CHAPTER IX

TRANCE, POSSESSION, AND ECSTASY

Vicit iter durum pietas.

--VIRGIL.

_Possession_, to define it for the moment in the narrowest way, is a more developed form of Motor Automatism. The difference broadly is, that in Possession the automatist's own personality does for the time altogether disappear, while there is a more or less complete _substitution_ of personality; writing or speech being given by a spirit through the entranced organism. The change which has come over this branch of evidence since the present work was first projected, in 1888, is most significant. There existed indeed, at that date, a good deal of evidence which pointed in this direction,[194] but for various reasons most of that evidence was still possibly explicable in other ways. Even the phenomena of Mr. W. S. Moses left it possible to argue that the main "controls" under which he wrote or spoke when entranced were self-suggestions of his own mind, or phases of his own deeper personality. I had not then had the opportunity, which the kindness of his executors after his death afforded to me, of studying the whole series of his original note-books, and forming at first-hand my present conviction that spiritual agency was an actual and important element in that long sequence of communications. On the whole, I did not then anticipate that the theory of possession could be presented as more than a plausible speculation, or as a supplement to other lines of proof of man's survival of death.

The position of things, as the reader of the S.P.R. _Proceedings_ knows, has since that time undergone a complete change. The trance-phenomena of Mrs. Piper--so long and so carefully watched by Dr. Hodgson and others--formed, I think, by far the most remarkable mass of psychical evidence till then adduced in any quarter. And more recently other series of trance-phenomena with other "mediums"--though still incomplete--have added materially to the evidence obtained through Mrs. Piper. The result broadly is that these phenomena of possession are now the most amply attested, as well as intrinsically the most advanced, in our whole repertory.

Nor, again, is the mere increment of direct evidence, important though that is, the sole factor in the changed situation. Not only has direct evidence grown, but indirect evidence, so to say, has moved to meet it. The notion of personality--of the control of organism by spirit--has gradually been so modified that Possession, which passed till the other day as a mere survival of savage thought, is now seen to be the consummation, the furthest development of many lines of experiment, observation, reflection, which the preceding chapters have opened to our view.

Let us then at once consider what the notion of possession does actually claim. It will be better to face that claim in its full extent at once, as it will be seen that the evidence, while rising through various stages, does in the end insist on all that the ancient term implies. The leading modern cases, of which Stainton Moses and Mrs. Piper may be taken as types, are closely analogous, presenting many undesigned coincidences, some of which come out only on close examination.

The claim, then, is that the automatist, in the first place, falls into a trance, during which his spirit partially "quits his body:" enters at any rate into a state in which the spiritual world is more or less open to its perception; and in which also--and this is the novelty--it so far ceases to occupy the organism as to leave room for an invading spirit to use it in somewhat the same fashion as its owner is accustomed to use it.

The brain being thus left temporarily and partially uncontrolled, a disembodied spirit sometimes, but not always, succeeds in occupying it; and occupies it with varying degrees of control. In some cases (Mrs. Piper) two or more spirits may simultaneously control different portions of the same organism.

The controlling spirit proves his identity mainly by reproducing, in speech or writing, facts which belong to his memory and not to the automatist's memory. He may also give evidence of supernormal perception of other kinds.

His manifestations may differ very considerably from the automatist's normal personality. Yet in one sense it is a process of selection rather than of addition; the spirit selects what parts of the brain-machinery he will use, but he cannot get out of that machinery more than it is constructed to perform. The spirit can indeed produce facts and names unknown to the automatist; but they must be, as a rule, such facts and names as the automatist could easily have repeated, had they been known to him:--not, for instance, mathematical formulæ or Chinese sentences, if the automatist is ignorant of mathematics or of Chinese.

After a time the control gives way, and the automatist's spirit returns. The automatist, awaking, may or may not remember his experiences in the spiritual world during the trance. In some cases (Swedenborg) there is this memory of the spiritual world, but no possession of the organism by an external spirit. In others (Cahagnet's subject) there is utterance during the trance as to what is being discerned by the automatist, yet no memory thereof on waking. In others (Mrs. Piper) there is neither utterance as a rule, or at least no prolonged utterance, by the automatist's own spirit, nor subsequent memory; but there is writing or utterance during the trance by controlling spirits.

Now this seems a strange doctrine to have reached after so much disputation. For it simply brings us back to the creeds of the Stone Age. We have come round again to the primitive practices of the shaman and the medicine-man;--to a doctrine of spiritual intercourse which was once oecumenical, but has now taken refuge in African swamps and Siberian tundras and the snow-clad wastes of the Red Indian and the Esquimaux. If, as is sometimes advised, we judge of the worth of ideas by tracing their _origins_, no conception could start from a lower level of humanity. It might be put out of court at once as unworthy of civilised men.

Fortunately, however, our previous discussions have supplied us with a somewhat more searching criterion. Instead of asking in what age a doctrine originated--with the implied assumption that the more recent it is, the better--we can now ask how far it is in accord or in discord with a great mass of actual recent evidence which comes into contact, in one way or another, with nearly every belief as to an unseen world which has been held at least by western men. Submitted to this test, the theory of possession gives a remarkable result. It cannot be said to be inconsistent with any of our proved facts. We know absolutely nothing which negatives its possibility.

Nay, more than this. The theory of possession actually supplies us with a powerful method of co-ordinating and explaining many earlier groups of phenomena, if only we will consent to explain them in a way which at first sight seemed extreme in its assumptions--seemed unduly prodigal of the marvellous. Yet as to that difficulty we have learnt by this time that no explanation of psychical phenomena is really simple, and that our best clue is to get hold of some group which seems to admit of one interpretation only, and then to use that group as a _point de repère_ from which to attack more complex problems.

Now I think that the Moses-Piper group of trance-phenomena cannot be intelligently explained on any theory except that of possession. And I therefore think it important to consider in what way earlier phenomena have led up to possession, and in what way the facts of possession, in their turn, affect our view of these earlier phenomena.

If we analyse our observations of possession, we find two main factors--the central operation, which is the control by a spirit of the sensitive's organism; and the indispensable prerequisite, which is the partial and temporary desertion of that organism by the percipient's own spirit.

Let us consider first how far this withdrawal of the living man's spirit from his organism has been rendered conceivable by evidence already obtained.

First of all, the splits, and substitutions of phases of personality with which our second chapter made us familiar have great significance for _possession_ also.

We have there seen some secondary personality, beginning with slight and isolated sensory and motor manifestations, yet going on gradually to complete predominance,--complete control of all supraliminal manifestation.

The mere collection and description of such phenomena has up till now savoured of a certain boldness. The idea of tracing the possible mechanism involved in these transitions has scarcely arisen.

Yet it is manifest that there must be a complex set of laws concerned with such alternating use of brain-centres;--developments, one may suppose, of those unknown physical laws underlying ordinary memory, of which no one has formed as yet even a first rough conception.

An ordinary case of ecmnesia may present problems as insoluble in their way as those offered by spirit-possession itself. There may be in ecmnesia periods of life absolutely and permanently extruded from memory; and there may be also periods which are only temporarily thus extruded. Thus on Wednesday and Thursday I may be unaware of what I learnt and did on Monday and Tuesday; and then on Friday I may recover Monday's and Tuesday's knowledge, as well as retaining Wednesday's and Thursday's, so that my brain-cells have taken on, so to say, two separate lines of education since Sunday--that which began on Monday, and that which began on Wednesday. These intercurrent educations may have been naturally discordant, and may be fused in all kinds of ways in the ultimate synthesis.

These processes are completely obscure; and all that can be said is that their mechanism probably belongs to the same unknown series of operations which ultimately lead to that completest break in the history of the brain-cells which consists in their intercalary occupation by an external spirit.

Passing on to _genius_, which I discussed in my third chapter, it is noticeable that there also there is a certain degree of temporary substitution of one control for another over important brain-centres. We must here regard the subliminal self as an entity partially distinct from the supraliminal, and its occupation of these brain-centres habitually devoted to supraliminal work is a kind of possession, which illustrates in yet another way the rapid metastasis of psychical product (so to term it) of which these highest centres are capable. The highest genius would thus be the completest _self-possession_,--the occupation and dominance of the whole organism by those profoundest elements of the self which act from the fullest knowledge, and in the wisest way.

The next main subject which fell under our description was _sleep_. And this state--the normal state which most resembles trance--has long ago suggested the question which first hints at the possibility of ecstasy, namely, What becomes of the soul during sleep? I think that our evidence has shown that sometimes during apparent ordinary sleep the spirit may travel away from the body, and may bring back a memory, more or less confused, of what it has seen in this clairvoyant excursion. This may indeed happen for brief flashes during waking moments also. But ordinary sleep seems to help the process; and deeper states of sleep--spontaneous or induced--seem still further to facilitate it. In the coma preceding death, or during that "suspended animation" which is sometimes taken for death, this travelling faculty has seemed to reach its highest point.

I have spoken of deeper states of sleep, "spontaneous or induced," and here the reader will naturally recall much that has been said of ordinary somnambulism, much that has been said of hypnotic trance. Hypnotic trance has created for us, with perfect facility, situations externally indistinguishable from what I shall presently claim as true possession. A quasi-personality, arbitrarily created, may occupy the organism, responding to speech or sign in some characteristic fashion, although without producing any fresh verifiable facts as evidence to the alleged identity. Nay, sometimes, as in a few of the Pesaro experiments (see _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. v. pp. 563-565), there may be indications that something of a new personality is there. And on the other hand, the sensitive's own spirit often claims to have been absent elsewhere,--much in the fashion in which it sometimes imagines itself to have been absent during ordinary sleep, but with greater persistence and lucidity.

Our inquiry into the nature of what is thus alleged to be seen in sleep and cognate states has proved instructive. Sometimes known earthly scenes appear to be revisited--with only such alteration as may have taken place since the sleeper last visited them in waking hours. But sometimes also there is an admixture of an apparently _symbolical_ element. The earthly scene includes some element of human action, which is presented in a selected or abbreviated fashion, as though some mind had been concerned to bring out a special significance from the complex story. Sometimes this element becomes quite dominant; phantasmal figures are seen; or there may be a prolonged symbolical representation of an entry into the spiritual world.

Cases like these do of course apparently support that primitive doctrine of the spirit's actual wandering in space. On the other hand, this notion has become unwelcome to modern thought, which is less unwilling to believe in some telepathic intercourse between mind and mind in which space is not involved. For my own part, I have already explained that I think that the evidence to an at least apparent movement of some kind in space must outweigh any mere speculative presumption against it. And I hold that these new experiences of possession fall on this controversy with decisive force. It is so strongly claimed, in every instance of possession, that the sensitive's own spirit must in some sense _vacate_ the organism, in order to allow another spirit to enter,--and the evidence for the reality of possession is at the same time so strong,--that I think that we must argue back from this spatial change as a relatively certain fact, and must place a corresponding interpretation on earlier phenomena. Such an interpretation, if once admitted, does certainly meet the phenomena in the way most accordant with the subjective impressions of the various percipients.

