Part 8

"My first sitting with her was on September 6th, 1888. With little trouble she went into the trance ... and after a moment's silence ... I was startled by the remarkable change in her voice--an exclamation, a sort of grunt of satisfaction, as if the person had reached his destination and gave vent to his pleasure thereat by this sound, uttered in an unmistakably male voice, but rather husky. I was at once addressed in French with, 'Bonjour, Monsieur, comment vous portez vous?' to which I gave answer in the same language, with which I happen to be perfectly familiar. My answer was responded to with a sort of inquiring grunt, much like the French 'Hein?'.... Nearly all my interviews were begun in the same manner.... I was quite unwell with nervous troubles.... The first thing told me was of a 'great light behind me, a good sign,' &c. Then suddenly all my ills were very clearly and distinctly explained and so thoroughly that I felt certain that Mrs. Piper herself would have hesitated to use such plain language! Prescriptions were given to me...."

"_Second Sitting on October 5th._--... The 'Doctor' told me of my niece being frequently 'in my surroundings,' and that she was then at my side. Up to this time I had not heard my name mentioned, so I asked for it from my niece. The 'Doctor' was again puzzled and said, 'What a funny name--wait, I cannot go so fast!' Then my entire name was correctly spelt out but entirely with the French alphabet, each separate letter being clearly pronounced in that language. My niece had been born, lived most of her short life, and died in France. Then the attempt to pronounce my name was amusing--finally calling me 'Thames Rowghearce Reach.' The 'Doctor' never called me after that anything but 'Reach.'"

The spelling of a name "entirely with the French alphabet, each separate letter being clearly pronounced in that language," is a feat that few English-speaking students could accomplish, because the matter is of little consequence, and generally neglected. I have been in France some, and have translated two French books without incurring critical censure that I am aware of, and yet that feat would be far beyond me.

"One day Mrs. Piper pointed to a plain gold ring on my finger and said: 'C'est une alliance, how you call that? A wedding ring, n'est-ce pas?' This was true. Now if Mrs. Piper had learned French at school here [which she did not or anywhere else. Ed.] she would most probably have called this ring 'un anneau de marriage,' and not have given it the technical name 'alliance.'"

There are many cases of mediums speaking in languages which they did not know, but which the control, when incarnate, did. Mr. Rich continued:

"Breaking into the run of conversation, the 'Doctor' of a sudden said, 'Hullo, here's Newell!' [pseudonym] (mentioning the name of a friend who had died some months before).... 'Newell' had frequently purported to communicate directly with his mother through Mrs. Piper at previous sittings, but this was the first time that any intimation of his presence was given to me. I was totally unprepared for this, and said, 'Who did you say?' The name was repeated with a strong foreign accent, and in the familiar voice and tone of the 'Doctor.' Then there seemed for a moment to be a mingling of voices as if in dispute, followed by silence and heavy breathing of the medium. All at once I was astonished to hear, in an entirely different tone and in the purest English accent, 'Well, of all persons under the sun, Rogers Rich, what brought you here? I'm glad to see you, old fellow! How is X and Y and Z, and all the boys at the club?' Some names were given which I knew of, but their owners I had never met, and so reminded my friend 'Newell,' who recalled that he followed me in college by some years and that all his acquaintances were younger than I. I remarked an odd movement of the medium while under this influence; she apparently was twirling a mustache, a trick which my friend formerly practised much."

