shall have taken refuge in other and distinctively different manifestations, then it may become advisable to prepare a revised account of the psychology of Spiritualism.

There remains an important series of considerations that form an essential factor in the psychological comprehension of the phenomena of Spiritualism; this is the effect of bias and prepossession. When by one means or another a strong faith in the reality of spiritualistic manifestations has been induced; when the critical attitude gives place to a state of extreme emotional tension; when, perhaps, special griefs and trials give undue fervor to the desire for a material proof of life after death, of communion with the dear departed; when the convert becomes a defendant of the faith, anxious to strengthen the proofs of his own conviction,--then we have no longer mere unintentional lapses of observation and memory to deal with, but actual mental blindness to obvious fraud and natural explanations; then caution is thrown to the winds and marvels are reported that are the result of expectant attention and imagination, or of real illusion and hallucination. The blamelessness that may be conceded for one's mystification by conjuring performances cannot be extended to the present class of experiences; here it is not unusualness of external arrangements that forms the main factor in the deception, but the abnormal condition of the observer's mind. The materialization séances offer a sufficient example of this form of manifestation. To recognize a departed friend in the thinly disguised form of the medium is most naturally interpreted as a mark of weak insight or of strong prejudice. "Again and again," writes Dr. Furness, "men have led round the circles the materialized spirits of their wives and introduced them to each visitor in turn; fathers have taken round their daughters, and I have seen widows sob in the arms of their dead husbands. Testimony such as this staggers me. Have I been smitten with color-blindness? Before me, as far as I can detect, stands the very medium herself, in shape, size, form, and feature true to a line, and yet, one after another, honest men and women at my side, within ten minutes of each other, assert that she is the absolute counterpart of their nearest and dearest friend; nay, that she is that friend. It is as incomprehensible to me as the assertion that the heavens are green, and the leaves of the trees deep blue. Can it be that the faculty of observation and comparison is rare, and that our features are really vague and misty to our best friends? Is it that the medium exercises some mesmeric influence on her visitors, who are thus made to accept the faces which she wills them to see? Or is it, after all, only the dim light and a fresh illustration of _la nuit tous les chats sont gris_?" In the confessions of an exposed medium we read: "The first séance I held, after it became known to the Rochester people that I was a medium, a gentleman from Chicago recognized his daughter Lizzie in me after I had covered my small mustache with a piece of flesh-colored cloth, and reduced the size of my face with a shawl I had purposely hung up in the back of the cabinet." With such powerful magicians as an expectant interest and a strong prepossession, the realm of the marvelous is easily entered; but the evidence thus accumulated may be said to have about the same scientific value as the far more interesting entertainments of the "Thousand and One Nights." "Sergeant Cox," Mr. Podmore tells us, "adduced the hallucinatory feeling of a missing limb in proof of a spiritual body; and a writer in the 'Spiritualist,' 'not yet convinced of the spiritualistic theory,' could even pronounce the after-images produced by gazing at a straw hat to be 'independent of any known human agency.' From all of which it may be gathered that the conscientious spiritualist, when on marvels bent, did not display a frugal mind." Such opinions certainly justify Mr. Podmore's remark that there are spiritualists, "not a few, who would be capable of testifying, if their prepossessions happened to point that way, that they had seen the cow jump over the moon; and would refer for corroborative evidence to the archives of the nursery."

It is natural to suppose that prepossession of such intensity could occur only amongst the less intelligent and less discerning portions of mankind; but to a considerable extent, and certainly in sporadic instances, this is not the case. The distinguished naturalist who shares with Darwin the honor of contributing to modern thought the conceptions of evolution, in his ardent advocacy of Spiritualism, has recorded his assent to the belief that professional conjurers, performing at the Crystal Palace in London, could not accomplish their tricks without supernatural aid. With peculiar obliviousness to the double-edgedness of his remark, he writes: "If you think it all juggling, point out where the difference lies between it and mediumistic phenomena." The same prepossession renders him so impervious to the actual status of the evidence for Spiritualism as to permit him to record so preposterous a statement as the following: The physical phenomena of Spiritualism "have all, or nearly all, been before the world for twenty years; the theories and explanations of reviewers and critics do not touch them, or in any way satisfy any sane man who has repeatedly witnessed them; they have been tested and examined by skeptics of every grade of incredulity, men in every way qualified to detect imposture or to discover natural causes,--trained physicists, medical men, lawyers, and men of business,--but in every case the investigators have either retired baffled, or become converts." And in the latest utterances of the same authority the failure to credit the marvels of Spiritualism is put down along with the equal neglect of phrenology, as among the signal failures of our "wonderful century." If any further instances be required of the astounding effects of bias and prepossession in matters spiritualistic, the vast literature of the subject may be referred to as a sad but instructive monument of its influence.

IV

The consideration of the effects of a prepossession in favor of a belief in spirit-agency leads naturally to a consideration of the origin of the belief. This tendency to believe in the return to earth of the spirits of the departed, is probably to be viewed as a form of expression of the primitive animism that dominates savage philosophy, that pervades the historical development of religion and of science, and that crops out in various ways throughout all grades of civilization and all levels of society. Combined with it is an equally fundamental love for the marvelous, and a more or less suppressed belief in the significance of the obscure, the mysterious, the occult. These belief-tendencies, accordingly, have an anthropological significance and an historical continuity which Mr. Lang thus presents: "These instances prove that, from the Australian blacks in the Bush, who hear raps when the spirits come, to ancient Egypt, and thence to Greece, and last, in our own time, and in a London suburb, similar experiences real or imaginary are explained by the same hypothesis. No 'survival' can be more odd and striking, none more illustrative of the permanence, in human nature, of certain elements. To examine these psychological curiosities may, or may not, be 'useful,' but, at the lowest, the study may rank as a branch of mythology or folk-lore." Mr. Tylor fully concords with this view: "The received spiritualistic theory," he says, "belongs to the philosophy of savages.... Suppose a wild North American Indian looking on at a spirit-séance in London. As to the presence of disembodied spirits, manifesting themselves by raps, noises, voices, and other physical actions, the savage would be perfectly at home in the proceedings; for such things are part and parcel of his recognized system of nature." Mr. Podmore's comment upon the spiritualistic hypothesis expresses a kindred thought. "As the peasant referred the movement of the steam-engine to the only motive force with which he was acquainted, and supposed that there were horses inside, so the spiritualists, recognizing, as they thought, in the phenomena the manifestations of will and intelligence not apparently those of any person visibly present, invoked the agency of the spirits of the dead. We can hardly call this belief an hypothesis or an explanation; it seems indeed at its outset to have been little more than the instinctive utterance of primitive animism."