As we have already repeatedly found, it is the bold evolutionary hypothesis which best fixes and colligates the scattered facts. We encounter in these studies phenomena of degeneration and phenomena of evolution. The degenerative phenomena are explicable singly and in detail as declensions in divergent directions from an existing level. The evolutive phenomena point, on the other hand, to new generalisations;--to powers previously unrecognised towards which our evidence _converges_ along constantly multiplying lines.

This matter of psychical excursion from the organism ultimately involves the extremest claim to novel faculty which has ever been advanced for men. For it involves, as we shall see, the claim to _ecstasy_:--to a wandering vision which is not confined to this earth or this material world alone, but introduces the seer into the spiritual world and among communities higher than any which this planet knows. The discussion of this transportation, however, will be better deferred until after the evidence for possession has been laid before the reader at some length.

Continuing, then, for the present our analysis of the idea of possession, we come now to its specific feature,--the occupation by a spiritual agency of the entranced and partially vacated organism. Here it is that our previous studies will do most to clear our conceptions. Instead of at once leaping to the question of what spirits in their essence are,--of what they can do and cannot do,--of the antecedent possibility of their re-entry into matter, and the like,--we must begin by simply carrying the idea of telepathy to its furthest point. We must imagine telepathy becoming as central and as intense as possible;--and we shall find that of two diverging types of telepathic intercourse which will thus present themselves, the one will gradually correspond to possession, and the other to ecstasy.

But here let us pause, and consider what is the truest conception which we are by this time able to form of telepathy. The _word_ has been a convenient one; the _central notion_--of communication beyond this range of sense--can at any rate thus be expressed in simple terms. But nevertheless there has been nothing to assure us that our real comprehension of telepathic processes has got much deeper than that verbal definition. Our conception of telepathy, indeed, to say nothing of telæsthesia, has needed to be broadened with each fresh stage of our evidence. That evidence at first revealed to us certain transmissions of thoughts and images which suggested the passage of actual etherial vibrations from brain to brain. Nor indeed can any one say at any point of our evidence that etherial vibrations are demonstrably _not_ concerned in the phenomena. We cannot tell how far from the material world (to use a crude phrase) some etherial agency may possibly extend. But telepathic phenomena are in fact soon seen to overpass any development which imaginative analogy can give to the conception of etherial radiation from one material point to another.

For from the mere transmission of isolated ideas or pictures there is, as my readers know, a continuous progression to impressions and apparitions far more persistent and complex. We encounter an influence which suggests no mere impact of etherial waves, but an intelligent and responsive _presence_, resembling nothing so much as the ordinary human intercourse of persons in bodily nearness. Such visions or auditions, inward or externalised, are indeed sometimes felt to involve an even closer contact of spirits than the common intercourse of earth allows. One could hardly assign etherial undulations as their cause without assigning that same mechanism to all our emotions felt towards each other, or even to our control over our own organisms.

Nay, more. There is--as I have striven to show--a further progression from these telepathic intercommunications between living men to intercommunications between living men and discarnate spirits. And this new thesis,--in every way of vital importance,--while practically solving one problem on which I have already dwelt, opens also a possibility of the determination of another problem, nowise accessible until now. In the first place, we may now rest assured that telepathic communication is not necessarily propagated by vibrations proceeding from an ordinary material _brain_. For the discarnate spirit at any rate has no such brain from which to start them.

So much, in the first place, for the _agent's_ end of the communication.

And in the second place, we now discern a possibility of getting at the _percipient's_ end; of determining whether the telepathic impact is received by the _brain_ or by the _spirit_ of the living man, or by both inseparably, or sometimes by one and sometimes by the other.

On this problem, I say, the phenomena of automatic script, of trance-utterance, of spirit-possession, throw more of light than we could have ventured to hope.

Stated broadly, our trance-phenomena show us to begin with that several currents of communication can pass at once from discarnate spirits to a living man;--and can pass in very varying ways. For clearness' sake I will put aside for the present all cases where the telepathic impact takes an externalised or sensory form, and will speak only of intellectual impressions and motor automatisms.

Now these may pass through all grades of apparent _centrality_. If a man, awake and in other respects fully self-controlled, feels his hand impelled to scrawl words on a piece of paper, without consciousness of motor effort of _his own_, the impulse does not seem to him a _central_ one, although some part of his brain is presumably involved. On the other hand, a much less conspicuous invasion of his personality may feel much more central;--as, for instance, a premonition of evil,--an inward heaviness which he can scarcely define. And so the motor automatism goes on until it reaches the point of _possession_;--that is to say, until the man's own consciousness is absolutely in abeyance, and every part of his body is utilised by the invading spirit or spirits. What happens in such conditions to the man's ruling principle--to his own spirit--we must consider presently. But so far as his organism is concerned, the invasion seems complete: and it indicates a power which is indeed telepathic in a true sense;--yet not quite in the sense which we originally attached to the word. We first thought of telepathy as of a communication between two minds, whereas what we have here looks more like a communication between a mind and a body,--an external mind, in place of the mind which is accustomed to rule that particular body.

There is in such a case no apparent communication between the discarnate mind and the _mind_ of the automatist. Rather there is a kind of contact between the discarnate mind and the _brain_ of the automatist, in so far that the discarnate mind, pursuing its own ends, is helped up to a certain point by the accumulated capacities of the automatist's brain;--and similarly is hindered by its incapacities.

Yet here the most characteristic element of telepathy, I repeat, seems to have dropped out altogether. There is no perceptible communion between the mind of the entranced person and any other mind whatever. He is _possessed_, but is kept in unconsciousness, and never regains memory of what his lips have uttered during his trance.

But let us see whether we have thus grasped all the trance-phenomena;--whether something else may not be going on, which is more truly, more centrally telepathic.

To go back to the earliest stage of telepathic experience, we can see well enough that the experimental process might quite possibly involve two different factors. The percipient's mind must somehow receive the telepathic impression;--and to this reception we can assign no definite physical correlative;--and also the percipient's motor or sensory centres must receive an excitation;--which excitation may be communicated, for aught we know, either by his own mind in the ordinary way, or by the agent's mind in some direct way,--which I may call _telergic_, thus giving a more precise sense to a word which I long ago suggested as a kind of correlative to _telepathic_. That is to say, there may even in these apparently simple cases be first a transmission from agent to percipient in the spiritual world, and then an action on the percipient's physical brain, of the same type as spirit-possession. This action on the physical brain may be due either to the percipient's own spirit, or subliminal self, or else directly to the agent's spirit. For I must repeat that the phenomena of possession seem to indicate that the extraneous spirit acts on a man's organism in very much the same way as the man's own spirit habitually acts on it. One must thus practically regard the body as an instrument upon which a spirit plays;--an ancient metaphor which now seems actually our nearest approximation to truth.

Proceeding to the case of telepathic or veridical apparitions, we see the same hints of a double nature in the process;--traces of two elements mingling in various degrees. At the spiritual end there may be what we have called "clairvoyant visions,"--pictures manifestly symbolical, and not located by the observer in ordinary three-dimensional space. These seem analogous to the views of the spiritual world which the sensitive enjoys during entrancement. Then comes that larger class of veridical apparitions where the figure seems to be externalised from the percipient's mind, some stimulus having actually been applied,--whether by agent's or percipient's spirit,--to the appropriate brain-centre. These cases of "sensory automatism" resemble those experimental transferences of pictures of cards, etc. And beyond these again, on the physical or rather the ultra-physical side, come those _collective_ apparitions which in my view involve some unknown kind of modification of a certain portion of space not occupied by any organism,--as opposed to a modification of centres in one special brain. Here comes in, as I hold, the gradual transition from subjective to objective, as the portion of space in question is modified in a manner to affect a larger and larger number of percipient minds.

Now when we proceed from these apparitions of the living to apparitions of the departed, we find very much the same types persisting still. We find symbolical _visions_ of departed persons, and of scenes among which they seem to dwell. We find externalised _apparitions_ or phantasms of departed persons,--indicating that some point in the percipient's brain has been stimulated by his own or by some other spirit. And finally, as has already been said, we find that in certain cases of possession these two kinds of influence are simultaneously carried to an extreme. The percipient automatist of earlier stages becomes no longer a percipient but an automatist pure and simple,--so far as his body is concerned,--for his whole brain--not one point alone--seems now to be stimulated and controlled by an extraneous spirit, and he is not himself aware of what his body writes or utters. And meantime his spirit, partially set free from the body, may be purely percipient;--may be enjoying that other spiritual form of communication more completely than in any type of vision which our description had hitherto reached.

This point attained, another analogy, already mentioned, will be at once recalled. There is another class of phenomena, besides telepathy, of which this definition of possession at once reminds us. We have dealt much with _secondary personalities_,--with severances and alternations affecting a man's own spirit, in varying relation with his organism. Félida X.'s developed secondary personality, for instance (Appendix II. C), might be defined as another fragment--or another synthesis--of Félida's spirit acting upon her organism in much the same way as the original fragment--or the primary synthesis--of her spirit was wont to act upon it.

Plainly, this analogy is close enough to be likely to lead to practical confusion. On what grounds can we base our distinctions? What justifies us in saying that Félida X.'s organism was controlled only by another modification of her own personality, but that Mrs. Piper's is controlled by George Pelham (see page 330 _et seq._)? May there not be any amount of self-suggestion, colouring with the fictitious hue of all kinds of identities what is in reality no more than an allotropic form of the entranced person himself? Is even the possession by the new personality of some fragments of fresh knowledge any proof of spirit-control? May not that knowledge be gained clairvoyantly or telepathically, with no intervention of any spirit other than of living men?

Yes, indeed, we must reply, there _is_ here a danger of confusion, there _is_ a lack of any well-defined dividing line. While we must decide on general rules, we must also keep our minds open to possible exceptions.

On the negative side, indeed, general rules will carry us a good way. We must _not_ allow ourselves to ascribe to spirit-control cases where no new knowledge is shown in the trance state. And this rule has at once an important consequence,--a consequence which profoundly modifies the antique idea of possession. I know of no evidence,--reaching in any way our habitual standard,--either for angelic, for diabolical, or for hostile possession.

And here comes the question: What attitude are we to assume to savage cases of possession? Are we to accept as genuine the possession of the Esquimaux, the Chinaman,--nay, of the Hebrew of old days?