Now if all this drama is telepathy, it certainly is not of the "common or garden variety," and if "Newell" is a secondary personality of Mrs. Piper, it is one of hundreds of instances of that woman having secondary personalities who are men. I have read accounts of a good many undoubted cases of secondary personality, and have yet to read of one where the sex was crossed. Aren't these interpretations growing to look a little absurd? Mr. Rich goes on:

"_June 3rd, 1889._--This time I asked to communicate with my friend 'Newell.' ... The 'Doctor' said, 'I'll send for him,' and kept on talking with me for a while. Then he said, 'Here's Newell, and he wants to talk with you "Reach," so I'll go about my business whilst you are talking with him, and will come back again later.' ... My name was called clearly as 'Rogers, old fellow!' without a sign of accent [Remember that 'Phinuit' always pronounced it with an accent. Ed.] and the same questions put as to how were the 'fellows at the club.' My hand was cordially shaken [by the medium. Ed.], and I remarked the same movement of twisting the mustache, ... When 'Newell' left me there was the usual disturbance in the medium's condition, and then the resumption of the familiar voice, accent and mannerisms of Dr. Phinuit...."

Mr. Rich continues (Pr. VIII, 130):

"I produced a dog's collar. After some handling of it [by the medium] the 'Doctor' recognized it as belonging to a dog which I had once owned. I asked 'If there were dogs where he was?' 'Thousands of them!' and he said he would try to attract the attention of my dog with this collar. In the midst of our conversation he suddenly exclaimed, 'There! I think he knows you are here, for I see [him] coming from away off!' He then described my collie perfectly, and said, '_You_ call him, Reach,' and I gave my whistle by which I used to call him. 'Here he comes! Oh, how he jumps! There he is now, jumping upon and around you. So glad to see you! Rover! Rover! No--G-rover, Grover! That's his name!' The dog was once called Rover, but his name was changed to Grover in 1884, in honor of the election of Grover Cleveland."

The knowledge here may have been telepathic, but how about the dramatization?

* * * * *

Mrs. Piper's English Sittings of 1889-90 were held under the supervision of Sir Oliver Lodge and Dr. Walter Leaf, and the report of them has an introduction by Myers, and is followed by a statement of impressions of Mrs. Piper by James. All these experts expressed perfect confidence in the honesty of the medium, and that the phenomena were not explicable by any agency yet known to science.

Sir Oliver Lodge says (Pr. VI, 445):

"The details given of my family are just such as one might imagine obtained by a perfect stranger surrounded by the whole of one's relations in a group and able to converse freely but hastily with one after the other; not knowing them and being rather confused with their number and half-understood messages and personalities, and having a special eye to their physical weaknesses and defects. [Phinuit was (?) a doctor. Ed.] A person in a hurry thus trying to tell a stranger as much about his friends as he could in this way gather, would seem to me to be likely to make much the same kind of communication as was actually made to me."

Here is an episode explaining a nickname that Phinuit habitually applied to Sir Oliver (Pr. VI, 471f.):

"Cousin married, and the gentleman passed out at sea, round the sea.... Hullo, he's got funny buttons, big, bright.... A uniform. He has been a commander, an officer, a leader; not military, but a commander.... [A little further on Phinuit suddenly brings out the word Cap'n in connection with him, but, in a curious and half puzzled way, applies it to me. It remained my Phinuit nickname to the end, though quite inapplicable.] Your mother has got a good picture of him taken a long time ago, pretty good, old-fashioned, but not so bad of him. Yes, pretty good. He looks like that now. He looks younger than he did...."

As in this vision, so it was in one of my own dreams which I suspect was in several respects veridical; and in two other dreams where I cannot trace any veridicity: the persons had grown young.

This recalls Peter Ibbetson's statement that he and his beloved kept themselves about twenty-seven. There are reports that Peter Ibbetson is not all fancy, but even if it were, such reports would be inevitable.

But in another dream which I fully believe to have been veridical, the person had grown older in proportion to the time since "passing over," but there was a peculiar reason for such a manifestation: I fancy that my friend may have wanted to appear to "grow old with me."

There are some things to suggest that if there are post-carnate souls, they can appear as of any age in their experience--and so show their history since separation, to anyone rejoining them.

* * * * *

Edmund Gurney, author of "Phantasms of the Living," and a very active member of the S. P. R. died in 1888. In December, 1889, his ostensible spirit communicated at several sittings with Sir Oliver Lodge through Mrs. Piper. Sir Oliver says (Pr. XXIII, 141f.):

"I learned in this way more about the life and thoughts of Edmund Gurney than I had known in his lifetime."

