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 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 By FREMONT RIDER 
 
*> 
 
 
 ' 
 
 v» 
 
 Professor William James 
 Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. 
 
ARE THE 
 
 DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 The Problem of Physical Research that the 
 World's Leading Scientists Are Trying to 
 Solve, and the Progress They Have Made 
 
 By FREMONT RIDER 
 
 With Statements of their Personal Belief oy 
 
 Sib Oliveb Lodge Andrew Lang 
 
 Count Leo Tolstoi Sib William Cbookeb 
 
 De. Cbsaee Lombeoso Dk. Chables Richbt 
 
 De. V. Maxwell De. Filipfo Bottazzi 
 
 Pbofessob William Baeeett Camille Flammabion 
 
 William T. Stead Pbofessob William James 
 
 And Others 
 
 NEW YORK 
 B. W. DODGE & COMPANY 
 
 1909 
 
V 
 
 \ 
 
 
 Copyright, 1908-09, by 
 THE DELINEATOR 
 
 Copyright, 1909, by 
 B. W. DODGE & COMPANY 
 
 Registered at Stationers' Hall, London 
 
 (All Rights Reserved) 
 Printed in the United States of America 
 
 1 MAY 
 
 teu\s$ A 
 
 L j / i z/ r a 
 
©0 MV &ttz 
 
PREFACE 
 
 'Modern science is making great strides forward to- 
 ward the solving of the problems which have ever most 
 troubled humanity. Materially, we are coming into 
 the enjoyment of many such solutions; spiritually, we 
 are making but the first ragged breaches in a hitherto 
 impregnable fortress. 
 
 "In science, the great field for new discoveries" says 
 Prof. William James, "is always the unclassified resid- 
 uum. Round about the accredited and orderly facts 
 of every science there ever floats a sort of dust-cloud 
 of exceptional observations, of occurrences minute and 
 irregular and seldom met with, which it always proves 
 more easy to ignore than to attend to. . . . Only the 
 born geniuses let themselves be worried and fascinated 
 by these outstanding exceptions, and get no peace till 
 they are brought within the fold. Your Galiloes, Gal- 
 vanis, Fresnels, Purkinjes and Darwins are always get- 
 ting confounded and troubled with insignificant 
 things. . . ."* 
 
 It is in this "dust-cloud of exceptional observations" 
 ■floating around the science of psychology that the stu- 
 dents of psychical research have groped forward, blind- 
 ly but carefidly, to an increasingly firm hold of a few 
 fundamental facts. Ghosts, spirit rappings, materiali- 
 zations, table levitations, trance speaking and writing, 
 
 a James : The Will to Believe, pp. 299, 300. 
 vii 
 
viii PEEFACE 
 
 telepathy, clairvoyance—these formed no immediately 
 attractive Held for scientific investigation. Every one 
 of these subjects has been, and is, so permeated with 
 fraud that with most of them there is the gravest doubt 
 if so much as one genuine example ever occurred. Yet 
 a few keen-eyed and clear-headed investigators have 
 braved ridicule and indifference, and assert that they 
 have found beneath a tremendous accretion of error 
 a nucleus of truth. 
 
 To present this nucleus as clearly as he may is the 
 author's whole purpose here. He presents no theories, 
 and takes no side, but tries only to give a selection of 
 typical observed facts and certain unbiased inferences 
 which may logically be drawn from them. If, having 
 read the book, the reader is able to class him definitely 
 as either a believer or a disbeliever in spiritualism, the 
 author will have failed in his purpose; for he has en- 
 deavored to give an impartial presentation of a sub- 
 ject, tangled perhaps more than any other, with con- 
 flicting theories and obscured with the grossest fraud 
 and the most deep-rooted prejudice both pro and con. 
 
 With no subject so much as with spiritualism would 
 illiteracy and ignorance seem easily able to speak with 
 authority; certainly in no other subject are usually 
 clear-minded people carried to such childish credulity 
 on the one hand, or absurdly indefensible denial on the 
 other. 
 
 Bui the phenomena which have converted to psychi- 
 cism the greatest scientists of Europe, and are now 
 creating widespread comment in every intelligent cen- 
 ter of the globe, are not, we must remember, the credu- 
 lous mingling of hysteria, darkness and fraud which 
 we commonly associate with spiritualism; they are 
 
PKEFACE ix 
 
 facts of cold daylight, things of the laboratory, 
 weighed, measured, dissected, counted, by the exact 
 methods of calculating, unsympathetic science. 
 
 Of course, Crookes, the inventor of the Crookes 
 tube; Curie, the discoverer of radium; Lombroso, the 
 founder of the science of criminology; Sir Oliver 
 Lodge, the eminent biologist; Morselli, the psycholo- 
 gist, and their several hundred brother scientists, may 
 be very much mistaken in what they say they have dis- 
 covered. That, the author will not pretend to decide; 
 but surely, what they consider zvorthy of credence on 
 such a vital subject is at least worthy of our serious 
 consideration. 
 
 The past year has seen an important renaissance of 
 interest in psychical research. But even in the flood 
 of spiritualistic books making their appearance, there 
 would seem to be need of a book making an attempt, 
 not to add to, but to sum up past achievement. When 
 these articles, in a much abbreviated form, first ap- 
 peared in The Delineator, under the same caption, Are 
 the Dead Alive? they called forth a flood of letters 
 from their readers. Indeed, no subject introduced 
 recently by that magazine aroused so much earnest 
 comment, both of approval and condemnation, from so 
 many varied points of view. 
 
 Among the hundreds of letters received were reports 
 of personal experiences; if not corroborative, at least 
 very interesting and significant. And there were re- 
 quests, too — pathetic appeals for help from some re- 
 cently bereaved. Could the writer tell them how, in- 
 deed, they might know their dead were alive? Could 
 he show them how to communicate with them? Could 
 he "recommend a thoroly reliable medium"? No, alas! 
 
x PKEFACE 
 
 he could do none of these things; and the wisest re- 
 searcher in psychical science will tell you, if he be hon- 
 est, that he cannot. 
 
 For we are, as yet, learning the veriest rudiments of 
 metapsychics, and no man yet even knows what or 
 when we may know. All the author would do is to 
 light up a little the way already traversed. 
 
 nfJujA^xrwdC^j^^ 
 
 Glen Tor-on-the-Hudson, 
 Dec. 3, 1908. 
 
 v 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 One of the most remarkable pictures of levitation 
 
 ever published Frontispiece 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 An instantaneous photograph, taken by M. de 
 Fontenay, of table levitation produced by the 
 medium, Auguste Politi " 12 
 
 Sir William Crookes " 22 
 
 Photograph of a table levitation with the medium 
 
 Eusapia Paladino " 50 
 
 Camille Flammarion " 55 
 
 Daniel Dunglas Home, greatest of all so-called 
 
 "physical" mediums " 61 
 
 Sir Oliver Lodge " 72 
 
 Eusapia Paladino " 75 
 
 Plaster casts of impressions in clay, produced at a 
 
 distance by an unknown force " 80 
 
 Lecture-room of the Societe d'Etudes Psychiques 
 
 at Milan " 88 
 
 The lonely Isle Roubaud in the Mediterranean 
 where Eusapia was investigated by Charles 
 ■Richet " 88 
 
 Dr. Pio Foa, Professor of Pathologic Anatomy, 
 
 University of Turin " 98 
 
 Colonel Albert de Rochas, propounder of the 
 
 theory of the "astral double" " 113 
 
 Dr. Cesar Lombroso, Alienist Professor of Psy- 
 chiatry, University of Turin " 120 
 
 xi 
 
xii LIST OF ILLUSTKATIONS 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 The famous Bourne case of dual personality " 136 
 
 The "Watseka Wonder," the most famous 
 
 recorded case of "obsession" " 142 
 
 Frederic W. H. Myers, formulator of the hypoth- 
 esis of the "subliminal self" " 147 
 
 The famous Bertha Huse case of clairvoyance. ... " 157 
 
 Impression of two clenched hands in clay, made at 
 
 a distance by Eusapia Paladino " 164 
 
 William T. Stead ,. " 171 
 
 Alleged genuine "spirit photograph" " 178 - 
 
 Fraudulent "spirit photograph" " 178 
 
 Alleged photograph of an ancient, taken in Chi- 
 cago by Mr. Blackwell " 188 
 
 Mr. Frank Podmore " 198 
 
 Photographs showing the progression of an al- 
 leged "materialization" " 212 
 
 A typical table levitation with Eusapia Paladino " 240 
 
 Dr. V. Maxwell, an enthusiastic psychical 
 
 researcher " 258- 
 
 A typical example of "spirit writing" : 
 
 I. The medium's normal handwriting " 266 
 
 II. Automatic writing by the medium ..... 276 
 
 III. Automatic writing later in the seance.. " 286. 
 
 Mrs. Leonora Piper, of Arlington, Mass " 291 
 
 Dr. Richard Hodgson " 305 , 
 
 Professor William James of Harvard University " 312 
 
 Handwriting of the medium, Mile. Smith, to show 
 the difference between normal and alleged 
 
 "controlled" writing " 324 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Chap. I. Introduction 1-21 
 
 Introduction, 1 — Is fraud an explanation of all spiritual- 
 istic phenomena? 3 — The strange phenomena com- 
 prised under the heading "Psychical Research," 6 — 
 The phenomena observed by Sir William Crookes, 9— All 
 professional spiritualistic phenomena are permeated with 
 fraud, 14 — Has science been neglecting a rich field of in- 
 quiry? 19 — 
 
 "To stop short in any research that bids fair to widen 
 the gates of knowledge is to bring reproach on science 
 . . ." — Sir William Crookes, 22. 
 
 Chap. II. The Physical Phenomena of 
 
 Spiritualism 2 3S4 
 
 Mere prestidigitation cannot explain all alleged "spirit 
 manifestations," 25 — The notable spiritualistic investiga- 
 tion of the London Dialectical Society, 27 — "Spirit" slate- 
 writing, 32 — The famous Zollner phenomena, 37 — Rap- 
 pings : the Fox Sisters, 40 — Are the rappings genuine ? 43 
 — Table-tipping, 47 — The researches of De Gasparin: 
 What causes table-tipping? 50 — 
 
 "That the soul survives the body I have not the shadow 
 of a doubt . . ." — Camille Flammarion, 55. 
 
 Chap. III. The Mediumship of D. D. Home 61-71 
 
 Home's levitations, 63 — "Elongation": the heat phenom- 
 ena, 67 — 
 
 "I am convinced of the persistence of human existence 
 beyond bodily death . . ." — Sir Oliver Lodge, 72. 
 xiii 
 
xiv TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 PACT 
 
 Chap. IV. Eusapia Paladino: The Italian 
 
 Medium 73-98 
 
 The beginning of Eusapia's mediumistic career, 75 — The 
 downfall of Eusapia in England, 82 — A new series of 
 sittings in Genoa, 85 — The first Turin seances, 91 — The 
 second Turin seances, 95 — 
 
 "I am convinced that after death man does not perish 
 entirely . . ." — Botaszi, 99. 
 