Chinese possession is a good example, as described in Dr. Nevius' book (on _Demon Possession and Allied Themes_, an account of which by Professor Newbold is given in _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. xiii. p. 602 [912 A]). I agree with Professor Newbold in holding that no proof has been shown that there is more in the Chinese cases than that hysterical duplication of personality with which we are so familiar in France and elsewhere.

A devil is not a creature whose existence is independently known to science; and from the accounts the behaviour of the invading devils seems due to mere self-suggestion. With uncivilised races, even more than among our own friends, we are bound to insist on the rule that there must be some supernormal knowledge shown before we may assume an external influence. It may of course be replied that the character shown by the "devils" was fiendish and actually _hostile_ to the possessed person. Can we suppose that the tormentor was actually a fraction of the tormented?

I reply that such a supposition, so far from being absurd, is supported by well-known phenomena both in insanity and in mere hysteria.

Especially in the Middle Ages,--amid powerful self-suggestions of evil and terror,--did these quasi-possessions reach an intensity and violence which the calm and sceptical atmosphere of the modern hospital checks and discredits. The devils with terrifying names which possessed Soeur Angélique of Loudun[195] would at the Salpêtrière under Charcot in our days have figured merely as stages of "clounisme" and "attitudes passionelles."

And even now these splits of personality seem occasionally to destroy all sympathy between the normal individual and a divergent fraction. No great sympathy was felt by Léonie II. for Léonie I.[196] And Dr. Morton Prince's case[197] shows us the deepest and ablest of the personalities of his "Miss Beauchamp" positively spiteful in its relation to her main identity.

Bizarre though a house thus divided against itself may seem, the moral dissidence is merely an exaggeration of the moral discontinuity observable in the typical case of Mrs. Newnham.[198] _There_ the secondary intelligence was merely tricky, not malevolent. But its trickiness was wholly alien from Mrs. Newnham's character,--was something, indeed, which she would have energetically repudiated.

It seems, therefore,--and the analogy of dreams points in this direction also,--that our moral nature is as easily split up as our intellectual nature, and that we cannot be any more certain that the minor current of personality which is diverted into some new channel will retain _moral_ than that it will retain _intellectual_ coherence.

To return once more to the Chinese devil-possessions. Dr. Nevius asserts, though without adducing definite proof, that the possessing devils sometimes showed supernormal knowledge. This is a better argument for their separate existence than their fiendish temper is; but it is not in itself enough. The knowledge does not seem to have been specially appropriate to the supposed informing spirit. It seems as though it may have depended upon heightened memory, with possibly some slight telepathic or telæsthetic perception. Heightened memory is thoroughly characteristic of some hysterical phases; and even the possible traces of telepathy (although far the most important feature of the phenomena, if they really occurred) are, as we have seen, not unknown in trance states (like Léonie's) where there is no indication of an invading spirit.

Temporary control of the organism by a widely divergent fragment of the personality, self-suggested in some dream-like manner into hostility to the main mass of the personality, and perhaps better able than that normal personality to reach and manipulate certain stored impressions,--or even certain supernormal influences,--such will be the formula to which we shall reduce the invading Chinese devil, as described by Dr. Nevius,--and _probably_ the great majority of supposed devil-possessions of similar type.

The great majority, no doubt, but perhaps not _all_. It would indeed be matter for surprise if such trance-phenomena as those of Mrs. Piper and other modern cases had appeared in the world without previous parallel. Much more probable is it that similar phenomena have occurred sporadically from the earliest times,--although men have not had enough of training to analyse them.

And, in fact, among the endless descriptions of trance-phenomena with which travellers furnish us, there are many which include points so concordant with our recent observations that we cannot but attach some weight to coincidences so wholly undesigned.[199] But although this may be admitted, I still maintain that the only invaders of the organism who have as yet made good their title have been human, and have been friendly; and with this clearance should, I think, vanish the somewhat grim associations which have gathered around the word _possession_.

Assuming, then, as I think we at present may assume, that we have to deal only with spirits who have been men like ourselves, and who are still animated by much the same motives as those which influence us, we may briefly consider, on similar analogical grounds, what range of spirits are likely to be able to affect us, and what difficulties they are likely to find in doing so. Of course, actual experience alone can decide this; but nevertheless our expectations may be usefully modified if we reflect beforehand how far such changes of personality as we already know can suggest to us the limits of these profounder substitutions.

What, to begin with, do we find to be the case as to addition of faculty in alternating states? How far do such changes bring with them unfamiliar powers?

Reference to the recorded cases will show us that existing faculty may be greatly quickened and exalted. There may be an increase both in actual perception and in power of remembering or reproducing what has once been perceived. There may be increased control over muscular action,--as shown, for instance, in improved billiard-playing,--in the secondary state. But there is little evidence of the acquisition--telepathy apart--of any actual mass of fresh knowledge,--such as a new language, or a stage of mathematical knowledge unreached before. We shall not therefore be justified by analogy in expecting that an external spirit controlling an organism will be able easily to modify it in such a way as to produce speech in a language previously unknown. The brain is used as something between a typewriter and a calculating machine. German words, for instance, are not mere combinations of letters, but specific formulæ; they can only seldom and with great difficulty be got out of a machine which has not been previously fashioned for their production.

Consider, again, the analogies as to _memory_. In the case of alternations of personality, memory fails and changes in what seems a quite capricious way. The gaps which then occur recall (as I have said) the _ecmnesia_ or blank unrecollected spaces which follow upon accidents to the head, or upon crises of fever, when all memories that belong to a particular person or to a particular period of life are clean wiped out, other memories remaining intact. Compare, again, the memory of waking life which we retain in _dream_. This too is absolutely capricious;--I may forget my own name in a dream, and yet remember perfectly the kind of chairs in my dining-room. Or I may remember the chairs, but locate them in some one else's house. No one can predict the kind of confusion which may occur.

We have also the parallel of _somnambulic utterance_. In talking with a somnambulist, be the somnambulism natural or induced, we find it hard to get into continuous colloquy on our own subjects. To begin with, he probably will not speak continuously for long together. He drops back into a state in which he cannot express himself at all. And when he does talk, he is apt to talk only on his own subjects;--to follow out his own train of ideas,--interrupted rather than influenced by what _we_ say to _him_. The difference of _state_ between waking and sleep is in many ways hard to bridge over.

We have thus three parallelisms which may guide and limit our expectations. From the parallelism of possession with split personalities we may infer that a possessing spirit is not likely to be able to inspire into the recipient brain ideas or words of very unfamiliar type. From the parallelism of possession with dream we may infer that the memory of the possessing spirit may be subject to strange omissions and confusions. From the parallelism with somnambulism we may infer that colloquy between a human observer and the possessing spirit is not likely to be full or free, but rather to be hampered by difference of state, and abbreviated by the difficulty of maintaining psychical contact for long together.

These remarks will, I hope, prepare the reader to consider the problems of possession with the same open-mindedness which has been needed for the study of previous problems attacked in the present work.

But before we can proceed to the actual evidence there is another aspect of possession which must be explained. A group of phenomena are involved which have in various ways done much to confuse and even to retard our main inquiry, but which, when properly placed and understood, are seen to form an inevitable part of any scheme which strives to discover the influence of unseen agencies in the world we know.

In our discussion of all telepathic and other supernormal influence I have thus far regarded it mainly from the psychological and not from the physical side. I have spoken as though the field of supernormal action has been always the metetherial world. Yet true as this dictum may be in its deepest sense, it cannot represent the _whole_ truth "for beings such as we are, in a world like the present." For us every psychological fact has (so far as we know) a physical side; and metetherial events, to be perceptible to us, must somehow affect the world of matter.

In sensory and motor automatisms, then, we see effects, supernormally initiated, upon the world of matter.

_Imprimis_, of course, and in ordinary life our own spirits (their existence once granted) affect our own bodies and are our standing examples of spirit affecting matter. Next, if a man receives a telepathic impact from another incarnate spirit which causes him to see a phantasmal figure, that man's brain has, we may suppose, been directly affected by his own spirit rather than by the spirit of the distant friend. But it may not always be true even in the case of sensory automatisms that the distant spirit has made a suggestion merely to the percipient's spirit which the percipient's own spirit carries out; and in motor automatisms, as they develop into _possession_, there are indications, as I have already pointed out, that the influence of the agent's spirit is _telergic_ rather than telepathic, and that we have extraneous spirits influencing the human brain or organism. That is to say, they are producing movements in matter;--even though that matter be organised matter and those movements molecular.

So soon as this fact is grasped,--and it has not always been grasped by those who have striven to establish a fundamental difference between spiritual influence on our spirits and spiritual influence on the material world,--we shall naturally be prompted to inquire whether inorganic matter as well as organic ever shows the agency of extraneous spirits upon it. The reply which first suggests itself is, of course, in the negative. We are constantly dealing with inorganic matter, and no hypothesis of spiritual influence exerted on such matter is needed to explain our experiments. But this is a rough general statement, hardly likely to cover phenomena so rare and fugitive as many of those with which in this inquiry we deal. Let us begin, so to say, at the other end; not with the broad experience of life, but with the delicate and exceptional cases of _possession_ of which we have lately been speaking.

Suppose that a discarnate spirit, in temporary possession of a living organism, is impelling it to motor automatisms. Can we say _a priori_ what the limits of such automatic movements of that organism are likely to be, in the same way as we can say what the limits of any of its voluntary movements are likely to be? May not this extraneous spirit get more motor power out of the organism than the waking man himself can get out of it? It would not surprise us, for example, if the movements in trance showed increased _concentration_; if a dynamometer (for instance) was more forcibly squeezed by the spirit acting through the man than by the man himself. Is there any other way in which one would imagine that a spirit possessing me could use my vital force more skilfully than I could use it myself?

I do not know how my will moves my arm; but I know by experience that my will generally moves only my arm and what my arm can touch;--whatever objects are actually in contact with the "protoplasmic skeleton" which represents the life of my organism. Yet I can sometimes move objects not in actual contact, as by melting them with the heat or (in the dry air of Colorado) kindling them with the electricity, which my fingers emit. I see no very definite limit to this power. I do not know all the forms of energy which my fingers might, under suitable training, emit.

And now suppose that a possessing spirit can use my organism more skilfully than I can. May he not manage to emit from that organism some energy which can visibly move ponderable objects not actually in contact with my flesh? That would be a phenomenon of possession not very unlike its other phenomena;--and it would be _telekinesis_.

By that word (due to M. Aksakoff) it is convenient to describe what have been called "the physical phenomena of spiritualism," as to whose existence as a reality, and not as a system of fraudulent pretences, fierce controversy has raged for half a century, and is still raging.