And Mrs. Piper knew less. Then where did it come from? These Gurney sittings are very interesting and suggestive, but we can use our limited space to better advantage.

* * * * *

Here are some characteristic Phinuit Touches (Pr. VI, 484):

"She remembers more than you do. What do you think she says to me? She says, don't swear, doctor; she did, sure as you live....

"Dr.: 'Do you know who Jerry--J--E--R--R--Y--is?' O. L.: 'Yes. Tell him I want to hear from him.' U[ncle] J[erry. Ed.]: 'Tell Robert, [his brother] Jerry still lives. I will be very glad to hear from me. This is my watch. Uncle Jerry--my watch.'...

"P.: 'I say, Captain, your friends have a lot to tell you, they're just clamoring to get at you. Why the devil don't you give them a chance?' O. L.: 'Well, I will next time.' (Watch handled again. It was a repeater, and happened to go off.) P.: 'Hullo, I didn't do that. Jerry did that, to remind you of him. Here, take it away--it goes springing off--it's alive.' ... 'It was Uncle Jerry, the one that had the fall. I'll bring you some more news of him. Give me back his nine-shooter.' (Meaning the watch.)"

Phinuit and the Lodge family and their next-door neighbors, the Thompsons, got to be great friends. Phinuit had given them much good advice, professional and other, and had really been of considerable service to them, even if only through their imaginations.

At the end of their second series of sittings, Feb. 23, 1890, he said:

"Now, all you people come here. Good-by, Susie. Good-by, Ike. Good-by, Nelly. Now, all clear out and let me talk to Marie. (Long conversation of a paternal kind, with thoroughly sensible advice. Then O. L. returned.) Captain, it's not good-by, it's _au revoir_, and you shall hear of me when I've gone away.' O. L.: 'How can I?' P.: 'Oh, I will tell some gentleman a message and he will write it for me. You'll see.

"_Au revoir, au revoir, &c._"

Hodgson's inclination while writing his report, was to attribute the phenomena to telepathy from the sitter. This might account for a part of the knowledge which the medium displayed, but it did not account for knowledge which the sitter never had, but left such knowledge to be accounted for by the vastly less probable hypothesis of teloteropathy from absent persons, which begins to approach the improbability of spiritism itself. But after the medium's possession of the knowledge is accounted for, the main problem is yet to be approached. Knowledge of a particular circumstance is virtually the same in all minds possessing it. But after a medium, say Mrs. Piper, has obtained an item of knowledge from, let it be granted for argument's sake, the sitter's mind, what makes her emotional attitude regarding it not that of the sitter or of herself, but of some departed friend of the sitter? What makes her rejoice in it or regret it as this departed friend, alone among all intelligences, would? What makes the play of her mind regarding it--suggestion, response, appreciation or depreciation, comment and discussion of all kinds, just what would be that of the departed soul which professes to be speaking through her? And what makes all this occur with a fidelity to the character and situation worthy of the greatest dramatists? And how comes that average New England woman to display that supreme dramatic genius virtually every day for a generation? This is not telepathy or teloteropathy. When Hodgson wrote his first report, he and the researchers generally had not got as far as the questions raised by the dramatic features. But he closed with the following mysterious paragraph:

"The foregoing report is based upon sittings not later than 1891. Mrs. Piper has given some sittings very recently which materially strengthen the evidence for the existence of some faculty that goes beyond thought-transference from the sitters, and which certainly _primâ facie_ appear to render some form of the 'spiritistic' hypothesis more plausible. I hope to discuss these among other results in a later article."

The occasion for this paragraph was made plain in his next report, issued in 1898, and published in Pr. S. P. R., Vol. XIII.