 Chap. V. The Later Mediumship of Eusapia 
 
 Paladino 101-19 
 
 The startling materializations produced at Naples, 106 — Is 
 this psychic energy a form of radio-activity? in — Eusa- 
 pia's manifestations and the problem of the future life, 
 116— 
 
 "Spiritualistic phenomena are authentic . . ." — Cesar 
 Lombroso, 120. 
 
 Chap. VI. Obsession and Dual Personality 
 
 123-46 
 
 The hypothesis of the "subliminal self," 127 — Cases of 
 dual personality, 134 — The remarkable case of Ansel 
 Bourne, 136 — The famous case of the "Watseka Wonder," 
 139— 
 
 "Our records prove the persistence of the spirit life 
 . . ." — Frederic W. H. Myers, 147. 
 
 Chap. VII. Clairvoyance and Clairaudience 
 
 149-70 
 
 Clairvoyance, 152 — The celebrated case of Bertha Huse, 
 157 — Clairaudience, 161 — What is clairvoyance? 163 — Pre- 
 cognition, or prophecy, 167 — 
 
 "I do not believe the dead depart . . ." — William T. 
 Stead, 171. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS xv 
 
 PAGfl 
 
 Chap. VIII. Ghosts 173-97 
 
 "Spirit photography," 177 — The projection of the "astral 
 body"? 184 — Apparitions of the dead, 187 — The Morton 
 "haunting," 191 — 
 
 "Survival is improbable . . ." — Charles Richet, 198. 
 Chap. IX. What Are Ghosts ? — "Material- 
 izations" 201-20 
 
 Not all "ghosts" are subjective, 205 — Do animals see 
 apparitions? 207 — The famous "Katie King" materializa- 
 tion, 217 — 
 
 "The dead have never really died . . ." — Alfred Rus- 
 sell Wallace, 221. 
 
 Chap. X. Telepathy 224-49 
 
 Fraudulent telepathic phenomena, 227 — Spontaneous tel- 
 epathy, 232 — The proof of telepathy, 237 — Telepathic 
 hypnosis and suggestion, 245 — What is telepathy? 248 — 
 "We deal only with presumption and prejudices ..." 
 — Andrew Lang, 250. 
 
 Chap. XI. Premonitions 252-7 
 
 What is the explanation of premonitions? 256 — 
 
 "We are at the dawn of a new religion . . ." — V. 
 Maxwell, 258. 
 
 Chap. XII. Mediumship 261-87 
 
 The phenomena of "automatism," 266 — Various phases of 
 motor automatism, 268 — Rules for conducting mediumistic 
 experiments, 272 — Typical mediumistic phenomena, 274 — 
 Apparently supernormal knowledge displayed in medium- 
 istic communications, 279 — The mediumship of William 
 Stainton Moses, 282 — 
 
 "No experimental proof of survival after death will ever 
 reach an absolutely conclusive scientific demonstration 
 * . ." — Professor William Barrett, 288. 
 
xvi TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chap. XIII. The Piper Case 291-31 1 
 
 The early phases of the Piper case, 295 — Mrs. Piper is 
 investigated in England, 299 — The appearance of the Pel- 
 ham "control," 304 — Pelham is displaced by the "imperator 
 controls," 307 — 
 
 "Psychical Research has bridged the chasm . . ." — 
 Professor William James, 312. 
 
 Chap. XIV. Telepathy vs. Spiritualism." 315-40 
 
 The "telepathic hypothesis," 320 — Arguments for the tele- 
 pathic hypothesis, 324 — Objections to the telepathic hypo- 
 thesis, 326 — Other arguments for spiritualism, 331 — "The 
 dramatic play of personality" in mediumistic communica- 
 tion, 333— 
 
 "I feel, I know with certitude that in dying I shall be 
 happy . . ." — Count Tolstoi, 341. 
 
 Chap. XV. Conclusion 343-5° 
 
 Spiritualism and the Bible, 345 — The difficulty of knowing 
 of the "Other World," 347 — The evidence of future happi- 
 ness, 350. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 For countless centuries man has been puzzled by 
 certain occurrences which have not fitted into his es- 
 tablished order of things. Ever since the beginning, 
 since man groped forward into a clear belief in the 
 future life, there has existed, for instance, a concurrent 
 belief that the "spirits" of the dead in "the other world" 
 sometimes came back to earth, sometimes communi- 
 cated with those they had left behind here. But 
 "ghosts" were something that modern science, as it 
 grew up in the past three centuries, could not explain ; 
 so science cheerfully denied that they existed. 
 
 Then there were other queer occurrences — you and I 
 nay have had them — a friend, perhaps, on the other side 
 of the world, suddenly dies, and we wake up in the 
 middle of the night in a cold sweat with an inexplicable 
 realization of our friend's decease. We call such a case 
 a "strange coincidence." At some other time we are 
 inexplicably warned of a danger suddenly imminent to 
 ourselves, and we call that warning a "presentiment." 
 Even two-score years ago there were some people who 
 said that these "coincidences" and "presentiments" were 
 1 
 
2 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 examples of a hitherto unsuspected power that they 
 called telepathy or "thought transference." But mod- 
 ern science had no place in its scheme of things for 
 telepathy, so again it cheerfully denied that the alleged 
 instances really occurred. 
 
 About the middle of the last century there appeared 
 a new class of phenomena, in some respects even more 
 bewilderingly contrary to the existing laws of science. 
 Mysterious rappings were heard, with no one to make 
 them, and musical instruments played when no 
 "natural" explanation seemed possible. Solid articles, 
 especially tables, danced violently around and occasion- 
 ally rose of their own accord into the air and floated 
 there. Rarely, persons were "levitated" in the same 
 way. Under favorable conditions forms were said to 
 appear and disappear instantaneously. For these and 
 other similar wonderful occurrences science had no 
 explanation; they were contrary to all her established 
 laws. So science denied that they ever occurred ; and 
 those who witnessed them, in default of any other 
 explanation, ascribed them to the work of "spirits" 
 of the dead. 
 
 Of course, the little genuine phenomena, admitting 
 that there were some genuine, during this last half-cen- 
 tury were imitated by a host of charlatans, self-styled 
 "mediums," seeking notoriety and fortune at the expense 
 of an easily duped public. As a consequence, spiritual- 
 ism fell into such disrepute that for some time reputable 
 scientists declined even to investigate its pretensions. 
 Yet the more thoughtful, as the century drew near its 
 close, argued that where so much smoke was there 
 must be a little fire. Thousands of people were claim- 
 ing that they had seen tables tipped and levitated, that 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 3 
 
 they were daily receiving messages from friends who 
 had died. Ghosts were part of the tradition of every 
 race on earth. Scores of respectable men and women, 
 contrary to their expectation and better judgment, ad- 
 mitted the reception of telepathic messages. Here were 
 facts that science, in the opinion of some of its leaders, 
 could no longer ignore. 
 
 Is Fraud an Explanation of all Spiritualistic Phenomena? 
 
 The first cry that the average man makes in the 
 presence of alleged supernatural phenomena is that of 
 fraud, and on the whole he is abundantly justified. 
 The history of mediumship is one long, dishearten- 
 ing record of fraud and exposure. That nearly all 
 alleged spiritualistic phenomena are fraudulent there 
 isn't the slightest doubt. That every "medium" who 
 in the daily papers advertises "advice" for sale is an 
 arrant rascal may be taken as a foregone conclusion. 
 That some of the most noted mediums, after months 
 and sometimes years of scientific cooperation, have 
 turned out to be impostors, is true. 
 
 But if we immediately dismiss in disgust the whole 
 subject we are gravely in danger of the opposite error. \ 
 When Dr. Thomson Jay Hudson, author of The Law of \ 
 Psychic Phenomena, himself an opponent of the ex- 
 treme spiritualistic position and an ethical writer of 
 weight, says: "The man who denies the phenomena 
 of spiritualism to-day is not entitled to be called a 
 skeptic; he is simply ignorant"; and when the great 
 English scientist, Alfred Russel Wallace, the co- 
 discoverer with Darwin of evolution, recently said, "No 
 more evidence is needed to prove spiritualism, for no 
 accepted fact in science has a greater or stronger 
 
4i ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 array of proof in its behalf," does it not behoove the 
 man in the street at least to read before scoffing ? 
 
 Sir William Crookes, once president of the British 
 Association for the Advancement of Science, one of 
 the three or four greatest English scientists of the nine- 
 teenth century, the discoverer of the element thallium, 
 and inventor of the Crookes tube which made possible 
 the X-ray, studied various phases of mediumship for 
 five years with scientific care and thoroness. At the 
 end of that time he announced his conversion to spirit- 
 ualism. 
 
 Sir Oliver Lodge, an admitted authority in biology 
 and metaphysics, after many years of investigation, 
 asserts his unqualified belief in the reality of telepathy, 
 clairvoyance and similar so-called "occult" phenomena. 
 Professor Richet, of the University of Paris, and Pro- 
 fessor William James, of Harvard, perhaps the most 
 eminent psychologists of Europe and America re- 
 spectively, have devoted a large part of their lives to 
 the study of mediumship. 
 
 These men are not tyros in scientific research, or 
 liable to be hoodwinked by fraud or biased by personal 
 feeling; they are among the leaders in the intellectual 
 life of their respective countries. Nor do they stand 
 alone , by any means. The (British) Society for 
 Psychical Research, for thirty years the recognized 
 leader in the investigation of psychical phenomena, 
 was founded in 1882 for the express purpose of investi- 
 gating "all that large group of phenomena outside the 
 boundaries of orthodox science." This included, of 
 course, clairvoyance, rappings, apparitions, and trance 
 writing and speaking, as well as the various allied 
 phenomena of hypnotism. The society owed its in- 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 5 
 
 ception to Professor W. F. Barrett, of Dublin, to whose 
 agitation its founding was chiefly due, and to two 
 close friends, Frederic W. H. Myers and Professor 
 Sidgwick, of Cambridge. Frederic Myers was a stu- 
 dent of psychology of such depth and breadth that 
 his monumental work, Human Personality, may be 
 said to have revolutionized our conceptions of psychol- 
 ogy. Professor Sidgwick was one of the greatest 
 philosophical thinkers and writers of the century. 
 
 From the beginning the investigations of the society 
 proceeded with scientific caution. It numbered among 
 its members the leaders of the intellectual world. 
 Among its presidents have been Arthur James Bal- 
 four, former Prime Minister of Great Britain, and 
 Professor Balfour Stewart, the eminent logician. 
 
 Yet this society, after unmasking and discarding a 
 tremendous accretion of fraud and error, finds enough 
 left to state officially that the existence of ghosts and 
 the occurrence of telepathy at least are scientifically 
 proved. And the Society for Psychical Research is 
 but a type of similar societies in France, America* and 
 Italy which have rallied around them the greatest in- 
 vestigators in their respective countries. The men 
 mentioned are but a few of those who are professed be- 
 lievers in the reality of spiritualistic phenomena. 
 Hudson, Hodgson and Stead in England ; Dessoir in 
 Germany ; Hyslop, Funk and Sidis in America ; Janet, 
 Richet, Ochorowicz, Flammarion, Du Prel, De Gaspa- 
 rin, Maxwell in France; and Lombroso, the great 
 criminologist, Foa and Morselli in Italy — the list of 
 names is a long one. 
 