The interest excited in the ordinary public by these phenomena has, as is well known, fostered much fraud, to expose and guard against which has been one of the main tasks of the S.P.R.[200]

Indeed, the persistent simulation of telekinesis has, naturally enough, inspired persistent doubt as to its genuine occurrence even in cases where simulation has been carefully guarded against, or is antecedently improbable. And thus while believing absolutely in the occurrence of telekinetic phenomena, I yet hold that it would be premature to press them upon my readers' belief, or to introduce them as an integral part of my general expository scheme. From one point of view, their detailed establishment, as against the theory of fraud, demands an expert knowledge of conjuring and other arts which I cannot claim to possess. From another point of view, their right comprehension must depend upon a knowledge of the relations between matter and ether such as is now only dimly adumbrated by the most recent discoveries;--for instance, discoveries as to previously unsuspected forms of radiation.

In a long Appendix, viz., "Scheme of Vital Faculty"[201]--originally written with reference to the manifestations through Mr. Stainton Moses--I have tried to prepare the way for future inquiries; to indicate in what directions a better equipped exploration may hereafter reap rich reward. Even that tentative sketch, perhaps, may have been too ambitious for my powers in the present state not only of my own, but of human knowledge; and in this chapter I shall allude to telekinetic phenomena only where unavoidable,--owing to their inmixture into phenomena more directly psychological,--and in the tone of the historian rather than of the scientific critic.

* * * * *[202]

The way has now been so far cleared for our cases of Possession that at least the principal phenomena claimed have been (I hope) made intelligible, and shown to be concordant with other phenomena already described and attested. It will be best, however, to consider first some of the more rudimentary cases before going on to our own special instances of possession,--those of Mr. Stainton Moses or Mrs. Piper.

We have already seen that there is no great gulf between the sudden incursions, the rapid messages of the dead, with which we are already familiar, and incursions so intimate, messages so prolonged, as to lay claim to a name more descriptive than that of motor automatisms.

And similarly no line of absolute separation can be drawn between the brief psychical _excursions_ previously described, and those more prolonged excursions of the spirit which I would group under the name of ecstasy.

In the earlier part of this book I have naturally dwelt rather on the evidence for supernormal acquisition of knowledge than on the methods of such acquisition, and my present discussion must needs be restricted to a certain extent in the same way. We must, however, attempt some provisional scheme of classification, though recognising that the difficulties of interpretation which I pointed out in Chapter IV., when endeavouring to distinguish between telepathy and telæsthesia, meet us again in dealing with possession and ecstasy. We may not, that is, be able to say, as regards a particular manifestation, whether it is an instance of incipient possession, or incipient ecstasy, or even whether the organism is being "controlled" directly by some extraneous spirit or by its own incarnate spirit. It is from the extreme cases that we form our categories. But now that we have reached some conception of what is involved in ecstasy and possession, we can interpret some earlier cases in this new light. Such experiences, for instance, as those of Mr. Mamtchitch (Appendix VII. A) and Miss Conley (Appendix VII. D), suggest a close kinship to the more developed cases of Mr. Moses and Mrs. Piper.

In other cases it may be clear that no control of any discarnate spirit is involved, but there seems to be something like incipient possession by the subliminal self or incarnate spirit. From this point of view the first case given in Appendix IX. B is of undoubted psychological interest. If it is not a case of thought-transference from Miss C. to Mrs. Luther (possibly between their subliminal selves during sleep), we must assume that a very remarkable recrudescence of latent memory occurred to the latter independently, at the same time that a similar though less remarkable revival of memory occurred to the former. But I introduce the case here simply as suggestive of the momentary domination of the subliminal over the supraliminal self.

In Professor Thoulet's case[203] we find a fuller control by the subliminal self, with a manifestation of knowledge suggesting some spiritual excursion; in Mr. Goodall's case there seems to be a telepathic conversation between his subliminal self controlling his utterance and some perhaps discarnate spirit; and finally, in Mr. Wilkie's case, there is the definite superposition, as it were, of a discarnate spirit's message upon the automatist in such a way that we are led to wonder whether it was the _mind_ or the _brain_ of the automatist that received the message. The first step apparently is the abeyance of the supraliminal self and the dominance of the subliminal self, which may lead in rare cases to a form of trance (or of what we have hitherto called secondary personality) where the whole body of the automatist is controlled by his own subliminal self, or incarnate spirit, but where there is no indication of any relation with discarnate spirits. The next form of trance is where the incarnate spirit, whether or not maintaining control of the whole body, makes excursions into or holds telepathic intercourse with the spiritual world. And, lastly, there is the trance of possession by another, a discarnate spirit. We cannot, of course, always distinguish between these three main types of trance--which, as we shall see later, themselves admit of different degrees and varieties.

The most striking case known to me of the first form of trance--possession by the subliminal self--is that of the Rev. C. B. Sanders,[204] whose trance-personality has always called itself by the name of "X + Y = Z." The life of the normal Mr. Sanders has apparently been passed in the environment of a special form of Presbyterian doctrine, and there seems to have been a fear on the part of Mr. Sanders himself lest the trance manifestations of which he was the subject should conflict with the theological position which he held as a minister; and indeed for several years of his early suffering "he was inclined to regard his peculiar case of affliction as the result of Satanic agency." On the part of some of his friends also there seems to be a special desire to show that "X + Y = Z" was not heterodox. Under these circumstances it is perhaps not surprising that we find so much reticence in "X + Y = Z" concerning his own relations to the normal Mr. Sanders, whom he calls "his casket." What little explanation is offered seems to be in singular harmony with one of the main tenets advanced in this book, since the claim made by "X + Y = Z" is obviously that he represents the incarnate spirit of Mr. Sanders exercising the higher faculties which naturally pertain to it, but which can be manifested to the full only when it is freed from its fleshly barriers. This frequently occurs, he says, in dying persons, who describe scenes in the spiritual world, and in his own experience when "his casket" is similarly affected, and the bodily obstructions to spiritual vision are removed.

In this case, then, the subliminal self seems to take complete control of the organism, exercising its own powers of telepathy and telæsthesia, but showing no evidence of direct communication with discarnate spirits. We must now pass on to the most notable recent case where such communication has been claimed,--that of Swedenborg,--to whose exceptional trance-history and attempt to give some scientific system to his experiences of ecstasy I referred in Chapter I.

The _evidential_ matter which Swedenborg has left behind him is singularly scanty in comparison with his pretensions to a communion of many years with so many spirits of the departed. But I think that the half-dozen "evidential cases" scattered through his memoirs are stamped with the impress of truth,--and I think, also, that without some true experience of the spiritual world Swedenborg could not have entered into that atmosphere of truth in which even his worst errors are held in solution. Swedenborg's writings on the world of spirits fall in the main into two classes,--albeit classes not easily divided. There are _experiential_ writings and there are _dogmatic_ writings. The first of these classes contains accounts of what he saw and felt in that world, and of such inferences with regard to its laws as his actual experience suggested. Now, speaking broadly, all this mass of matter, covering some hundreds of propositions, is in substantial accord with what has been given through the most trustworthy sensitives since Swedenborg's time. It is indeed usual to suppose that they have all been influenced by Swedenborg; and although I feel sure that this was not so in any direct manner in the case of the sensitives best known to myself, it is probable that Swedenborg's alleged experiences have affected modern thought more deeply than most modern thinkers know.

On the other hand, the _second_ or purely _dogmatic_ class of Swedenborg's writings,--the records of instruction alleged to have been given to him by spirits on the inner meaning of the Scriptures, etc.,--these have more and more appeared to be mere arbitrary fancies;--mere projections and repercussions of his own preconceived ideas.

On the whole, then,--with some stretching, yet no contravention, of conclusions independently reached,--I may say that Swedenborg's story,--one of the strangest lives yet lived by mortal men,--is corroborative rather than destructive of the slowly rising fabric of knowledge of which he was the uniquely gifted, but uniquely dangerous, precursor.

It seemed desirable here to refer thus briefly to the doctrinal teachings of Swedenborg, but I shall deal later with the general question how much or how little of the statements of "sensitives" about the spiritual world--whether based on their own visions or on the allegations of their "controlling spirits"--are worthy of credence. In the case of Swedenborg there was at least some evidence, of the kind to which we can here appeal, of his actual communication with discarnate spirits;[205] but in most other cases of alleged ecstasy there is little or nothing to show that the supposed revelations are not purely subjective. (See, _e.g._, the revelations of Alphonse Cahagnet's sensitives, described in his _Arcanes de la vie future dévoilées_.)[206] At most, these visions must be regarded as a kind of symbolical representation of the unseen world.[207]

Among Cahagnet's subjects, however, there was one young woman, Adèle Maginot, who not only saw heavenly visions of the usual post-Swedenborgian kind, but also obtained evidential communications--not unlike those of Mrs. Piper--purporting to come from discarnate spirits. Fortunately these were recorded with unusual care and thoroughness by Cahagnet, and the case thus becomes one of considerable importance for our inquiries. A general account of Cahagnet's work has recently been given in the _Proceedings_ S.P.R. (vol. xiv. p. 50) by Mr. Podmore, who, though finding it "almost impossible to doubt that Adèle's success was due to some kind of supernormal faculty," thinks it might be accounted for by telepathy from living persons. It appears that in all her trances Adèle--like Mr. Sanders--was controlled by her own subliminal self--that is to say, her supraliminal self became dormant, under "magnetism" by Cahagnet, while her subliminal self in trance-utterance manifested a knowledge which was, as I incline to think from its analogies with more developed cases, obtained from the spiritual world. That this knowledge should be mixed with much that was erroneous or unverifiable is not surprising.

It is also interesting to note the occurrence in this case of circumstances which in their general character have become so habitual in trances of "mediumistic" type that they are not only found in genuine subjects, but are continually being simulated by the fraudulent. I refer to the so-called "taking on of the death conditions" of a communicating spirit, who, as Adèle stated, died of suffocation. "Adèle chokes as this man choked, and coughed as he did.... I was obliged to release her by passes; she suffered terribly."

I need scarcely say that this suggests incipient possession. There were occasional analogous instances in the early trances of Mrs. Piper, when Phinuit was the controlling influence (see _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. viii. p. 98, Professor Barrett Wendell's account; and vol. xiii. p. 384). Other points of similarity between the accounts of the entranced Adèle and the utterances of Phinuit will be apparent to the student of the records.

The next case to be considered, and so far one of the most important, is that of D. D. Home.

The study of such records as are available of Home's psychical phenomena leaves me with the conviction that,--apart altogether from the telekinetic phenomena with which they were associated,--his trance-utterances belong to the same natural order as those, for instance, of Mr. Moses and Mrs. Piper. There are, however, important differences between these cases,--differences which should be of special instruction to us in endeavouring to comprehend the possession that completely excludes the subliminal self, and to appreciate the difficulty of obtaining this complete possession.