A young man alluded to in the S. P. R. reports as George Pelham, had died. He was a member of a very prominent English family, and on the distaff side, of an equally prominent family in New York. He had graduated at Harvard and spent some years as a housemate with the Howards (pseudonym) in Boston, though he died in New York, after some later years passed there. He was well known to the present writer, who finds the utterances of his alleged post-carnate self entirely in character. He was of a very philosophic bent, and no mean writer in both prose and verse. Psychical research was by no means his most prominent interest, or Hodgson his most intimate friend, though he had discussed the subject several times with Hodgson, and been introduced by him, under a pseudonym, for a single sitting with Mrs. Piper. For a month after G. P.'s death Hodgson's regular sittings with Mrs. Piper went on without there being any manifestation professing to come from G. P., when Mr. John Hart (pseudonym) who had been much more intimate with G. P. than Hodgson had, was sitting, in Hodgson's presence, with Mrs. Piper, and after Phinuit had announced a "George," an uncle of Mr. Hart, he went on, as Hodgson reports (Pr. XIII, 297f.):

"There is another George who wants to speak to you. How many Georges are there about you any way? [Hodgson continues. Ed.]

"The rest of the sitting, until almost the close, was occupied by statements from G. P., Phinuit acting as intermediary. George Pelham's real name was given in full, also the names, both Christian and surname, of several of his most intimate friends, including the name of the sitter. Moreover, incidents were referred to which were unknown to the sitter or myself. One of the pair of studs which J. H. was wearing was given to Phinuit [_i. e._ to the medium. Ed.].... '(Who gave them to me?) [Throughout these sittings, the sitters' remarks are in parentheses. Ed.] That's mine. Mother gave you that. (No.) Well, father then, father and mother together. You got those after I passed out. Mother took them. Gave them to father, and father gave them to you. I want you to keep them. I will them to you.' Mr. Hart notes: 'The studs were sent to me by Mr. Pelham as a remembrance of his son....

"James and Mary [Mr. and Mrs.] Howard [Pseudonyms. Ed.] were mentioned with strongly specific references, and in connection with Mrs. Howard came the name Katharine. 'Tell her, she'll know. I will solve the problems, Katharine.' Mr. Hart notes: 'George, when he had last stayed with [the Howards], had talked frequently with Katharine (a girl of fifteen years of age) upon such subjects as Time, Space, God, Eternity, and pointed out to her how unsatisfactory the commonly accepted solutions were. He added that some time he would solve the problems.' Mr. Hart added that he was entirely unaware of these circumstances. I was myself unaware of them, and was not at that time acquainted with the Howards.

No telepathy then. Phinuit continues:

"'Who's Rogets? [Phinuit tries to spell the real name.] (Spell that again.) [At the first attempt afterwards Phinuit leaves out a letter, then spells it correctly.] Rogers.... Rogers has got a book of mine. (What is he going to do with it?)'

"[Both Hart and G. P. knew Rogers, who at that time had a certain MS. book of G. P. in his possession. The book was found after G. P.'s death and given to Rogers to be edited. G. P. had promised during his lifetime that a particular disposition should be made of this book after his death. This action ... was here, and in subsequent utterances which from their private nature I cannot quote, enjoined emphatically and repeatedly, and had it been at once carried out, as desired by G. P., much subsequent unhappiness and confusion might have been avoided.]

"During the latter part of the sitting, and without any relevance to the remarks immediately before and after, which were quite clear as expressions from G. P. came the words, 'Who's James? Will--William.' [It must be remembered that Phinuit was reporting G. P. throughout.] This was apparently explained by Phinuit's further remarks at the close of the sitting.

"Phinuit: 'Who's Alice? (What do you want me to say to her?) [To R. H.] Alice in spirit. Alice in spirit says it's all over now and tell Alice in the body all is well. Tell Will I'll explain things later on. He [George] calls Alice, too, in the body. I want her to know me, too, Alice and Katharine.... He won't go till you say good-by. [The hand then wrote: George Pelham. Good day (?) John.] ...'