 In fact, there are now in all the world but one or two 
 scientists of the first rank who deny the actual proba- 
 
6 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 bility of the future life; while a large proportion claim 
 that this life has been actually proved by the occurring 
 phenomena of spiritualism. 
 
 You are probably surprised at this; you probably 
 never suspected the slightest favorable consensus of 
 scientific opinion on this matter. All your life you 
 have believed in a future life, simply because you have 
 — believed; but all your life, perhaps, too, you have 
 hoped and sought in vain for proof, tangible, visible, 
 scientific proof, that your loved ones who had gone 
 before were alive, that your faith might be more than 
 a faith, might be an actual knowledge. Now these 
 men assert that they have found this proof. What is 
 it they have found ? Their scholarly attainments give 
 their discoveries weight; and you and I at least want 
 to know. 
 
 In the light of the reports of these eminent scientists 
 who have investigated spiritualism most thoroly, you 
 and I have neither the right — nor the desire prob- 
 ably — to cast aside the whole subject without at least 
 a cursory investigation on our own account. After 
 personal examination of the facts and a weighing of 
 the conclusions derived from them, personal judg- 
 ment may be reached which, even if it be adverse, is 
 founded, not on contemptuous ignorance, but on un- 
 biased acquaintance with the facts. 
 
 The Strange Phenomena Comprised Under the Heading 
 "Psychical Research" 
 
 Putting aside for the moment all question of a 
 future life, the psychical phenomena which we propose 
 to investigate are claimed by the men who have stud- 
 ied them most to prove the existence of very wonder- 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 7 
 
 ful abilities, powers which we are accustomed to think 
 utterly unworthy of credence, and existing, if at all, 
 only in the imagination or perhaps in a vague "other 
 world." It is asserted, as we have seen, that there 
 are, for example, really such things as: 
 
 Clairvoyance, the ability to see independent of the 
 eyes, the material organs of sight, to see spontane- 
 ously, for example, what is within a locked drawer or 
 what is happening a thousand miles away. 
 
 Clairaudience, a similar ability of hearing inde- 
 pendent of the material organs of hearing. 
 
 Telepathy, the ability to communicate thought in- 
 dependent of all physical senses, transcending space, 
 giving the power to read the thoughts of another, be he 
 a few feet or miles away. 
 
 Prevision, the ability to transcend time. This may 
 be either retro cognition, that is, the power of knowing 
 what happened in the past, or, more rarely, precogni- 
 tion, or prophecy, of seeing take place what has never 
 happened, but in the future will occur. 
 
 Telekinesis, the ability to affect physical objects 
 without contact, as, for example, moving chairs or 
 other objects when at a distance from them. 
 
 Self-projection, the ability of a man to make him- 
 self visible at a distance. 
 
 These are indeed wonderful things, beside which 
 the greatest discoveries of modern science fade into 
 comparative insignificance. That is, if they are true, 
 you say. Well, that is exactly what we shall try to 
 find out; but with one qualification. Our purpose, 
 you will remember, is to answer an even larger ques- 
 tion, "Are the dead alive?" and we shall consider all 
 
8 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 psychic phenomena from the standpoint of their rela- 
 tion to that question. 
 
 We shall very soon discover that the phenomena 
 divide themselves into two general classes. We have 
 table-tippings, rappings, materializations, knot-tying, 
 and other "cabinet manifestations" which do not give 
 alleged "messages" from the "other world," and, in- 
 deed, may claim no connection with it. These "phys- 
 ical phenomena," therefore, however interesting in 
 themselves, are irrelevant to the main point at issue 
 and may be treated by us at much less length. 
 
 We have, on the other hand, table-tippings, rap- 
 pings and materializations with "messages." These, 
 together with apparitions, auditions, automatisms (that 
 is, automatic trance speaking and writing through a 
 medium), are of value, because they purport to be 
 communications from discarnate (deceased) "spirits." 
 You will see at once, then, that the question of the 
 genuineness of these alleged spiritual phenomena di- 
 vides itself into two : 
 
 i . — Do tables tip spontaneously ? Do human beings 
 and other material bodies rise and float in the air? 
 Does writing occur of its own accord between sealed 
 slates, etc. — that is, do these things, considered sim- 
 ply as physical events, ever genuinely happen? 
 
 2. — Is the source of the alleged messages in the 
 "other world"? All these wonderful things, in other 
 words, may or may not happen; even having proved, 
 if we can, that they do happen, as actual, visible, 
 physical phenomena, we have still to prove their spir- 
 itual origin. 
 
 The first question, as for our purposes the less im- 
 portant, we shall consider briefly, preliminary to the 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 9 
 
 second. To undertake the solution of the latter at 
 all advisedly, we should know something about the 
 allied phenomena of clairvoyance, telepathy and sec- 
 ondary personality and possession (the "possessed by 
 demons" of the Bible), A large field this, evidently, 
 and one of absorbing interest; what shall we find 
 therein ? 
 
 The Phenomena Observed by Sir William Crookes 
 
 Before beginning any detailed consideration of the 
 phenomena mentioned by the various writers quoted, 
 it may be well to note a few of the more famous his- 
 torical instances — one or two of the striking and typical 
 landmarks, as it were, of the country we are about to 
 traverse. 
 
 To give quickly an idea of the extent and impor- 
 tance of well-authenticated psychic phenomena, I can 
 do no better than to review very briefly Crookes' 
 famous Report on the Investigation of Phenomena 
 Called Spiritual. Weighing on the one hand Sir Will- 
 iam Crookes' position as one of the foremost scientists 
 of Great Britain, and on the other the extraordinary 
 nature of the phenomena he describes, we may well 
 understand the amazed outcry that arose upon the 
 publication of his report. 
 
 Sir William Crookes was in middle life when he 
 made the researches, carried on over a period of several 
 years, the results of which are embodied in his Report. 
 Lest it be thought that his maturer judgment repudiated 
 the conclusions reached in those earlier days, I shall 
 quote his own statement thereon, delivered as part of 
 his President's Address before the British Association 
 for the Advancement of Science, in 1898. 
 
10 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 "No incident in my scientific career is more widely 
 known than the part I took many years ago in certain 
 psychic researches. Thirty years have passed since I 
 published an account of experiments tending to show 
 that outside our scientific knowledge there exists a 
 Force exercised by intelligence differing from the ordi- 
 nary intelligence common to mortals. This fact in 
 my life is, of course, well understood by those who 
 honored me with the invitation to become your presi- 
 dent. Perhaps among my audience some may feel 
 curious as to whether I shall speak out or be silent. 
 I elect to speak, altho briefly. To ignore the sub- 
 ject would be an act of cowardice — an act of cowardice 
 I feel no temptation to commit. I have nothing to 
 retract. I adhere to my already published statements. 
 Indeed, I might add much thereto." 
 
 He had said with truth : "There appear to be few 
 instances of meetings held for the express purpose of 
 getting the phenomena under test conditions, in the 
 presence of persons properly qualified by scientific 
 training to weigh and adjust the value of the evidence 
 which might present itself." He realized in advance 
 the storm that would follow the announcement of the 
 results of his inquiry, and his preliminary words are 
 a model of judicious rebuttal. 
 
 "The phenomena I am prepared to attest are so 
 extraordinary that even now, on recalling the details 
 of what I witnessed, there is an antagonism in my 
 mind between reason, which pronounces it to be scien- 
 tifically impossible, and the consciousness that my 
 senses, both of touch and sight — and these corrobo- 
 rated, as they were, by the senses of all who were 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? IX 
 
 present — are not lying witnesses when they testify 
 against my preconceptions." 
 
 With these few words of introduction, Sir William 
 proceeds to classify simply and relate with the ut- 
 most brevity a series of the most marvelous phenom- 
 ena that — if bona fide — it ever befell mortal man to 
 witness. 
 
 He states, for instance, that he had observed "the 
 movement of heavy bodies with contact, but without 
 mechanical exertion"; that he had heard during his 
 experiments raps and other noises varying from "deli- 
 cate ticks as with the point of a pin," to "a cascade of 
 sharp sounds as from an induction-coil in full work" 
 and "detonations in the air" ; that he had seen "move- 
 ments of heavy bodies when at a distance from the 
 medium"; that he had watched "a chair move slowly 
 up to the table from a far corner when all were watch- 
 ing it" ; that he had repeatedly witnessed "the rising 
 of tables and chairs off the ground without contact with 
 any person" ; and even "the levitation of human be- 
 ings"; that he had seen "luminous appearances," not 
 once, but many times, and under the most varied forms ; 
 that once "in the light" he had seen "a luminous cloud 
 hover over a heliotrope on a side table, break a sprig 
 off, and carry the sprig to a lady" ; and "on some occa- 
 sions a similar luminous cloud visibly condense to the 
 form of a hand and carry small objects about"; that 
 there had been several times "appearances of hands, 
 either self-luminous or visible by ordinary light." He 
 tells how once "a beautifully formed small hand rose 
 up from an opening in a dining-table and gave me a 
 flower" ; and he adds : 
 
 "I have more than once seen, first, an object move, 
 
12 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 then a luminous cloud appear to form about it, and, 
 lastly, the cloud condense into shape and become a 
 perfectly formed hand. At this stage the hand is 
 visible to all present. It is not always a mere form, 
 but sometimes appears perfectly life-like and graceful, 
 the fingers moving and the flesh apparently as human 
 as that of any in the room. At the wrist or arm it 
 becomes hazy, and fades off into a luminous cloud. 
 I have retained one of these hands in my own, firmly 
 resolved not to let it escape. There was no struggle 
 or effort made to get loose, but it gradually seemed to 
 resolve itself into vapor, and faded in that manner from 
 my grasp." 
 
 These are facts, of course, which seem utterly be- 
 yond belief, yet the evidence which Sir William Crookes 
 brings up in their support is imposing. 
 
 In answer to the immediate accusation of trickery, 
 we are told that the occurrences took place in the 
 writer's "own house, in the light, and with only private 
 friends present besides the medium," and they hap- 
 pened, not once, but scores and hundreds of times, ob- 
 served by many witnesses, under every test condition 
 that expert scientific knowledge and trained detective 
 ingenuity could devise. 
 
 Against the accusation of some kind of a wholesale 
 self-hypnotization of the whole company, the writer 
 contends : 
 
 "The supposition that there is a sort of mania or 
 delusion which suddenly attacks a whole roomful of 
 intelligent persons who are quite sane elsewhere, and 
 that they all concur, to the minutest particulars, in 
 the details of the occurrences of which they suppose 
 

 
 An Instantaneous Photograph, Taken by M. de Fontenay, of 
 Table Levitation Produced by the Medium, Auguste Politi 
 
 It is noteworthy that no scientist who has investigated instances 
 of levitation at first hand now denies the reality of the phenomena. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 13 
 
 themselves to be witnesses, seems to my mind more 
 incredible than even the facts they attest." 
 
 But there is stronger evidence. Sir William Crookes 
 did not rely alone upon human eyes and touch, only 
 too fallible as these often are. The amount of force 
 was measured with a dynamometer ; the loss of weight 
 of levitated bodies registered on specially prepared 
 scales ; the inexplicable cold rush of air which preceded 
 or accompanied the more startling phenomena "lowered 
 a thermometer several degrees." Dynamometers, scales, 
 thermometers cannot be hypnotized! 
 