Thus in Home's case the subliminal self seems, throughout the longest series of séances of which we have a record, to have been the spirit chiefly controlling him during the trance and acting as intermediary for other spirits, who occasionally, however, took complete possession.

In Mrs. Piper's case, as we shall see, the subliminal self is very little in direct evidence; its manifestations form a fleeting interlude between her waking state and her possession by a discarnate spirit. In Mr. Moses' case, the subliminal self was rarely in direct evidence at all when he was entranced; but we infer from these other cases that it was probably dominant at some stage of his trance, even if at other times it was excluded or became completely dormant.

And if, in Home's case, as there seems reason to suppose, the subliminal self may have participated with discarnate spirits in the production of telekinetic phenomena, as well as in the communication of tests of personal identity, it is not improbable that the subliminal self of Mr. Moses may also have been actively concerned in both these classes of phenomena.

But, although I attribute much value to what evidence exists in the case of Home, it cannot but be deplored that the inestimable chance for experiment and record which this case afforded was almost entirely thrown away by the scientific world. Unfortunately the record is especially inadequate in reference to Home's trances and the evidence for the personal identity of the communicating spirits. His name is known to the world chiefly in connection with the telekinetic phenomena which are said to have occurred in his presence, and the best accounts of which we owe to Sir William Crookes. It is not my intention, as I have already explained, to deal with these, but it must be understood that they form an integral part of the manifestations in this case, as in the case of Stainton Moses. For detailed accounts of them the reader should consult the history of Home's life and experiences.[208]

To the history of William Stainton Moses I now turn. Here the evidence for the telekinetic phenomena is comparatively slight, since they occurred almost exclusively in the presence of a small group of intimate personal friends, and were never scrutinised and examined by outside witnesses as were Home's manifestations. On the other hand, we have detailed records of Mr. Moses' whole series of experiences, while in the case of Home, as I have said, the record is very imperfect. As to the telekinetic phenomena, Mr. Moses himself regarded them as a mere means to an end, in accordance with the view urged on him by his "controls,"--that they were intended as proofs of the power and authority of these latter, while the real message lay in the religious teaching imparted to him.

It was on May 9th, 1874, that Edmund Gurney and I met Stainton Moses for the first time, through the kindness of Mrs. Cowper-Temple (afterwards Lady Mount-Temple), who knew that we had become interested in "psychical" problems, and wished to introduce us to a man of honour who had recently experienced phenomena, due wholly to some gift of his own, which had profoundly changed his conception of life.

Here was a man of University education, of manifest sanity and probity, who vouched to us for a series of phenomena,--occurring to himself, and with no doubtful or venal aid,--which seemed at least to prove, in confusedly intermingled form, three main theses unknown to Science. These were (1) the existence in the human spirit of hidden powers of insight and of communication; (2) the personal survival and near presence of the departed; and (3) interference, due to unknown agencies, with the ponderable world. He spoke frankly and fully; he showed his note-books; he referred us to his friends; he inspired a belief which was at once sufficient, and which is still sufficient, to prompt to action.

The experiences which Stainton Moses had undergone had changed his views, but not his character. He was already set in the mould of the hard-working, conscientious, dogmatic clergyman, with a strong desire to do good, and a strong belief in preaching as the best way to do it. For himself the essential part of what I have called his "message" lay in the actual words automatically uttered or written,--not in the accompanying phenomena which really gave their uniqueness and importance to the automatic processes. In a book called _Spirit Teachings_ he collected what he regarded as the real fruits of those years of mysterious listening in the vestibule of a world unknown.

My original impressions as regards Mr. Moses were strengthened by the opportunity which I had of examining his unpublished MSS. after his death on September 5th, 1892. These consist of thirty-one note-books--twenty-four of automatic script, four of records of physical phenomena, and three of retrospect and summary. In addition to these, the material available for a knowledge of Mr. Moses' experiences consists of his own printed works, and the written and printed statements of witnesses to his phenomena.

Of this available material a detailed account will be found in _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. ix. pp. 245-352, and vol. xi. pp. 24-113, together with a brief record of Mr. Moses' life.

With the even tenor of this straightforward and reputable life was inwoven a chain of mysteries which, as I think, in what way soever they be explained, make it one of the most extraordinary which our century has seen. For its true history lies in that series of physical manifestations which began in 1872 and lasted for some eight years, and that series of automatic writings and trance-utterances which began in 1873, received a record for some ten years, and did not, as is believed, cease altogether until the earthly end was near.

These two series were intimately connected; the physical phenomena being avowedly designed to give authority to the speeches and writings which professed to emanate from the same source. There is no ground for separating the two groups, except the obvious one that the automatic phenomena are less difficult of credence than the physical; but, for reasons already stated, it has seemed to me desirable to exclude the latter from detailed treatment in this work. They included the apparent production of such phenomena as intelligent raps, movements of objects untouched, levitation, disappearance and reappearance of objects, passage of matter through matter, direct writing, sounds supernormally made on instruments, direct sounds, scents, lights, objects materialised, hands materialised (touched or seen). Mr. Moses was sometimes, but not always, entranced while these physical phenomena were occurring. Sometimes he was entranced and the trance-utterance purported to be that of a discarnate spirit. At other times, especially when alone, he wrote automatically, retaining his own ordinary consciousness meanwhile, and carrying on lengthy discussions with the "spirit influence" controlling his hand and answering his questions, etc. As a general rule the same alleged spirits both manifested themselves by raps, etc., at Mr. Moses' sittings with his friends, and also wrote through his hand when he was alone. In this, as in other respects, Mr. Moses' two series of writings--when alone and in company--were concordant, and, so to say, complementary;--explanations being given by the writing of what had happened at the séances. When "direct writing" was given at the séances the handwriting of each alleged spirit was the same as that which the same spirit was in the habit of employing in the automatic script. The claim to individuality was thus in all cases decisively made.

Now the personages thus claiming to appear may be divided roughly into three classes:--

A.--First and most important are a group of persons recently deceased, and sometimes manifesting themselves at the séances before their decease was known through any ordinary channel to any of the persons present. These spirits in many instances give tests of identity, mentioning facts connected with their earth-lives which are afterwards found to be correct.

B.--Next comes a group of personages belonging to generations more remote, and generally of some distinction in their day. Grocyn, the friend of Erasmus, may be taken as a type of these. Many of these also contribute facts as a proof of identity, which facts are sometimes more correct than the conscious or admitted knowledge of any of the sitters could supply. In such cases, however, the difficulty of proving identity is increased by the fact that most of the correct statements are readily accessible in print, and may conceivably have either been read and forgotten by Mr. Moses, or have become known to him by some kind of clairvoyance.

C.--A third group consists of spirits who give such names as Rector, Doctor, Theophilus, and, above all, Imperator. These from time to time reveal the names which they assert to have been theirs in earth-life. These concealed names are for the most part both more illustrious, and more remote, than the names in Class B,--and were withheld by Mr. Moses himself, who justly felt that the assumption of great names is likely to diminish rather than to increase the weight of the communication.

I now pass on to consider briefly the nature of the evidence that the alleged spirits were what they purported to be, as described, in the first place, in Mr. Moses' books of automatic writing. The contents of these books consist partly of messages tending to prove the identity of communicating spirits; partly of discussions or explanations of the physical phenomena; and partly of religious and moral disquisitions.

These automatic messages were almost wholly written by Mr. Moses' own hand, while he was in a normal waking state. The exceptions are of two kinds. (1) There is one long passage, alleged by Mr. Moses to have been written by himself while in a state of trance. (2) There are, here and there, a few words alleged to be in "direct writing";--written, that is to say, by invisible hands, but in Mr. Moses' presence; as several times described in the notes of séances where other persons were present.

Putting these exceptional instances aside, we find that the writings generally take the form of a dialogue, Mr. Moses proposing a question in his ordinary thick, black handwriting. An answer is then generally, though not always, given; written also by Mr. Moses, and with the same pen, but in some one of various scripts which differ more or less widely from his own. Mr. Moses' own description of the process, as given in the preface to _Spirit Teachings_, may be studied with advantage.

A prolonged study of the MS. books has revealed nothing inconsistent with this description. I have myself, of course, searched them carefully for any sign of confusion or alteration, but without finding any; and I have shown parts of them to various friends, who have seen no points of suspicion. It seems plain, moreover, that the various entries were made at or about the dates to which they are ascribed. They contain constant references to the séances which went on concurrently, and whose dates are independently known; and in the later books, records of some of these séances are interspersed in their due places amongst other matter. The MSS. contain also a number of allusions to other contemporaneous facts, many of which are independently known to myself.

I think, moreover, that no one who had studied these entries throughout would doubt the originally private and intimate character of many of them. The tone of the spirits towards Mr. Moses himself is habitually courteous and respectful. But occasionally they have some criticism which pierces to the quick, and which goes far to explain to me Mr. Moses' unwillingness to have the books fully inspected during his lifetime. He did, no doubt, contemplate their being at least read by friends after his death; and there are indications that there may have been a still more private book, now doubtless destroyed, to which messages of an intimate character were sometimes consigned.

Indeed, the questions at issue, as to these messages, refer not so much to their _genuineness_ as to their _authenticity_, in the proper sense of those words. That they were written down in good faith by Mr. Moses as proceeding from the personages whose names are signed to them, there can be little doubt. But as to whether they did really proceed from those personages or no there may in many cases be very great doubt;--a doubt which I, at least, shall be quite unable to remove. By the very conditions of the communication they cannot show commanding intellect, or teach entirely new truths, since their manifestations are _ex hypothesi_ limited by the capacity--not by the previous _knowledge_, but by the previous _capacity_--of the medium. And if they give facts not consciously known to the medium--facts however elaborate--it may, of course, be suggested that these facts have been _subliminally acquired_ by the medium through some unconscious passage of the eye over a printed page, or else that they are _clairvoyantly learnt_, without the agency of any but the medium's own mind, though acting in a supernormal fashion.

The case of Hélène Smith has shown us how far-reaching may be the faculties of hyperæsthesia and hypermnesia in the subliminal self; but in view of the then general ignorance of the scientific world on this subject, it is not surprising that both Mr. Moses and his friends absolutely rejected this explanation of his phenomena, and that the evidence appeared to them more conclusive than it possibly can to us. Whether or not the alleged spirits were concerned,--as may sometimes, of course, have been the case,--we can hardly avoid thinking that the subliminal self of the medium played at least a considerable part in the communications.

In two cases the announcement of a death was made to Mr. Moses, when the news was apparently not known to him by any normal means. One of these is the case of President Garfield (_Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. xi. p. 100). The other (see my article in _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. xi. pp. 96 _et seq._) is in some ways the most remarkable of all, from the series of chances which have been needful in order to establish its veracity. Specially noticeable in this case is the resemblance of the handwriting of the script to that of the alleged control, a lady whose writing was almost certainly unknown to Mr. Moses. Both to the lady's son and to myself the resemblance appeared incontestable, and our opinion was confirmed by Dr. Hodgson, who was an expert in such matters.