"[Alice James, the sister of Professor William James, had recently died in England. The first name of Mrs. James is also Alice. Alice, the sister of Katharine, is the youngest daughter of Mr. Howard and was very fond of G. P.]

"As I have already said, the most personal references made at the sitting cannot be quoted; they were regarded by J. H. as profoundly characteristic of Pelham.

This was followed by the most remarkable experiences of the kind that ever occurred before Hodgson himself passed over to the majority and was ostensibly manifested to his surviving friends through Mrs. Piper and other mediums. G. P. sent for his friends the Howards (pseudonym) with whom he had been a housemate in Boston, for his parents, and for other friends. All of these came, very skeptical regarding the genuineness of the manifestations, but Mr. Howard--an eminent scholar of wide experience of the world, became convinced that he was in converse with the postcarnate intelligence of his old friend; the majority of the relatives, who were of a more orthodox habit than Mr. Howard, were brought at least to a condition of agnosticism on the subject, and the arch-critic Hodgson who had exposed more "spiritualistic" frauds than all other men put together, was turned into a militant spiritualist. G. P. was asked.

"(Can't you tell us something he or your mother has done?) 'I saw her brush my clothes and put them away. I was by her side as she did it. I saw her take my sleeve buttons from a small box and give them to my father. I saw him send them to John Hart. I saw her putting papers, etc., into a tin box.'

"The incident of the 'studs' was mentioned at the sitting of Hart. G. P.'s clothes were brushed and put away, as Mrs. Pelham wrote, not by herself, but by 'the man who had valeted George.'"

This incident is used by Mrs. Sidgwick in Pr. XV, 31, in support of the thesis that a medium's communications are influenced by education and social habits. I am disposed entirely to endorse this. The communications seem to me to come from a blending of the control, the medium, and the sitter. Perhaps this utterance will seem less Delphic as we go on.

The following (Pr. XIII, 416f.) does not seem much like telepathy.

"Mrs. Piper [on coming out of the trance. Ed.]: 'There is the man with the beard' [whom she saw in the trance. Ed.] Mrs. Piper then described what she thought was a dream. 'I saw a bright light and a face in it, a gentleman with a beard on his face, and he had a very high forehead and he was writing.' R. H.: 'Would you know it again if you saw it?' Mrs. Piper: 'Oh, yes. I would know it, I think.' R. H.: 'Well, try and recall it....'

"After Mrs. Piper comes out of [a second. Ed.] trance she is shown a collection of thirty-two photographs, nine of them being of men, from which she selects the picture of the person whom she saw when coming out of trance the first time. The photograph that she first picked out was an excellent likeness of G. P. She afterwards picked out another photograph of him. She stated that she never knew the gentleman when living."

Within twenty-four hours of this experience, or some other reported elsewhere, the dream recollection had, like dream recollections generally, faded away: she could not recognize the photograph. We can talk about telopsis here, if we want to, but telopsis of what? Of that photograph? Nonsense! And as strange as anything else about it, is that there is nothing strange about it. In my own dreams I see any number of people I never saw before, just as plainly as I see any number on the street, and if photographs were handed me, as those were to Mrs. Piper, immediately on awaking, I could identify them. This identification is nothing out of the ordinary course of nature, only the wit to see that it is, has but just come.

But with any sitter, Mrs. Piper _may_ have had telepathically just as definite an idea as the sitter has, or she _may_ always have been telepathically impressed in her dream by the post-carnate man himself. Each one of us will have to fumble to his own conviction, if he ever reaches one.

Hodgson continues (Pr. XIII, 321-2):

"It was during this sitting [Dec. 22, 1892] that perhaps the most dramatic incident of the whole series occurred....

"Mr. Howard: 'Tell me something that you and I alone know, something in our past that you and I alone know.' G. P.: 'Do you doubt me, dear old fellow?' Mr. H.: 'I simply want something--you have failed to answer certain questions that I have asked--now I want you to give me the equivalent of the answers to those questions in your own terms....' G. P.: 'You used to talk to me about....'