 The entire report is of absorbing interest, and the 
 more important parts of it will be considered at greater 
 detail later. The purpose here is simply to show that 
 the occurrence of phenomena of a most astounding 
 character is asserted soberly and in the most emphatic 
 terms by men of the very highest scientific reputation. 
 
 One more incident might be quoted, however, as 
 an example, as Sir William Crookes says, of those 
 "special instances which seem to point to the agency 
 of an exterior intelligence." 
 
 "During a seance with Mr. Home, a small lath, 
 which I have before mentioned, moved across the table 
 to me, in the light, and delivered a message to me by 
 tapping my hand, I repeating the alphabet, and the 
 lath tapping me at the right letters. The other end 
 of the lath was resting on the table, some distance 
 from Mr. Home's hands. 
 
 "The taps were so sharp and clear, and the lath was 
 evidently so well under control of the invisible power 
 which was governing its movements, that I said : 'Can 
 the intelligence governing the motion of this lath 
 change the character of the movements and give me 
 
14 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 a telegraphic message through the Morse alphabet 
 by taps on my hand?' (I have every reason to believe 
 that the Morse code was quite unknown to any other 
 person present, and it was only imperfectly known to 
 me.) Immediately I said this, the character of the 
 taps changed and the message was continued in the 
 way I had requested. The letters were given too 
 rapidly for me to do more than catch a word here and 
 there, and consequently I lost the message; but I 
 heard sufficient to convince me that there was a good 
 Morse operator on the other end of the line, wherever 
 that might be." 
 
 All Professional Spiritualistic Phenomena Are Permeated With 
 Fraud 
 
 We have already noted that the first cry that the 
 average man makes in the presence of alleged spiritual- 
 istic phenomena is that of fraud ; and that on the whole 
 he is only too well justified. The record of profes- 
 sional mediumship is a disheartening one. The Fox 
 sisters, who started the spiritualistic furore in this 
 country in the early '4o's, confessed in after life that 
 their "spirit" rappings were made by movements of 
 the knee joints. Eusapia Paladino, most famous of 
 all "physical mediums," was detected by the committee 
 of the Society for Psychical Research in the most 
 transparent fraud. The pretensions of Mme. Bla- 
 f vatsky, founder of the cult known as the Theosophical 
 J Society, with thousands of adherents, were utterly 
 | riddled by Dr. Richard Hodgson, that sleuth keen- 
 « eyed in detecting the shady weaknesses of mediums. 
 Slade, who completely mystified Zollner and other 
 savants of Germany, met a much-merited Waterloo at 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? l5 
 
 the hands of the Seybert Commission of the University 
 of Pennsylvania. 
 
 In short, M. Flammarion, the eminent French as- 
 tronomer and psychologist, says : "During - a period of 
 more than forty years I believe that I have received 
 at my home nearly all of them — men and women of 
 divers nationalities and from every quarter of the 
 globe. One may lay it down as a principle that all 
 professional mediums cheat." 
 
 The statement of J. N. Maskelyne, thoroly fa- 
 miliar with all phases of mediumship as he was, is 
 definite and unequivocal. "There does not exist, and 
 there never has existed, a professional medium of any 
 note who has not been convicted of trickery or fraud." 
 "The net result of the investigations conducted by 
 the Society for Psychical Research," says another 
 writer recently, "was to produce the conviction that 
 no results obtained thru professional mediums were 
 to be trusted, so long as the conditions rendered fraud 
 possible; and, further, that practically all professional 
 mediums are frauds !" In short, the history of medium- 
 ship is one continuous disheartening record of fraud. 
 
 But if, as was said before, we in disgust dismiss the 
 whole subject, we are gravely in danger of committing 
 an opposite error. 
 
 It is unfortunately true that the scientist is not the 
 best observer or critic of psychic phenomena. Mother 
 Nature, who works by invariable rule and never lies, 
 however much she hides, does not begin to require that 
 alertness, detective skill and hard common sense which 
 the investigator who is contesting the wiles of a crafty 
 charlatan must have. As Mr. Bruce says : 
 
 "Experience has demonstrated that even the best 
 
16 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 trained observers fail to perceive all that transpires 
 in the seance room, and that, consequently, the quick- 
 witted medium of fraudulent tendencies has ample 
 opportunity to effect his triumphs by trick and device. 
 Conclusive proof of this was afforded by the late S. J. 
 Davey, a member of the Society for Psychical Re- 
 search, who, after a little practice, succeeded in dupli- 
 cating the most sensational performances of the 'slate- 
 writing' medium, Eglinton. So successful was he 
 that the English spiritists denounced him as a renegade 
 medium. But he frankly operated thruout on the 
 conjurer's principle that the hand is quicker than the 
 eye." 1 
 
 But we have testimony from other men, investiga- 
 tors of a different stamp. Mr. Hereward Carrington, 
 an expert prestidigitator himself, after a lifelong study 
 of fraudulent spintualistic phenomena, says: 
 
 "There may be much fraud in modern spiritualism ; 
 in fact, I am disposed to believe that fully ninety- 
 eight per cent, of the phenomena, both mental and 
 physical, are fraudulently produced; but a careful 
 study of the evidence, contemporary and historic, has 
 convinced me that there must have been some genuine 
 phenomena at the commencement of this movement, 
 in order that the first mediums may have copied them 
 by fraudulent means, and that a certain percentage 
 of the phenomena occurring to-day is genuine. A 
 counterfeit implies a genuine, and a shammer some- 
 thing to sham." 
 
 M. Flammarion, quoted above, adds that he unques- 
 tionably believes that, tho all professional mediums 
 
 'Bruce: Riddle of Personality, pp. 109-112. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 17 
 
 sometimes cheat, "they do not always cheat; and they 
 possess real, undeniable psychic power." 1 
 
 The author of The Revelations of a Spirit Medium, 
 a. man who, as Mr. Carrington says, ". . . pro- 
 duced the phenomena that converted hundreds to the 
 belief, and who knows the disgusting details of the 
 frauds practiced from A to Z, stated . . . that he 
 himself was 'more spiritualist than anything else,' and 
 advised his readers to go on investigating, for 'you 
 will find in the chaff that is so plentiful some good 
 grains.' " 2 
 
 And yet this same writer had made this sweeping 
 statement: "His own career and the fact that he has 
 met no other professional medium, male or female, in 
 his long experience and extensive travels, who were 
 not 'crooked,' leads him to the conclusion that from 
 the professional you are to expect nothing genuine." 
 "Of all the mediums he (the author) has met in 
 eighteen years, and that means a great many, in all 
 phases, he has never met one that was not sailing the 
 very same description of craft as himself. Every one; 
 no exception." 
 
 Alfred Russell Wallace declares that the facts ob- 
 served in the history of spiritualism "are incontest- 
 able"; and Dr. Elliotson, long a determined opponent 
 of spiritualism, said finally : "I am now quite satisfied 
 of the reality of the phenomena." 3 
 
 Mr. Frank Podmore, at the conclusion of his monu- 
 mental and scholarly attack on the whole spiritualist 
 
 ^lammarlon : Mysterious Psychic Forces, p. 3. 
 3 Carrington : Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, p. 338. 
 'Wallace: Miracles and Modern Spiritualism, p. 99. 
 
18 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 position, sounds a note of warning against an indis- 
 criminate denial of all psychic phenomena. 
 
 In other words, here, as elsewhere in human expe- 
 rience, we must "prove (test) all things" and "hold 
 fast to that which is good." We must remember that 
 D. D. Home and Mrs. Piper, whose performances are 
 in every respect the most wonderful of all, have never 
 been detected in the slightest suspicion of fraud. And 
 they were for many years under the severest scrutiny 
 of investigators trained for that very work. All Mr. 
 Carrington's shrewd observation and analysis, laying 
 bare the thousand clever devices with which unscrupu- 
 lous mediums have hoodwinked credulous humanity, 
 but make more startlingly conclusive the slender 
 section in the back of his book that he believes are 
 "Genuine Phenomena." 
 
 In his conclusion he states his position with clear- 
 ness: "While sounding a timely warning ... by 
 thus calling the public attention to the methods of 
 trickery at present in vogue, I do not wish it to be 
 understood that I thereby relegate the whole of the 
 evidence for the supernormal to the waste-basket. That 
 is precisely what I do not wish to do or lead others 
 to do. It is because I believe that there do exist cer- 
 tain phenomena, the explanations for which have not 
 yet been found, . . . that I think it necessary to 
 distinguish those phenomena from the fraudulent 'mar- 
 vels' so commonly produced, and which are the only 
 spiritualistic phenomena with which the public is ac- 
 quainted. When these shall have been cleared away, 
 . . . the real, systematic, scientific study of psychic 
 phenomena will have begun." 1 
 
 Harrington : Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, pp. 415-6. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 19 
 
 It is doubly unfortunate that scientific men, as a 
 body, have affected a lofty disdain of the whole 
 psychic field, blind to the fact that they are missing 
 an exceptional opportunity for opening up a virgin 
 territory of fabulous value to mankind. 
 
 Has Science Been Neglecting a Rich Field of Inquiry? 
 
 Mr. Myers, in a refreshingly sane criticism of the 
 conservative stand, points out the "ever-growing dis- 
 like felt by the votaries of advanced and established 
 sciences to the rude and approximate work which has 
 been needed in the infancy of every science," adding: 
 "Psychical research is the left wing of Experimental 
 Psychology. It may be argued that present methods 
 of research are rather rash skirmishings; but surely 
 there is an opposite danger ... in the temptation 
 to cling too exclusively to the safe methods of sciences 
 exacter than it [psychology] can in reality be. . . . 
 Men who insist on electric lamps along their road never 
 reach Central Africa. . . ." 
 
 In a masterly defense of his own position, Sir Will- 
 iam Crookes said: "My object in thus placing on 
 record the results of a very remarkable series of ex- 
 periments is to present such a problem, which, ac- 
 cording to Sir William Thomson, 'Science is bound 
 by the everlasting law of honor to face fearlessly.' It 
 will not do merely to deny its existence or try to sneer 
 it down. Remember, I hazard no hypothesis or theory 
 whatever; I merely vouch for certain facts, my only 
 object being — the truth. Doubt, but do not deny ; point 
 out, by the severest criticism, what are considered fal- 
 lacies in my experimental tests, and suggest more con- 
 clusive trials ; but do not let us hastily call our senses 
 
20 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 lying witnesses merely because they testify against 
 preconceptions. I say to my critics, Try the experi- 
 ments; investigate with care and patience as I have 
 done. If, having examined, you discover imposture 
 or delusion, proclaim it and say how it was done. But, 
 if you find it be a fact, avow it fearlessly, as 'by the 
 everlasting law of honor' you are bound to do." 1 
 
 In the introduction to his own study, M. Flammarion 
 takes an incontrovertible stand: "We are inclined to 
 smile at everything that relates to the marvelous, to 
 tales of enchantment, the extravagances of occultism, 
 the mysteries of magic. This arises from a reason- 
 able prudence. But it does not go far enough. To 
 deny and prejudge a phenomenon has never proved 
 anything. The truth of almost every fact which con- 
 stitutes the sum of . the positive sciences of our day 
 has been denied. What we ought to do is to admit 
 no unverified statement, to apply to every subject of 
 study, no matter what, the experimental method, with- 
 out any preconceived idea whatever, either for or 
 against." 2 
 
 The trouble is that your man of science objects to 
 the conditions imposed by the medium, the darkened 
 room for example, and the constrained position, which 
 often prevents anything like genuine investigation. He 
 points out that there is a peculiar, mysterious atmos- 
 phere in a seance room which works on the emotions 
 and unsettles the judgment. He declines to become 
 involved in any study wherein gross fraud has been 
 and is so prevalent; and he denies the existence of 
 
 Quoted in Flammarion : Mysterious Psychic Forces, p. 316. 
 'Ibid., p. 1. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 21 
 
 any phenomena not reproducible (as are the phenomena 
 of chemistry, physics and biology) at will. 
 