And now we must briefly go through the points which make such messages as were received by Mr. Moses _primâ facie_ evidential, which indicate, that is to say, that they actually do come in some way from their alleged source. A brief recapitulation of the main stages of evidential quality in messages given by automatic writing or by trance-utterances is all that will be needed here.

(1) Evidentially lowest comes the class of messages which is by far the most common; messages, namely, in which, although some special identity may be claimed, all the facts given have been consciously known to the automatist. Here we may well suppose that his own personality alone is concerned, and that the messages have a _subliminal_, but not an _external_ source.

(2) Next above these come messages containing facts likely to be known to the alleged spirit, and not consciously known to the automatist; but which facts may nevertheless have some time been noted by the automatist, even unwittingly, and may have thus obtained lodgment in his subliminal memory.

(3) Next come facts which can be proved,--with such varying degrees of certainty as such negative proof allows,--never to have been in any way known to the automatist; but which nevertheless are easily to be found in books; so that they may have been learnt clairvoyantly by the automatist himself, or learnt and communicated to him by some mind other than that of the alleged spirit.

(4) Next come facts which can be proved, with similar varying degrees of certainty according to the circumstances, never to have been known to the automatist, or recorded in print; but which were known to the alleged spirit and can be verified by the memories of living persons.

(5) Above this again would come that class of _experimental_ messages, or posthumous letters, of which we have as yet very few good examples, where the departed person has before death arranged some special test--some fact or sentence known only to himself, which he is to transmit after death, if possible, as a token of his return.

(6) Thus much for the various kinds of verbal messages, which can be kept and analysed at leisure. We must now turn to evidence of a different and not precisely comparable kind. In point of fact it is not these inferences from written matter which have commonly been most efficacious in compelling the survivor's belief in the reality of the friend's return. Whether logically or no, it is not so much the written message that he trusts, but some phantom of face and voice that he knew so well. It is this familiar convincing presence,--[Greek: eikto de theskelon autô],--on which the percipient has always insisted, since Achilles strove in vain to embrace Patroclus' shade.

How far such a phantasm is in fact a proof of any real action on the part of the spirit thus recognised is a problem which has been dealt with already in Chapter VII. The upshot of our evidence to my mind is that although the apparition of a departed person cannot _per se_ rank as evidence of his presence, yet this is not a shape which purely hallucinatory phantasms seem often to assume; and if there be any corroborative evidence, as, for instance, writing which claims to come from the same person, the chance that he is really operative is considerable. In Mr. Moses' case almost all the figures which he saw brought with them some corroboration by writing, trance-utterance, gesture-messages (as where a figure makes signs of assent or dissent), or raps.

(7) And this brings us to a class largely represented in Mr. Moses' series, where writings professing to come from a certain spirit are supported by physical phenomena of which that spirit claims also to be the author. Whether such a line of proof can ever be made logically complete or no, one can imagine many cases where it would be practically convincing to almost all minds. Materialisations of hands, or direct writing in the script of the departed, have much of actual cogency; and these methods, with others like them, are employed by Mr. Moses' "controls" in their efforts to establish their own identities. Physical phenomena in themselves, however, carry no proof of an intelligence outside that of the sensitive himself, and, as I have said, may in many cases be a mere extension of his own ordinary muscular powers, and not due to any external agency at all.

If we confine ourselves to the verbal messages, we find that the cases most fully represented in the records of Mr. Moses are limited to the first three classes mentioned above, and those which come under the fourth class--verifiable facts of which there is no printed record and which it is practically certain that the medium could never have known--are comparatively few. This may partly be accounted for by the small number of sitters with Mr. Moses and the fact that they were his personal friends. The records of Mrs. Piper, on the other hand, to which we now turn, are especially rich in incidents that fall under the fourth heading, and the evidential value of the verbal messages in this case is, therefore, much greater than in the case of Mr. Moses. Whereas for Mr. Moses the identity of many of his communicators rested largely upon their being guaranteed by Imperator and his group of helpers,--in the case of Mrs. Piper the spirits of some recently-departed friends who have given much evidence of their identity appear to maintain the independent reality and guiding control over Mrs. Piper of these same intelligences--Imperator, Rector, Doctor, and others--that Mr. Moses claimed as ruling in his own experience.

The case of Mrs. Piper differs in two important respects from that of W. Stainton Moses or D. D. Home. In the first place no telekinetic phenomena have occurred in connection with her trance-manifestations; and in the second place her supraliminal self shows no traces of any supernormal faculty whatsoever. She presents an instance of automatism of the extreme type where the "possession" is not merely local or partial, but affects, so to say, the whole psychical area,--where the supraliminal self is for a time completely displaced, and the whole personality appears to suffer intermittent change. In other words, she passes into a trance, during which her organs of speech or writing are "controlled" by other personalities than the normal waking one. Occasionally, either just before or just after the trance, the subliminal self appears to take some control of the organism for a brief interval; but with this exception the personalities that speak or write during her trance claim to be discarnate spirits.

Mrs. Piper's trances may be divided into three stages: (1) Where the dominant controlling personality was known as "Dr. Phinuit" and used the vocal organs almost exclusively, communicating by _trance-utterance_, 1884-91.

(2) Where the communications were made chiefly by automatic writing in the trance under the supervision more particularly of the control known as "George Pelham," or "G. P.," although "Dr. Phinuit" usually communicated also by speech during this period, 1892-96.

(3) Where supervision is alleged to be exercised by Imperator, Doctor, Rector, and others already mentioned in connection with the experiences of Mr. Moses, and where the communications have been mainly by writing, but occasionally also by speech. This last stage, which began early in 1897, still continues, and the final outcome remains to be seen.

I proceed now to indicate in further detail the nature of the evidence and the character of the manifestations themselves, and begin by quoting from Dr. Hodgson (_Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. xiii. pp. 367-68) a brief statement of some of the historical facts of the case.

Mrs. Piper has been giving sittings for a period extending over thirteen [now, 1901, seventeen] years. Very early in her trance history she came under the attention of Professor James, who sent many persons to her as strangers, in most cases making the appointments himself, and in no case giving their names. She came to some extent under my own supervision in 1887, and I also sent many persons to her, in many cases accompanying them and recording the statements made at their sittings, and taking all the care that I could to prevent Mrs. Piper's obtaining any knowledge beforehand of who the sitters were to be. In 1889-90 Mrs. Piper gave a series of sittings in England under the supervision of Dr. Walter Leaf and Mr. Myers and Professor Lodge, where also the most careful precautions possible were taken to ensure that the sitters went as strangers to Mrs. Piper. Further sittings were supervised by myself in 1890-91 after Mrs. Piper's return to America. Many persons who had sittings in the course of these earlier investigations were convinced that they were actually receiving communications from their "deceased" friends through Mrs. Piper's trance, but although the special investigators were satisfied, from their study of the trance-phenomena themselves and a careful analysis of the detailed records of the sittings, that some supernormal power was involved, there was no definite agreement as to their precise significance. And to myself it seemed that any hypothesis that was offered presented formidable difficulties in the way of its acceptance. In the course of these earlier investigations the communications were given almost entirely through the speech-utterance of the trance-personality known as Phinuit, and even the best of them were apt to include much matter that was irrelevant and unlike the alleged communicators, while there were many indications that Phinuit himself was far from being the kind of person in whom we should be disposed to place implicit credence.

During the years 1892-96 inclusive, I exercised a yet closer supervision of Mrs. Piper's trances than I had done in previous years, continuing to take all the precautions that I could as regards the introduction of persons as strangers. This period was marked by a notable evolution in the quality of the trance results, beginning early in 1892. The character of the manifestations changed with the development of automatic writing in the trance, and with what was alleged to be the continual rendering of active assistance by the communicator whom I have called G. P. [George Pelham]. As a result of this it appeared that communicators were able to express their thoughts directly through the writing by Mrs. Piper's hand, instead of conveying them more dimly and partially through Phinuit as intermediary; and the advice and guidance which they, apparently, received from G. P. enabled them to avoid much of the confusion and irrelevancy so characteristic of the earlier manifestations.

I do not propose here to discuss the hypothesis of fraud in this case, since it has been fully discussed by Dr. Hodgson, Professor William James, Professor Newbold of Pennsylvania University, Dr. Walter Leaf, and Sir Oliver Lodge.[209] I merely quote, as a summary of the argument, a few words of Professor James, from _The Psychological Review_, July, 1898, pp. 421-22:--

Dr. Hodgson considers that the hypothesis of fraud cannot be seriously maintained. I agree with him absolutely. The medium has been under observation, much of the time under close observation, as to most of the conditions of her life, by a large number of persons, eager, many of them, to pounce upon any suspicious circumstance for [nearly] fifteen years. During that time, not only has there not been one single suspicious circumstance remarked, but not one suggestion has ever been made from any quarter which might tend positively to explain how the medium, living the apparent life she leads, could possibly collect information about so many sitters by natural means. The scientist who is confident of "fraud" here, must remember that in science as much as in common life a hypothesis must receive some positive specification and determination before it can be profitably discussed, and a fraud which is no assigned kind of fraud, but simply "fraud" at large, fraud _in abstracto_, can hardly be regarded as a specially scientific explanation of concrete facts.

Unfortunately we have no contemporary records of what occurred during Mrs. Piper's earliest trances; nor practically any information as to the first manifestations of the Phinuit personality. It seems clear at least that the _name_ Phinuit was the result of suggestion at these earliest trances (see _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. viii. pp. 46-58), and many may think it most probable that the Phinuit "control" was nothing more than a secondary personality of Mrs. Piper. But, according to the statements (for which there is of course no evidence) made by "Imperator," Phinuit was an "earth-bound" or inferior spirit, who had become confused and bewildered in his first attempts at communication, and had, as we say, "lost his consciousness of personal identity." That such an occurrence is not uncommon in this life is plain from the cases to which I have drawn attention in Chapter II. of this book, and we cannot prove it to be impossible that profound memory disturbances should be produced in an inexperienced discarnate spirit when first attempting to communicate with us through a material organism. Be that as it may, the Phinuit personality has not manifested either directly or indirectly since January 1897, when "Imperator" claimed the supervision of Mrs. Piper's trances.

There were various cases of alleged direct "control" by spirits other than Phinuit during the first stage of Mrs. Piper's trance history. But such cases were not usual, and on the whole, although there seemed to be abundant proof of some supernormal faculty which demanded at least the hypothesis of thought-transference from living persons both near and distant, and suggested occasionally some power of telæsthesia or perhaps even of premonition, yet the main question with which we are now concerned,--whether Mrs. Piper's organism was controlled, directly or indirectly, by discarnate spirits who could give satisfactory evidence of their identity,--remained undecided.