 Of course, this position is both selfish and scien- 
 tifically indefensible. We have no more right to in- 
 sist that a "materialization" must take place in daylight 
 than to insist that a photographic plate must be de- 
 veloped in daylight. We know nothing as yet regard- 
 ing the laws of psychic phenomena. We cannot dic- 
 tate hozv they should happen ; we cannot reproduce 
 them at will, simply because we don't know enough 
 about them ; and to take such a position is as absurd as 
 that of the savant of medieval times would have been 
 who denied the existence of lightning because he could 
 not manufacture it when he pleased. 
 
 To such an astounding and unequivocal statement 
 as that of Professor Challis, Plumierian professor of 
 astronomy at Cambridge University, mere scoffing is, 
 it seems to me, no really adequate answer. 
 
 "I have been unable to resist the large amount of 
 testimony to such facts [spiritualism] which has come 
 from many independent sources and from a vast num- 
 ber of witnesses. ... In short, the testimony has 
 been so abundant and consentaneous, that either the 
 facts must be admitted to be such as are reported, or 
 the possibility of certifying facts by human testimony 
 must be given up." 
 
"TO STOP SHORT IN ANY RESEARCH THAT BIDS FAIR 
 
 TO WIDEN THE GATES OF KNOWLEDGE IS 
 
 TO BRING REPROACH ON SCIENCE." 
 
 "No incident in my scientific career is more widely known 
 than the part I took, many years ago, in certain psychical 
 researches. Thirty years have passed since I published an ac- 
 count of experiments tending to show that outside our scientific 
 knowledge there exists a Force exercised by intelligence differ- 
 ing from the ordinary intelligence common to mortals. To 
 stop short in any research that bids fair to widen the gates 
 of knowledge, to recoil from fear of difficulty or adverse criti- 
 cism, is to bring reproach on science. There is nothing for 
 the investigator to do but to go straight on, 'to explore up and 
 down, inch by inch, with the taper of his reason; to follow 
 the light wherever it may lead, even should it at times re- 
 semble a will-o'-the-wisp.' 
 
 ********* 
 
 "That a hitherto unrecognized form of force — whether it is 
 called psychical force or X-force is of little consequence — is 
 involved in these occurrences (spiritual phenomena) is not with 
 me a matter of opinion, but of absolute knowledge. The 
 nature of the force, or the cause which immediately excites 
 its activity, forms a subject on which I do not at present feel 
 competent to form an opinion." 
 
 — Sir William Crookes. 
 
Sir William Crookes 
 
 Perhaps the foremost English scientist of the latter nineteenth 
 century, formerly president of the British Association for the Advance- 
 ment of Science. His record of mediumistic phenomena personally 
 observed is astounding. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE PHYSICAL PHENOMENA OF SPIRIT- 
 UALISM 
 
 We have already remarked how difficult it is for 
 the average man, even one trained in scientific obser- 
 vation, to discover the fraudulent devices of a tricky 
 medium with years of sleight-of-hand experience. You 
 may watch the exhibitions of Hermann and Kellar, 
 knowing they are clever tricks, yet utterly unable to 
 explain how the result is obtained. Kellar gave ex- | 
 hibitions of slate-writing before the Seybert Commis- 
 sion which completely mystified them, yet he announced 
 beforehand that the phenomena were entirely trickery. 
 Dr. Hyslop notes that often the seances of mediums are 
 "much poorer exhibitions than those of the most ordi- 
 nary prestidigitator." Yet they manage to deceive their 
 spectators. The amateur investigator without the least 
 experience confronts a man who for years has made 
 a lifework of producing illusion, who knows every 
 variety of trap-door, secret catch, slide, dummy appa- 
 ratus, concealed wires, etc., and every method of using 
 them. 
 
 Probably ninety-eight per cent, of the "materializa- 
 tions" seen in the seance room are not even an ade- 
 quate illusion; that is, are such flimsy makeshifts that 
 it seems as if no normal human being could be de- 
 ceived. They are compounded, in fact, of a very 
 natural and pitiful longing to see, a clever suggestion 
 
m ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 from the medium that they are seen, and a very slight 
 "ghost" framework on which both feelings are hung. 
 
 But against the accusation that all his "physical" 
 phenomena are fraudulent, the spiritualist brings up 
 one very strong kind of testimony, that of the pres- 
 tidigitators themselves. After a seance with Alexis, 
 the clairvoyant medium, Robert Houdin, probably the 
 greatest of all modern magicians, wrote : 
 
 "I have, therefore, returned from this seance as 
 astonished as it is possible to be, and persuaded that it 
 is utterly impossible that chance or skill could ever 
 produce effects so wonderful." 1 
 
 Harry Kellar, whose stage performances are known 
 to thousands in this country, said in a letter to the 
 Indian Daily News (Calcutta, 1882), regarding the 
 mediumistic performances of Mr. Eglinton : 
 
 "It is needless to say I went as a skeptic, but I must 
 own that I have come away utterly unable to explain 
 by any natural means the phenomena that I witnessed 
 on Tuesday evening. . . . After a most stringent 
 trial and strict scrutiny of these wonderful experiences, 
 I can arrive at no other conclusion than that there 
 was no trace of trickery in any form, nor was there in 
 the room any mechanism or machinery by which could 
 be produced the phenomena which had taken place. 
 The ordinary mode by which Maskelyne and other 
 conjurers imitate levitation . . . could not pos- 
 sibly be done in the room in which we were assem- 
 bled." 2 
 
 1<£ Tout a fait impossible que le hazard ou l'adresse puisse 
 jamais produire des effets aussi marveilleux." Quoted in 
 Funk: The Widow's Mite, p. 53. 
 
 2 Quoted in Funk: The Widow's Mite, p. 52. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 25 
 
 These statements, while interesting, are in no way 
 conclusive, however. We must remember that Bella- 
 chini, the noted conjurer of the Prussian court, gave 
 Slade a similar endorsement ; x and that the trickery of 
 this very Eglinton who puzzled Kellar had been al- 
 ready uncovered in England. 2 In other words, even 
 the best magicians may not know all the tricks of their 
 own trade, and may be mystified just as possibly, even 
 if not as easily, as ordinary folk. 
 
 But, on the other hand, in fairness to the spiritualist, 
 it must be admitted that Kellar states that the alleged 
 "explanations" of Eglinton's performances would not 
 cover all of them, and Bellachini asserts positively of 
 Slade : "I have not in the slightest degree found any- 
 thing to be produced by means of prestidigitative mani- 
 festations or by mechanical apparatus; . . . any 
 explanation of the experiments which took place under 
 the circumstances and conditions then obtaining by any 
 reference to prestidigitation is absolutely impossible." 3 
 
 It is evident then that in this direction we reach but 
 very little solid footing either way. 
 
 Mere Prestidigitation Cannot Explain All Alleged "Spirit 
 Manifestations" 
 
 But any intelligent examination of spiritualistic phe- 
 nomena soon brings us to instances which mere trick- 
 ery cannot explain. 
 
 No hypothesis of prestidigitation, no matter how 
 cleverly worked out, can, for instance, explain the table- 
 
 *Funk : The Widow's Mite, p. 54. 
 
 2 S. P. R. Proceedings, v. 4, p. 355. 
 
 s Quoted in Funk: The Widow's Mite, p. 54. 
 
26 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 tipping incident mentioned by Professor Morgan. A 
 skeptical friend present at a seance was loudly scoffing 
 at the so-called spirits, and daring them to display their 
 powers. Spontaneously, without contact, the heavy 
 table around which the experimenters were standing 
 broke away from them and pinned the skeptic against 
 the wall with such force that he cried for mercy. 
 
 "A medium," as Sir William Crookes says in his 
 famous report, cannot, by trickery, ". . . while 
 seated in one part of the room with a number of per- 
 sons keenly watching him, . . . make an accor- 
 dion play in my own hand when I hold it keys down- 
 ward, or cause the same accordion to float about the 
 room playing all the time. He cannot introduce ma- 
 chinery which will wave window-curtains or pull up 
 Venetian blinds eight feet off, tie a knot in a hand- 
 kerchief and place it in a far corner of the room, sound 
 notes on a distant piano, cause a card-plate to float 
 about the room, raise a water-bottle and tumbler from 
 the table, make a coral necklace rise on end, cause a 
 fan to move about and fan the company, or set in 
 motion a pendulum when enclosed in a glass case 
 firmly cemented to the wall." 
 
 Trickery does not explain the case noted of the 
 medium Meurice by Dr. Maxwell. 
 
 "On one corner there is a statuette in porcelain . . . 
 five inches high. M. Meurice told me he was going 
 to make this statuette move. I stood near him, with 
 my hand on his back ; I stooped down and looked fixed- 
 ly and narrowly at the statuette during the whole oper- 
 ation. M. Meurice proceeded exactly as in the pre- 
 ceding experiments, and when his hands — joined to- 
 gether at the finger-tips — were at a distance of six 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 27 
 
 inches from the statuette, the latter swayed, bent slow- 
 ly forward, and fell over. I affirm most positively 
 that there was no hair or thread or normal link of 
 any kind whatsoever between the statuette and the 
 medium's hands." 1 
 
 Trickery does not explain the remarkable series of 
 experiments carried on in 1870 by the Committee of 
 the London Dialectical Society. 
 
 The Notable Spiritualistic Investigation of the London 
 Dialectical Society 
 
 The Dialectical Society was an association of schol- 
 ars and scientists which had been founded two years 
 before with Sir John Lubbock as president. The com- 
 mittee "to investigate alleged spiritual manifestations" 
 consisted of twenty-seven members, among them Al- 
 fred Russell Wallace, Varley, the eminent practical 
 electrician, and Professor Morgan, the president of 
 the Mathematical Society. 
 
 The remarkable nature of the phenomena observed 
 by the various sub-committees into which, for prac- 
 tical working purposes, the larger committee resolved 
 itself may be judged by the fact that the Report states 
 that the following propositions "appeared to be es- 
 tablished" : 
 
 "1. That sounds of a varied character, apparently 
 proceeding from articles of furniture, the floor and 
 walls of the room (the vibrations accompanying which 
 sounds are often distinctly perceptible to the touch) 
 occur without being produced by muscular action or 
 mechanical contrivance. 
 
 Maxwell : Metapsychical Phenomena, p. 323. 
 
28 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 "2. That movements of heavy bodies take place 
 without mechanical contrivance of any kind or ade- 
 quate exertion of muscular force by the persons pres- 
 ent, and frequently without contact or connection with 
 any person. 
 