More important, as regards this question of personal identity, is the series of sittings which formed the second stage of Mrs. Piper's trance history, in the years 1892-96, (of which a detailed account is given in _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. xiii. pp. 284-582, and vol. xiv. pp. 6-49), where the chief communicator or intermediary was G. P. This G. P., whose name (although, of course, well known to many persons) has been altered for publication into "George Pelham," was a young man of great ability, mainly occupied in literary pursuits. Although born an American citizen, he was a member of a noble English family. I never met him, but I have the good fortune to include a number of his friends among my own, and with several of these I have been privileged to hold intimate conversation on the nature of the communications which they received. I have thus heard of many significant utterances of G. P.'s, which are held too private for print; and I have myself been present at sittings where G. P. manifested. For the full discussion of the evidence tending to prove the identity of G. P., I refer my readers to the original report in the _Proceedings_ S.P.R. I quote here a general summary, given by Dr. Hodgson several years later, of the whole series of his manifestations. (From _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. xiii. pp. 328-330.)

On the first appearance of the communicating G. P. to Mr. Hart in March 1892, he gave not only his own name and that of the sitter, but also the names of several of their most intimate common friends, and referred specifically to the most important private matters connected with them. At the same sitting reference was made to other incidents unknown to the sitters, such as the account of Mrs. Pelham's taking the studs from the body of G. P. and giving them to Mr. Pelham to be sent to Mr. Hart, and the reproduction of a notable remembrance of a conversation which G. P. living had with Katharine, the daughter of his most intimate friends, the Howards. These were primary examples of two kinds of knowledge concerning matters unknown to the sitters, of which various other instances were afterwards given; knowledge of events connected with G. P. which had occurred since his death, and knowledge of special memories pertaining to the G. P. personality before death. A week later, at the sitting of Mr. Vance, he made an appropriate inquiry after the sitter's son, and in reply to inquiries rightly specified that the sitter's son had been at college with him, and further correctly gave a correct description of the sitter's summer home as the place of a special visit. This, again, was paralleled by many later instances where appropriate inquiries were made and remembrances recalled concerning other personal friends of G. P. Nearly two weeks later came his most intimate friends, the Howards, and to these, using the voice directly, he showed such a fulness of private remembrance and specific knowledge and characteristic intellectual and emotional quality pertaining to G. P. that, though they had previously taken no interest in any branch of psychical research, they were unable to resist the conviction that they were actually conversing with their old friend G. P. And this conviction was strengthened by their later experiences. Not least important, at that time, was his anxiety about the disposal of a certain book and about certain specified letters which concern matters too private for publication. He was particularly desirous of convincing his father, who lived in Washington, that it was indeed G. P. who was communicating, and he soon afterwards stated that his father had taken his photograph to be copied, as was the case, though Mr. Pelham had not informed even his wife of this fact. Later on he reproduced a series of incidents, unknown to the sitters, in which Mrs. Howard had been engaged in her own home. Later still, at a sitting with his father and mother in New York, a further intimate knowledge was shown of private family circumstances, and at the following sitting, at which his father and mother were not present, he gave the details of certain private actions which they had done in the interim. At their sitting, and at various sittings of the Howards, appropriate comments were made concerning different articles presented which had belonged to G. P. living, or had been familiar to him; he inquired after other personal articles which were not presented at the sittings, and showed intimate and detailed recollections of incidents in connection with them. In points connected with the recognition of articles with their related associations of a personal sort, the G. P. communicating, so far as I know, has never failed. Nor has he failed in the recognition of personal friends. I may say generally that out of a large number of sitters who went as strangers to Mrs. Piper, the communicating G. P. has picked out the friends of G. P. living, precisely as the G. P. living might have been expected to do [thirty cases of recognition out of at least one hundred and fifty persons who have had sittings with Mrs. Piper since the first appearance of G. P., and no case of false recognition], and has exhibited memories in connection with these and other friends which are such as would naturally be associated as part of the G. P. personality, which certainly do not suggest in themselves that they originate otherwise, and which are accompanied by the emotional relations which were connected with such friends in the mind of G. P. living. At one of his early communications G. P. expressly undertook the task of rendering all the assistance in his power towards establishing the continued existence of himself and other communicators, in pursuance of a promise of which he himself reminded me, made some two years or more before his death, that if he died before me and found himself "still existing," he would devote himself to prove the fact; and in the persistence of his endeavour to overcome the difficulties in communicating as far as possible, in his constant readiness to act as amanuensis at the sittings, in the effect which he has produced by his counsels,--to myself as investigator, and to numerous other sitters and communicators,--he has, in so far as I can form a judgment in a problem so complex and still presenting so much obscurity, displayed all the keenness and pertinacity which were eminently characteristic of G. P. living.

Finally the manifestations of this G. P. communicating have not been of a fitful and spasmodic nature, they have exhibited the marks of a continuous living and persistent personality, manifesting itself through a course of years, and showing the same characteristics of an independent intelligence whether friends of G. P. were present at the sittings or not. I learned of various cases where in my absence active assistance was rendered by G. P. to sitters who had never previously heard of him, and from time to time he would make brief pertinent reference to matters with which G. P. living was acquainted, though I was not, and sometimes in ways which indicated that he could to some extent see what was happening in our world to persons in whose welfare G. P. living would have been specially interested.

The sitter called Mr. Hart, to whom G. P. first manifested, died at Naples three years afterwards, and communicated, with the help of G. P., on the second day after his death. An account of his communications is given in _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. xiii. pp. 353-57.

There are numerous instances in the reports in the _Proceedings_ (see vol. vi. pp. 647-50; vol. viii. pp. 15-26; vol. xiii., _passim_; and vol. xvi. pp. 131-3), of the giving of information unknown to the sitters and afterwards verified. A striking illustration of this occurred in the case of the lady called "Elisa Mannors," whose near relatives and friends concerned in the communications were known to myself. On the morning after the death of her uncle, called F. in the report, she described an incident in connection with the appearance of herself to her uncle on his death-bed. I quote Dr. Hodgson's account of this (_Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. xiii. p. 378, footnote).

The notice of his [F.'s] death was in a Boston morning paper, and I happened to see it on my way to the sitting. The first writing of the sitting came from Madame Elisa, without my expecting it. She wrote clearly and strongly, explaining that F. was there with her, but unable to speak directly, that she wished to give me an account of how she had helped F. to reach her. She said that she had been present at his death-bed, and had spoken to him, and she repeated what she had said, an unusual form of expression, and indicated that he had heard and recognised her. This was confirmed in detail in the only way possible at that time, by a very intimate friend of Madame Elisa and myself, and also of the nearest surviving relative of F. I showed my friend the account of the sitting, and to this friend, a day or two later, the relative, who was present at the death-bed, stated spontaneously that F. when dying said that he saw Madame Elisa who was speaking to him, and he repeated what she was saying. The expression so repeated, which the relative quoted to my friend, was that which I had received from Madame Elisa through Mrs. Piper's trance, when the death-bed incident was of course entirely unknown to me.

Rare are the "Peak in Darien" cases (see page 233), but cases like this are rarer still.

With regard to the last of the three periods of Mrs. Piper's trance-history, the only detailed published accounts are contained in Professor Hyslop's report of his sittings in _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. xvi.[210] But neither his records nor the manuscript records which I have seen contain any proof of the personal identity of the alleged spirits called "Imperator," "Doctor," "Rector," etc., or any proof of the identity of these intelligences with those claimed by Mr. Moses. (See _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. xiii. pp. 408-9.) Whether any such proof will be forthcoming in the future remains to be seen,--or indeed, whether proof or disproof for us at present is even possible.

We must now try to form some more definite idea--based not on preconceived theories but on our actual observation of trances--of the processes of possession.

Let us try to realise what kind of feat it is which we are expecting the disembodied spirit to achieve. Such language, I know, again suggests the medicine-man's wigwam rather than the study of the white philosopher. Yet can we feel sure that the process in our own minds which has (as we think) refined and spiritualised man's early conceptions of an unseen world has been based upon any observed facts?

In dealing with matters which lie outside human experience, our only clue is some attempt at _continuity_ with what we already know. We cannot, for instance, form independently a reliable conception of life in an unseen world. That conception has never yet been fairly faced from the standpoint of our modern ideas of continuity, conservation, evolution. The main notions that have been framed of such survival have been framed first by savages and then by _a priori_ philosophers.

The savage made his own picture first. And he at any rate dimly felt after a principle of continuity; although he applied it in the crudest fashion. Yet the happy hunting-ground and the faithful dog were conceptions not more arbitrary and unscientific than that eternal and unimaginable worship _in vacuo_ which more accredited teachers have proclaimed. And, passing on to modern philosophic conceptions, one may say that where the savage assumed _too little_ difference between the material and the spiritual world the philosopher has assumed _too much_. He has regarded the gulf as too unbridgeable; he has taken for granted too clean a sweep of earthly modes of thought. Trying to shake off time, space, and definite form, he has attempted to transport himself too magically to what may be in reality an immensely distant goal.

What, then, is to be our conception of identity prolonged beyond the tomb? In earth-life the actual body, in itself but a subordinate element in our thought of our friend, did yet by its physical continuity override as a symbol of identity all lapses of memory, all changes of the character within. Yet it was memory and character,--the stored impressions upon which he reacted, and his specific mode of reaction,--which made our veritable friend. How much of memory, how much of character, must he preserve for our recognition?

Do we ask that either he or we should remember always, or should remember all? Do we ask that his memory should be expanded into omniscience and his character elevated into divinity? And, whatever heights he may attain, do we demand that he should reveal to us? Are the limitations of our material world no barrier to him?

It is safest to fall back for the present upon the few points which these communications do seem to indicate. The spirit, then, is holding converse with a living man, located in a certain place at a certain moment, and animated by certain thoughts and emotions. The spirit (to which I must give a neuter pronoun for greater clearness) in some cases can find and follow the man as it pleases. It is therefore in some way cognizant of space, although not conditioned by space. Its mastery of space may perhaps bear somewhat the same relation to our eyesight as our eyesight bears to the gropings of the blind. Similarly, the spirit appears to be partly cognizant of our _time_, although not wholly conditioned thereby. It is apt to see as _present_ both certain things which appear to us as past and certain things which appear to us as future.

Once more, the spirit is at least partly conscious of the thought and emotions of its earthly friend, so far as directed towards itself; and this not only when the friend is in the presence of the sensitive, but also (as G. P. has repeatedly shown) when the friend is at home and living his ordinary life.