 "3. That these sounds and movements often occur at 
 the times and in the manner asked for by persons 
 present, and, by means of a simple code of signals, 
 answer questions and spell out coherent communica- 
 tions. 
 
 "4. That the circumstances under which the phe- 
 nomena occur are variable, the most prominent fact 
 being that the presence of certain persons seems neces- 
 sary to their occurrence, and that of others generally 
 adverse. But this difference does not appear to de- 
 pend upon any belief or disbelief concerning the phe- 
 nomena. 
 
 "That oral and written evidence received by your 
 committee not only testifies to phenomena of the same 
 nature as those witnessed by the sub-committees, but 
 to others of a more varied and extraordinary character. 
 
 "This evidence may be briefly summarized as fol- 
 lows: 
 
 "1. Thirteen witnesses state that they have seen 
 heavy bodies — in some instances men — rise slowly in 
 the air and remain there for some time without visible 
 or tangible support. 
 
 "2. Fourteen witnesses testify to having seen hands 
 or figures, not appertaining to any human being, but 
 life-like in appearance and mobility, which they have 
 sometimes touched or even grasped, and which they 
 are therefore convinced were not the result of im- 
 posture or illusion. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 29 
 
 "Thirteen witnesses declare that they have heard 
 musical pieces played upon instruments not manipu- 
 lated by any ascertainable agency. . . . 
 
 "5. Five witnesses state that they have seen red-hot 
 coals applied to the hands or heads of several persons 
 without producing pain or scorching; and three wit- 
 nesses state that they have had the same experiment 
 made upon themselves with the like immunity. . . . 
 
 "8. Three witnesses state that they have been present 
 when drawings, both in pencil and colors, were pro- 
 duced in so short a time, and under such conditions, 
 as to render human agency impossible. 
 
 "9. Six witnesses declare that they have received 
 information of future events, and that in some cases 
 the hour and minute of their occurrence have been ac- 
 curately foretold, days and even weeks before. 
 
 "In addition to the above, evidence has been given 
 of trance-speaking, of healing, of automatic writing, 
 of the introduction of flowers and fruits into closed 
 rooms, of voices in the air, of visions in crystals and 
 glasses, and of the elongation of the human body." 1 
 
 To appreciate the difficulty of assuming the impli- 
 fication of fraud a sufficient explanation of these phe- 
 nomena, it must be remembered that, in the words of 
 the Report: 
 
 "1. All of these meetings were held at the private 
 residences of members of the committee, purposely to 
 preclude the possibility of prearranged mechanism or 
 contrivance. 
 
 "The furniture of the room in which the experiments 
 
 ^Report on Spiritualism of the Committee of the Dialectical 
 Society, July 20, 1870. 
 
30 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 were conducted was on every occasion its accustomed 
 furniture. The tables were in all cases heavy dining- 
 tables, requiring a strong effort to move them. . . . 
 
 "The room, tables and furniture generally were re- 
 peatedly subjected to careful examination before, dur- 
 ing and after the experiments, to ascertain that no 
 concealed machinery, instrument or other contrivances 
 existed by means of which the sounds or movements 
 . . . mentioned could be caused. 
 
 "2. Your committee have avoided the employment 
 of professional or paid mediums, the mediumship be- 
 ing that of members of your sub-committee [the prin- 
 cipal medium was the wife of a prominent member of 
 the Dialectical Society], persons of good social posi- 
 tion and of unimpeachable integrity, having no pe- 
 cuniary object to serve, and nothing to gain by decep- 
 tion. 
 
 "3. The members of the committee itself were men 
 of all professions, ingenious lawyers, shrewd business 
 men, skilful physicians, practical scientists. . . . 
 About four-fifths entered upon the investigation wholly 
 skeptical as to the reality of the alleged phenomena, 
 firmly believing them to be the result either of im- 
 posture or of delusion, or of involuntary muscular 
 action. It was only by irresistible evidence, under con- 
 ditions that precluded the possibility of either of these 
 solutions, and after trial and test many times repeated, 
 that the most skeptical of your sub-committee were 
 slowly and reluctantly convinced that the phenomena 
 exhibited in the course of their protracted inquiry were 
 veritable facts. 
 
 "4. There were no hasty generalizations or in- 
 sufficient data. No less than forty meetings were held 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 31 
 
 and 'careful notes were taken and signed for verifica- 
 tion by all present.' 
 
 "5. There was a minimum of chance for self-delusion 
 or inadequate observation. The experiments were 
 conducted in the light of gas, except on the few occa- 
 sions specially noted in the minutes. 
 
 "The sounds were distinctly audible to the ear, . . . 
 the motions obvious to the sight. It was not a question 
 of doubtful mental impression only, but of actual meas- 
 urement. The table and other pieces of furniture had 
 changed their position by so many inches, feet, yards. 
 
 "At times," say the authors of the Report in closing, 
 "we sat under the table when the motions and sounds 
 were most vigorous. We held the hands and feet of 
 the psychic. Our ingenuity was exercised in the in- 
 vention and application of tests. After trials often 
 repeated we were compelled to confess that imposture 
 was out of the question." 1 
 
 At greater detail, Mr. Cox, in the Report of the sub- 
 committee, says : 
 
 "The smaller furniture of the room is frequently at- 
 tracted to the place where the psychic sits. Chairs far 
 out of reach and untouched may be seen moving along 
 the floor in a manner singularly resembling the motion 
 that may be observed in pieces of steel attracted by a 
 magnet, which rise a little, fall, move on, stop, until 
 fully within the influence of the magnetic force, and 
 then jump to the magnet with a sudden spring. . . . 
 Nor is this phenomena at all dubious to the spectator. 
 
 ^Report of the Committee on Spiritualism of the Dialectical 
 Society. Comment by Mr. Edw. Cox, F.R.G.S. 
 
32 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 However it may be done, the fact is indisputable that it 
 is done." 1 
 
 And, lest all this fail to be conclusive, read the com- 
 mittee's summary of the results of its work : 
 
 "The motions were witnessed simultaneously by all 
 present. They were matters of measurement, and not 
 of opinion or fancy. And they occurred so often, 
 under so many and such various conditions, with such 
 safeguards against error or deception, and with such 
 invariable results, as to satisfy the members of your 
 sub-committee by whom the experiments were tried, 
 wholly skeptical as most of them were when they en- 
 tered upon the investigation, that there is a force 
 capable of moving heavy bodies without material con- 
 tact, and which force is in some unknown manner de- 
 pendent upon the presence of human beings." 
 
 "Spirit" Slate-Writing 
 
 The phenomena of slate-writing, in spite 01 the large 
 place it assumes in the literature of spiritualism, may 
 be dismissed by us with a few words, and for a very 
 simple reason. It is so permeated and impregnated 
 with gross fraud of a hundred varied kinds that there 
 is the gravest doubt whether there is or ever was one 
 genuine case. Mr. Carrington says: "If we were to 
 read carefully thru the historical evidence for the 
 phenomena of slate-writing, we should find it to con- 
 sist of one long and practically unbroken series of ex- 
 poses of fraud and trickery, with no real evidence 
 worth mentioning for the genuine manifestations of 
 
 % Report of the Committee on Spiritualism of the Dialectical 
 Society. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 33 
 
 any supernormal power, nor any indication of any force 
 or agency whatever at work beyond the muscles of 
 the medium." 1 In short, nowhere has a perverted 
 human ingenuity displayed itself to better advantage ; 
 and the cleverness often shown, displayed in a better 
 cause, would inspire enthusiastic admiration. 
 
 Slate-writing phenomena, it might be explained, 
 consists in the appearance of writing on slates in the 
 presence of a medium, the slates being so sealed or 
 handled that it seems veritably impossible for any 
 "messages" to appear without the intervention of 
 spirits. 
 
 The great blow to the pretensions of slate-writing 
 mediums was given by the Seybert Commission. Henry 
 Seybert, a spiritualist, left a large sum of money to 
 the University of Pennsylvania for the express pur- 
 pose of making an exhaustive scientific investigation 
 of spiritualism. A committee was appointed, which 
 made a perfunctory Report, chiefly on the notorious 
 medium, Slade. All the mediums examined were pro- 
 fessionals, little money was expended, and the results 
 published were so incomplete as to be practically value- 
 less; but the work was abandoned and Mr. Seybert's 
 money diverted by the university to other uses. There 
 are few more flagrant examples of misappropriation 
 of funds ; and the large amount of serious work since 
 done and still to do shows how little excuse those in 
 authority had foi their action. The wrong is one, how- 
 ever, which even yet could and should be righted. 
 
 The methods of producing fraudulent slate-writing 
 are multiform. 
 
 Harrington: Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, p. 84. 
 
34 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 In one case "the medium had secreted unaer the 
 finger-nail of his first finger a minute fragment of 
 slate-pencil, and, when the slate was in position, all he 
 had to do was to extend this finger, and to write on the 
 under surface of the slate whatever he desired. . . . 
 The writing is scrawling, but that makes no difference ; 
 the sitters are glad to get it just the same." 1 
 
 In another case the medium made pencils "by pul- 
 verizing a slate-pencil and mixing the powder thus ob- 
 tained with ordinary mucilage, forming a thick paste. 
 This was cut into small squares, about the size of a 
 rice grain. These squares were allowed to dry per- 
 fectly hard. . . . When he seated himself to give 
 the writings he would deposit about a dozen of the 
 mucilage pencils on his left knee. . . . He held 
 them a few seconds in his closed hand before sticking 
 them on his knee. This warmed them and made them 
 sticky, so that they stuck where he put them." 2 
 
 Double slates with secret flaps and springs of vari- 
 ous kinds are of course common. In his Physical 
 Phenomena of Spiritualism, the fascinating expose of 
 fraudulent spiritualist devices from which these quo- 
 tations are made, Mr. Carrington gives the following 
 absurdly simple yet very mystifying variation: 
 
 "A book of poems is handed to one of the investi- 
 gators with the request that he insert, anywhere be- 
 tween its pages, a paper-knife, in order to mark the 
 place. This is done. A slate is then shown, blank 
 and cleaned. The person holding the book is now re- 
 quested to open it and read the first verse on each 
 
 'Carrington : Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, p. 104. 
 'Ibid., p. 108. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 35 
 
 page. Immediately this is done, the slates are opened, 
 and the verses just read are found copied between the 
 slates. 'There !' you will say, 'your silicate flap or 
 acid-writing will not work in this case, for the writing 
 I is done after the book is opened and read, and this is 
 done only after the slates are fastened together.' 
 
 "The writing was done through the flap method, just 
 the same ! How did the medium know where the book 
 would be opened? He did not care where it was 
 opened, as the book was especially made for him, and 
 every page was exactly alike, with the exception of 
 the number I" 1 
 
 But for downright cleverness the following trick- 
 writing probably deserves a blue ribbon: "Examined 
 and marked slates . . . are so sealed and fastened 
 together that it would be an utter impossibility for 
 the medium to open the slates in the slightest degree. 
 The slates are free from writing or preparation of any 
 kind when they are placed together, and they are 
 fastened by the sitter himself, after a small piece of 
 chalk has been placed between them. Let us suppose 
 the sitter begins by screwing the frames of the slates 
 together in several places, not only at the corners. 
 . . . But, further, the skeptic proceeds to cover the 
 heads of these screws with sealing-wax ; after which he 
 proceeds to fasten or gum the frames of the slates 
 together all the way round with strips of sticking- 
 plaster, securing these in place and finally sealing the 
 frame together in several different places, placing his 
 signet on the seals. If he choose, he may glue the 
 wooden frames of the slates together, also. The oper- 
 
 ^arrington : Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism; pp. 124-5. 
 