Lastly, it seems as though the spirit had some occasional glimpses of material fact upon the earth (as the contents of drawers and the like), not manifestly proceeding through any living mind. I do not, however, recall any clear evidence of a spirit's perception of material facts which provably have never been known to any incarnate mind whatever.

Accepting this, then, for argument's sake, as the normal condition of a spirit in reference to human things, what process must it attempt if it wishes to communicate with living men? That it _will_ wish to communicate seems probable enough, if it retains not only memory of the loves of earth, but actual fresh consciousness of loving emotion directed towards it after death.

Seeking then for some open avenue, it discerns something which corresponds (in G. P.'s phrase) to a _light_--a glimmer of translucency in the confused darkness of our material world. This "light" indicates a _sensitive_--a human organism so constituted that a spirit can temporarily _inform_ or _control_ it, not necessarily interrupting the stream of the sensitive's ordinary consciousness; perhaps using a hand only, or perhaps, as in Mrs. Piper's case, using voice as well as hand, and occupying all the sensitive's channels of self-manifestation. The difficulties which must be inherent in such an act of control are thus described by Dr. Hodgson:--

"If, indeed, each one of us is a 'spirit' that survives the death of the fleshly organism, there are certain suppositions that I think we may not unreasonably make concerning the ability of the discarnate 'spirit' to communicate with those yet incarnate. Even under the best of conditions for communication--which I am supposing for the nonce to be possible--it may well be that the aptitude for communicating clearly may be as rare as the gifts that make a great artist, or a great mathematician, or a great philosopher. Again, it may well be that, owing to the change connected with death itself, the 'spirit' may at first be much confused, and such confusion may last for a long time; and even after the 'spirit' has become accustomed to its new environment, it is not an unreasonable supposition that if it came into some such relation to another living human organism as it once maintained with its own former organism, it would find itself confused by that relation. The state might be like that of awaking from a prolonged period of unconsciousness into strange surroundings. If my own ordinary body could be preserved in its present state, and I could absent myself from it for days or months or years, and continue my existence under another set of conditions altogether, and if I could then return to my own body, it might well be that I should be very confused and incoherent at first in my manifestations by means of it. How much more would this be the case were I to return to _another_ human body. I might be troubled with various forms of aphasia and agraphia, might be particularly liable to failures of inhibition, might find the conditions oppressive and exhausting, and my state of mind would probably be of an automatic and dreamlike character. Now, the communicators through Mrs. Piper's trance exhibit precisely the kind of confusion and incoherence which it seems to me we have some reason _a priori_ to expect if they are actually what they claim to be."

At the outset of this chapter I compared the phenomena of possession with those of alternating personalities, of dreams, and of somnambulism. Now it seems probable that the thesis of multiplex personality--namely, that no known current of man's consciousness exhausts his whole consciousness, and no known self-manifestation expresses man's whole potential being--may hold good both for embodied and for unembodied men, and this would lead us to expect that the manifestations of the departed,--through the sensory automatisms dealt with in Chapter VII., and the motor automatisms considered in Chapter VIII., up to the completer form of possession illustrated in the present chapter,--would resemble those fugitive and unstable communications between widely different strata of personality of which embodied minds offer us examples. G. P. himself appears to be well aware of the dreamlike character of the communications, which, indeed, his own style often exemplifies. Thus he wrote on February 15th, 1894:--

"Remember we share and always shall have our friends in the dream-life, _i.e._ your life so to speak, which will attract us for ever and ever, and so long as we have any friends _sleeping_ in the material world; you to us are more like as we understand sleep, you look shut up as one in prison, and in order for us to get into communication with you, we have to enter into your sphere, as one like yourself, asleep. This is just why we make mistakes, as you call them, or get confused and muddled."

Yet even this very difficulty and fragmentariness of communication ought in the end to be for us full of an instruction of its own. We are here actually witnessing the central mystery of human life, unrolling itself under novel conditions, and open to closer observation than ever before. We are seeing a mind use a brain. The human brain is in its last analysis an arrangement of matter expressly adapted to being acted upon by a spirit; but so long as the accustomed spirit acts upon it the working is generally too smooth to allow us a glimpse of the mechanism. _Now_, however, we can watch an unaccustomed spirit, new to the instrument, installing itself and feeling its way. The lessons thus learnt are likely to be more penetrating than any which mere morbid interruptions of the accustomed spirit's work can teach us. In aphasia, for instance, we can watch with instruction special difficulties of utterance, supervening on special injuries to the brain. But in _possession_ we perceive the controlling spirit actually engaged in overcoming somewhat similar difficulties--writing or uttering the wrong word, and then getting hold of the right one--and sometimes even finding power to explain to us something of the minute verbal mechanism (so to term it) through whose blocking or dislocation the mistake has arisen.

And we may hope, indeed, that as our investigations proceed, and as we on this side of the fateful gulf, and the discarnate spirits on the other, learn more of the conditions necessary for perfect control of the brain and nervous system of intermediaries,--the communications will grow fuller and more coherent, and reach a higher level of unitary consciousness.

Among the cases of trance discussed in this chapter, we have found intimately interwoven with the phenomena of possession many instances of its correlative,--ecstasy. Mrs. Piper's fragmentary utterances and visions during her passage from trance to waking life,--utterances and visions that fade away and leave no remembrance in her waking self; Stainton Moses' occasional visions, his journeys in the "spirit world" which he recorded on returning to his ordinary consciousness; Home's entrancement and converse with the various controls whose messages he gave;--all these suggest actual excursions of the incarnate spirit from its organism. The theoretical importance of these spiritual excursions is, of course, very great. It is, indeed, so great that most men will hesitate to accept a thesis which carries us straight into the inmost sanctuary of mysticism; which preaches "a precursory entrance into the most holy place, as by divine transportation."

Yet I think that this belief, although extreme, is not, at the point to which our evidence has carried us, in any real way improbable. To put the matter briefly, if a spirit from outside can enter the organism, the spirit from inside can go out, can change its centre of perception and action, in a way less complete and irrevocable than the change of death. Ecstasy would thus be simply the complementary or correlative aspect of spirit-control. Such a change need not be a _spatial_ change, any more than there need be any _spatial_ change for the spirit which invades the deserted organism. Nay, further: if the incarnate spirit can in this manner change its centre of perception in response (so to say) to a discarnate spirit's invasion of the organism, there is no obvious reason why it should not do so on other occasions as well. We are already familiar with "travelling clairvoyance," a spirit's change of centre of perception among the scenes of the material world. May there not be an extension of travelling clairvoyance to the spiritual world? a spontaneous transfer of the centre of perception into that region from whence discarnate spirits seem now to be able, on their side, to communicate with growing freedom?

The conception of _ecstasy_--at once in its most literal and in its most lofty sense--has thus developed itself, almost insensibly, from several concurrent lines of actual modern evidence. It must still, of course, be long before we can at all adequately separate,--I can hardly say the objective from the subjective element in the experience, for we have got beyond the region where the meaning of those words is clear,--but the element in the experience which is recognised and responded to by spirits other than the ecstatic's, from the element which belongs to his own spirit alone.

In the meantime, however, the fact that this kind of communion of ecstasy has been, in preliminary fashion, rendered probable is of the highest importance for our whole inquiry. We thus come directly into relation with the highest form which the various religions known to men have assumed in the past.

It is hardly a paradox to say that the evidence for ecstasy is stronger than the evidence for any other religious belief. Of all the subjective experiences of religion, ecstasy is that which has been most urgently, perhaps to the psychologist most convincingly, asserted; and it is not confined to any one religion. From a psychological point of view, one main indication of the importance of a subjective phenomenon found in religious experience will be the fact that it is common to all religions. I doubt whether there is any phenomenon, except ecstasy, of which this can be said. From the medicine-man of the lowest savages up to St. John, St. Peter, St. Paul, with Buddha, Mahomet and Swedenborg on the way, we find records which, though morally and intellectually much differing, are in psychological essence the same.

At all stages alike we find that the spirit is conceived as quitting the body; or, if not quitting it, at least as greatly expanding its range of perception in some state resembling trance. Observe, moreover, that on this view all genuine recorded forms of ecstasy are akin, and all of them represent a real fact.

To our embodied souls the matter round us seems real and self-existent; to souls emancipated it is but the sign of the degree which we have reached, and thus the highest task of science must be to link and co-ordinate the symbols appropriate to our terrene state with the symbols appropriate to the state immediately above us. Nay, one might push this truth to paradox, and maintain that of all earth's inspired spirits it has been the least divinised, the least lovable, who has opened the surest path for men. Religions have risen and die again; philosophy, poetry, heroism, answer only indirectly the prime need of men. Plotinus, "the eagle soaring above the tomb of Plato," is lost to sight in the heavens. Conquering and to conquer, the Maid rides on through other worlds than ours. Virgil himself, "light among the vanished ages, star that gildest yet this earthly shore," sustains our spirit, as I have said, but indirectly, by filling still our fountain of purest intellectual joy. But the prosaic Swede,--his stiff mind prickly with dogma,--the opaque cell-walls of his intelligence flooded cloudily by the irradiant day,--this man as by the very limitations of his faculty, by the practical humility of a spirit trained to acquire but not to generate truth,--has awkwardly laid the corner-stone, grotesquely sketched the elevation of a temple which our remotest posterity will be upbuilding and adorning still. For he dimly felt that man's true passage and intuition from state to state depends not upon individual ecstasy, but upon comprehensive law; while yet all law is in fact but symbol; adaptation of truth timeless and infinite to intelligences of lower or higher range.

Beyond us still is mystery; but it is mystery lit and mellowed with an infinite hope. We ride in darkness at the haven's mouth; but sometimes through rifted clouds we see the desires and needs of many generations floating and melting upwards into a distant glow, "up through the light of the seas by the moon's long-silvering ray."

The high possibilities that lie before us should be grasped once for all, in order that the dignity of the quest may help to carry the inquirer through many disappointments, deceptions, delays. But he must remember that this inquiry must be extended over many generations; nor must he allow himself to be persuaded that there are byways to mastery. I will not say that there cannot possibly be any such thing as occult wisdom, or dominion over the secrets of nature ascetically or magically acquired. But I will say that every claim of this kind which my colleagues or I have been able to examine has proved deserving of complete mistrust; and that we have no confidence here any more than elsewhere in any methods except the open, candid, straightforward methods which the spirit of modern science demands.

All omens point towards the steady continuance of just such labour as has already taught us all we know. Perhaps, indeed, in this complex of interpenetrating spirits our own effort is no individual, no transitory thing. That which lies at the root of each of us lies at the root of the Cosmos too. Our struggle is the struggle of the Universe itself; and the very Godhead finds fulfilment through our upward-striving souls.