36 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 ation has probably occupied many minutes. Medium 
 and sitter now hold the slates beneath the table be- 
 tween them for the space of, perhaps, a minute. At 
 the end of that time the medium requests his sitter 
 to take away the slates and open them, or to open them 
 there, as the case may be. The sitter does so, and is 
 amazed to find a message on the inner surface of one 
 of the slates. It is very badly written, it is true, but 
 the sitter is, rightly enough, glad to get writing of any 
 kind under such conditions. 
 
 "At first sight, such a test would appear absolutely 
 beyond the bounds of any sort of trickery. I have 
 stated that the slates were free from writing, as well 
 as from preparation of any kind, when they were put 
 together by the sitter, and this is strictly the truth. 
 The writing was produced after the slates were placed 
 together and sealed up as I have described. But this is 
 an impossibility? Not so, evidently, since the writing 
 is really there ! Then it must be genuine ! Thus rea- 
 sons the skeptic, and, indeed, we can hardly blame him 
 for his belief. 
 
 "The trick, in this case, is worked upon entirely dif- 
 ferent lines from any test so far described. I have 
 stated that a piece of chalk (not slate-pencil) was 
 placed between the slates, and it is chiefly in the chalk 
 that the trick lies. It is not an ordinary piece of chalk, 
 but is made of a compound of powdered chalk, water, 
 glue and iron filings. These were all blended together 
 and allowed to become dry and hard. This is the 
 piece of 'chalk' placed between the sitters' slates. 
 
 "Now, when the slates are placed under the table, 
 the medium extracts, from his sleeve or elsewhere, a 
 magnet, and with this he traces a series of letters on 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 37 
 
 the under side of the bottom slate, in 'mirror-writing.' 
 The iron filings in the mixture will follow the magnet, 
 and the chalk will write on the slate in the regular 
 manner. The medium locates the piece of chalk, in 
 the first instance, by tipping the slate at an angle, so 
 that the chalk will run into one corner. He first of all 
 places the magnet in that corner and drags the bit of 
 chalk to the middle of the slate before proceeding to 
 write out the message." 1 
 
 The recountal of all this fraudulent phenomena 
 would have little value except as it shows the real dif- 
 ficulties with which the investigator of psychic phe- 
 nomena has to contend. As Mr. Carrington well notes 
 regarding the above experiments : 
 
 "The ingenuity of this test will serve ... to 
 show the reader the extreme cunning of the profes- 
 sional medium, and how useless it. is for the average 
 individual, quite unacquainted with even the ordinary 
 methods of trickery or the elements of conjuring, to 
 hope to cope with the medium on his own ground, and 
 even to beat at his own game a man who, naturally 
 crafty, has made this particular branch of deception 
 his life-study." 2 
 
 The Famous Zollner Phenomena 
 That collection of incidents known to students of 
 spiritualism as the "Zollner phenomena," striking 
 though they are, may also be dismissed with but a few 
 words, and for the same reason as were the slate- 
 writing phenomena — the possibility or even probability 
 
 Harrington : Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, pp. 134-6. 
 1 Ibid, p. 136. 
 
38 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 of fraud. Some of them may have been genuine, but 
 with a small space at our disposal, and with a wealth 
 of unquestioned phenomena sufficient for all our needs, 
 we need not even discuss those upon which the shadow 
 of a reasonable doubt has been cast. 
 
 First, very briefly as to the facts : x Dr. Zollner was 
 an eminent physicist and psychologist and of the very 
 highest reputation. The phenomena were observed, 
 and his own conclusions corroborated, by three other 
 professors of equally high rank, Fechner, Scheibner 
 and Weber. The medium was Slade, the American. 
 The seances took place at Zollner's house. 
 
 Most of the phenomena observed, while not spectacu- 
 lar, were more than usually astounding, from a scien- 
 tific viewpoint : 
 
 1. There were levitations, etc., in the customary 
 manner, but of a remarkable character. 
 
 2. Knots were tied in endless cords. 
 
 3. Two wooden rings were slipped over the leg of 
 a wooden table of a greater circumference than the 
 rings themselves. 
 
 4. Slate-writing occurred under very careful test 
 conditions. 
 
 In spite of the circumstantial evidence of genuine- 
 ness which Dr. Zollner's account bears, the whole is 
 vitiated. Zollner was attempting to find corroboration 
 for his pet theory of "the fourth dimension" (the sec- 
 ond and third phenomena above, if genuine, could not 
 take place in our world of merely three dimensions) ; 
 and his observation and testimony are biased by that 
 
 J For these see especially Zollner's own book, Transcendental 
 Physics. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 39 
 
 idea. Slade's reputation was bad; the Seybert Com- 
 mission had detected him in deliberate fraud. In re- 
 gard to the corroborative testimony of Zollner's asso- 
 ciates, Mr. George S. Fullerton showed that "both 
 Fechner and Scheibner were partially blind at the time, 
 and depended more on what Zollner told them was 
 taking place than on what they could see for them- 
 selves; while Weber was, in many ways, an incompe- 
 tent witness of such phenomena. As to Zollner, the 
 chief narrator, it was found that he was of slightly 
 unsound mind (though all his associates admitted that 
 this did not impair his capacity as an investigator or 
 observer) ; . . . that he was, in many ways, an 
 incautious observer and believer; and, lastly, and by 
 far the most important point of all, is the fact that 
 neither he nor any of his three colleagues knew any- 
 thing whatever of conjuring or the possibilities of de- 
 ception." 1 
 
 In a masterly analysis of the rope-tying phenomena, 
 Dr. Hyslop notes. twelve defects in the evidence, any 
 one of which would be "sufficient to nullify its scien- 
 tific character." 2 Mr. Carrington, after a careful ex- 
 amination of the evidence, is "convinced" that the 
 rings passed over the table leg "could have been man- 
 aged by adroit trickery" ; 3 and he even explains how 
 it may have been done. 
 
 As to the "broken screen incident" (a case, by the 
 way, which Zollner considered so conclusive that he 
 detailed it at great length), where a strong wooden 
 screen was apparently wrenched apart in the middle of 
 
 l See the Seybert Commission Report, pp. 104-14. 
 
 : See Hyslop : Borderland of Psychical Research, pp. 232-9. 
 
 3 Carrington : Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, p. 31. 
 
40 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 a seance with a violent crack, falling in two pieces, 
 the screws and other fastenings being wrenched from 
 their sockets, "I would ask," says Mr. Carrington 1 
 simply, "what proof have we that this tearing apart was 
 not done before the seance, and the two parts merely 
 tied together by means of a piece of thread, which 
 could be pulled off later, allowing the two halves of 
 the screen to fall apart as stated? There was plenty 
 of time for Slade to 'fix' anything he liked before the 
 seance, from all accounts, and there is nothing in the 
 reports which would forbid our assuming that such 
 an interpretation is the right one." 
 
 The miraculous disappearance of the table makes 
 interesting reading, but the incident is too ill-attested 
 to warrant further mention here. Sufficient now that, 
 on the whole, in spite of the important place the Z611- 
 ner case holds in the history of spiritualism, we may 
 assert the evidence so defective as to render it for 
 our purposes unworthy of careful consideration. 
 
 Rappings: The Fox Sisters 
 
 A special interest attaches to the phenomena of rap- 
 pings, because with them modern spiritualism took its 
 birth. 
 
 There are many now alive who remember the early 
 days of the Fox manifestations, for it was as recently 
 as March, 1848, that Miss Kate Fox, a nine-year-old 
 girl in a farmer's family at Hydesville, a little village 
 in central New York, imparted the astounding infor- 
 mation that she was in communication with the dead. 
 It was some time before her hard-headed and skeptical 
 
 Harrington : Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, p. 27. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 41 
 
 family became convinced that any intelligence directed 
 the mysterious loud knockings with which the house- 
 hold was annoyed. Soon, however, the signals were 
 translated. They declared that "a murdered man was 
 buried in the cellar of the house; it indicated the ex- 
 act spot in the cellar under which the body lay; and 
 upon digging there, at a depth of six or seven feet, 
 considerable portions of a human skeleton were found. 
 Yet more, the name of the murdered man was given, 
 and it was ascertained that such a person had visited 
 that very house and had disappeared five years before, 
 and had never been heard of since. The signals fur- 
 ther declared that he, the murdered man, was the sig- 
 naler; and as all the witnesses satisfied themselves that 
 the signals were not made by any living persons, or by 
 any assignable cause, the logical conclusion . . . 
 was that it was the spirit of the murdered man, how- 
 ever improbable and absurd that might seem." 1 
 
 The fame of the two sisters, Margaret and Kate (for 
 both seemed to have developed this unknown power), 
 was noised abroad locally. The neighbors came skep- 
 tical, heard and saw, and were converted. 
 
 Soon after a visit was made to Rochester, but the 
 report of the miraculous doings of the sisters had pre- 
 ceded them, and the ability accompanied them. More 
 or less violent accusations of imposture were met with 
 a readiness to undergo the most searching tests that 
 the skeptics could devise. Three consecutive commit- 
 tees of townspeople were appointed, examined the phe- 
 nomena thoroly, and arrived finally at the same con- 
 
 'Wallace: Miracles and Modem Spiritualism, p. 151. 
 
42 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 elusion — that the phenomena observed were certainly 
 supernormal. 
 
 "The last and most skeptical committee reported 
 that they had heard sounds, and failed utterly to dis- 
 cover their origin. They had proved that neither ma- 
 chinery or imposture had been used, and their ques- 
 tions, many of them being mental, were answered cor- 
 rectly. . . ."* 
 
 A more striking development soon appeared: their 
 mediumship became imparted spontaneously to those 
 with whom they came in contact. Mrs. Fish, a married 
 sister of the Fox girls, living in Rochester, was the 
 first to develop the new power. Kate Fox visited 
 Auburn, near by, and the result was another crop of 
 incipient "mediums" there. The movement spread like 
 wildfire. 
 
 "Sometimes," says a recent investigator, "the con- 
 tagion was conveyed by a casual visit. Thus Miss 
 Harriet Bebee, a young lady of sixteen, had an inter- 
 view of a few hours with Mrs. Tamlin, a medium of 
 Auburn, and on her return to her own home, twenty 
 miles distant, the raps forthwith broke out in her 
 presence. In the course of the next two or three 
 years, indeed, the rappings had spread throughout the 
 greater part of the Eastern States. Thus a writer in 
 the New Haven Journal, in October, 1850, refers to 
 knockings and other phenomena in seven different 
 families in Bridgeport, forty families in Rochester, in 
 Auburn, in Syracuse, 'some two hundred' in Ohio, in 
 New Jersey, and places more distant, as well as in 
 Hartford, Springfield, Charlestown, and elsewhere. A 
 
 'Wallace: Miracles and Modem Spiritualism, p. 151. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 43 
 
 year later a correspondent of the Spiritual World 
 estimated that there were a hundred mediums in New 
 York City, and fifty or sixty 'private circles' were 
 reported in Philadelphia." 1 
 
 The enthusiastic spiritualist must admit that some 
 years later Kate Fox made what purported to be a 
 confession of trickery, stating that the mysterious 
 "rappings" that had puzzled all investigators were 
 caused by voluntary cracking of abnormally loose knee 
 and toe joints. And, on the other hand, the opponent 
 of spiritualism must admit: First, that some years 
 later, on her death bed, she retracted this alleged con- 
 fession, reiterating the supernatural character of the 
 phenomena produced by her ; and second, that the "con- 
 fession" comes very far short of explaining all the 
 phenomena which occurred. 
 
 So the Fox case rests at present. At all events, 
 the sisters were most directly instrumental in launch- 
 ing the spiritualistic movement, and, tho later devel- 
 oping other mediumistic faculties, the phenomena of 
 rappings are those with which their names are oftenest 
 
 associated. 
 
 Are the Rappings Genuine? 
 
 But it is impossible to dismiss the whole subject of 
 rappings with an airy wave of the hand : the evidence 
 is too voluminous and too strongly attested ; and even 
 with Miss Fox it is difficult to pass a final and posi- 
 tive opinion. To show what conflicts of testimony 
 the investigator must weigh and reconcile, the com- 
 ments of Sir William Crookes on her case are in- 
 structive : 
 "For several months I enjoyed almost unlimited op- 
 'Podmore : Modern Spiritualism l VqI. I., p. 182. 
 
44 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 portunity of testing . . . the phenomena of these 
 sounds. With mediums, generally, it is necessary to 
 sit for a formal seance before anything is heard; but 
 in the case of Miss Fox it seems only necessary for 
 her to place her hand on any substance for loud thuds 
 to be heard in it, like a triple pulsation, sometimes loud 
 enough to be heard several rooms off. In this man- 
 ner I have heard them in a living tree, on a sheet of 
 glass, on a stretched iron wire, on a stretched mem- 
 brane, a tambourine, on the roof of a cab, and on the 
 floor of a theater. Moreover, actual contact is not 
 always necessary ; I have had these sounds proceeding 
 from the floor, walls, etc., when the medium's hands 
 and feet were held, when she was standing on a chair, 
 when she was suspended in a swing from the ceiling, 
 when she was enclosed in a wire cage, and when she 
 had fallen fainting on a sofa. I have heard them on a 
 glass harmonicon, I have felt them on my own shoulder 
 and under my own hands, I have heard them on a 
 sheet of paper, held between the fingers by a piece of 
 thread passed thru one corner. With a full knowl- 
 edge of the numerous theories which have been started, 
 chiefly in America, to explain these sounds, I have 
 tested them in every way that I could devise, until 
 there has been no escape from the conviction that they 
 were true objective occurrences, not produced by 
 trickery or mechanical means." 1 
 
 These sounds are, as Sir William Crookes said, 
 "noticed with almost every medium, each having a 
 special peculiarity." 2 This latter fact is noted also 
 
 Brookes : Notes of an Enquiry into the Phenomena Called 
 Spiritual. — Quarterly Journal of Science, Jan., 1874, p. 83. 
 2 Ibid. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 45 
 
 by Professor Barrett. "Not only," he says, "do the 
 raps indicate that they are governed by some intelli- 
 gence, but the raps themselves are distinct and per- 
 sonal in character, just as handwriting or the touch of 
 varied individuals on a typewriter or on an electric 
 keyboard is different. Each individuality has his own 
 particular kind of rap." 1 
 
 They appear, too, in varied forms and in the most 
 unexpected places. M. Flammarion notes the case of 
 a Dr. Maxwell, whose mediumistic friend produced 
 raps in restaurants and railway lunch-counters. These 
 were contrary to his own desire, being so loud as to 
 attract attention and even cause personal annoyance. 
 
 Victorin Joncieres, the well-known composer, re- 
 lates the following experience: 
 
 "On the next day, before my departure, I went to 
 pay a visit to M. X. He received me in his dining- 
 hall. Through the large open window a beautiful 
 June sun flooded the room with its brilliant light. 
 
 "While we were conversing in a desultory way, a 
 piece of military music rang out in the distance. 'If 
 there is a spirit here,' said I, smiling, 'it ought by 
 rights to accompany the music' At once rhythmic 
 taps, in exact harmony with the double-quick time, 
 were heard in the table. The crackle of sounds in it 
 died away little by little in a decrescendo very skilfully 
 timed to the last vanishing blare of the bugles. 
 
 " 'Give us a fine tattoo to finish,' said I, when the 
 sounds had completely ceased. The reply was a series 
 of sounds like the heavy roll of drums, given with such 
 force that the table trembled on its legs. I put my hand 
 
 a S. P. R. Proceedings, v. 4, pp. 34-5. 
 
46 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 on it and very plainly felt the vibrations of the wood 
 as it was struck by the invisible force." 1 
 
 Jacolliot, in his Occult Science in India, tells of a 
 Hindu fakir, on the former's own veranda, who ex- 
 tended both hands "toward an immense bronze vase 
 full of water. Within five minutes the vase commenced 
 to rock to and fro on its base, and approach the fakir 
 gently and with a regular motion. As the distance 
 diminished, metallic sounds escaped from it, as if 
 some one had struck it with a steel rod. At certain 
 times the blows were so numerous and quick that they 
 produced a sound similar to that made by a hail- 
 storm upon a metal roof." 2 
 
 One important question, to be considered more fully 
 later, should be at least mentioned here: Are these 
 sounds governed by any apparent intelligence? 
 
 The earliest Fox rappings, as we have noted, spelled 
 out a message regarding the body in the cellar — facts 
 apparently known to no living person. The same is 
 noted by Professor Barrett, M. Flammarion, and many 
 other investigators. The immaterial drummer obeyed 
 the request of M. Joncieres ; but Sir William Crookes 
 notes that the raps are "frequently in direct opposition 
 to the wishes of the medium," and in Dr. Maxwell's 
 case the noises displayed a most waggish perversity. 
 
 "At a very early stage of the inquiry," says Crookes, 
 "it was seen that the power producing the phenomena 
 was not merely a blind force, but was associated with or 
 governed by intelligence; thus the sounds to which I 
 have just alluded will be repeated a definite number of 
 
 1 Flammarion : Mysterious Psychic Forces, p. 346. 
 'Jacolliot : Occult Science in India, p. 231. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 47 
 
 times; they will come loud or faint, and in different 
 places at request; and, by a prearranged code of sig- 
 nals, questions are answered and messages given with 
 more or less accuracy." 1 
 
 Table-Tipping 
 
 Of all the physical phenomena of spiritualism, table- 
 tipping (including loosely in that term all forms of 
 movement of material bodies without the exertion of 
 force) is perhaps the most common. For that reason 
 it has been most carefully observed and most widely 
 discussed. 
 
 In the very beginning, whatever our presuppositions 
 pro or con, or whatever explanation we may make as 
 to reasons or causes, the fact that tables and other 
 articles of furniture do under certain conditions move, 
 apparently of their own accord, must be admitted as 
 established. 
 
 The phenomenon itself is simple. A number of peo- 
 ple sit around a table, placing the tips of their 
 fingers lightly on the top. The number of persons 
 in the circle, the size or weight of the table, darkness 
 or daylight — these conditions seem to make very little 
 difference. After a varying interval of anticipation, 
 the table will begin to tremble and finally to jump up 
 and down with nervous little jerks or hops. Occasion- 
 ally its movements will become violent, and the table 
 will progress around the room without help or guid- 
 ance (voluntary, at least) from the experimenters. 
 Rarely, the table will move and even rise in the air, 
 apparently of its own accord, without any visible con- 
 tact whatever. 
 
 'Crookes : Notes. Quar. Jour, of Scl, Jan., 1874, p. 83. 
 
48 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 Now, as was said, these facts are incontestable. That 
 furniture does act in the manner described no scien- 
 tist, who has examined the evidence, denies. Mr. Car- 
 rington, tho a scathing critic of spiritualism, admits: 
 "There can be no doubt that a large part of the 
 [table-turning] phenomena, at least, are genuine, how- 
 ever we may choose to interpret them. . . . The 
 sole difficulty lies in the interpretation of the facts ; in 
 the explanation that is given of the phenomena ob- 
 served." 1 
 
 M. Flammarion says : "For me the levitation of ob- 
 jects is no more doubtful than that of scissors lifted by 
 the aid of a magnet." 2 Dr. Marvin, in his attack, The 
 Philosophy of Spiritualism, says: "The phenomena 
 are genuine. The hypothesis which spiritualists en- 
 deavor to build on these phenomena is altogether an- 
 other thing." Prof. W. F. Barrett notes several in- 
 stances in his paper entitled On Some Phenomena, 
 Commonly Called Spiritualistic, Witnessed by the 
 y Author. 
 
 ^ Sir William Crookes calls "the movement of heavy 
 bodies with contact, but without mechanical exertion 
 . . . one of the simplest forms of the phenomena 
 observed. It -varies in degree from a quivering or 
 vibration of the room and its contents to the actual 
 rising into the air of a heavy body when the hand is 
 placed on it. The retort is obvious that if people are 
 touching a thing when it moves, they push it or pull it 
 or lift it. I have proved experimentaly that this is not 
 the case in numerous instances, but as a matter of evi- 
 
 1 Carrington : Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, p. 64. 
 "Flammarion : Mysterious Psychic Forces. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 49 
 
 dence I attach little importance to this class of phe- 
 nomena by itself, and only mention them as a prelim- 
 inary to other movements of the same kind, but without 
 contact." 1 
 
 He speaks of this class a little later as follows: 
 "The instances in which heavy bodies, such as tables, 
 chairs, sofas, etc., have been moved, when the medium 
 has not been touching them, are very numerous. I 
 will briefly mention a few of the most striking. My 
 own chair has been twisted partly round, while my 
 feet were off the floor. A chair was seen by all pres- 
 ent to move slowly up to the table from a far corner, 
 when all were watching it ; on another occasion an arm- 
 chair moved to where we were sitting, and then moved 
 slowly back (a distance of about three feet), at my 
 request. On three successive evenings a small table 
 moved slowly across the room, under conditions which 
 I had specially prearranged, so as to answer any ob- 
 jection which might be raised to the evidence. I have 
 had several repetitions of the experiment considered 
 by the committee of the Dialectical Society to be con- 
 clusive, viz., the movement of a heavy table in full 
 light, the chairs turned with their backs to the table, 
 about a foot off, and each person kneeling on his chair, 
 with hands resting over the backs of the chairs, but 
 not touching the table. On one occasion this took 
 place when I was moving about, so as to see how 
 every one was placed." 2 Passing on in his ascending 
 scale of apparent difficulty, Crookes makes the follow- 
 ing interesting note on his "Class V" instances of "the 
 rising of tables and chairs off the ground, without 
 
 1 Crookes : Notes. Quar. Jour, of Scl, Jan., 1874, p. 82. 
 nbid, p. 84. 
 
50 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 contact with any person." It answers a question very 
 frequently asked : 
 
 "A remark is generally made when occurrences of 
 this kind are mentioned. Why is it only tables and 
 chairs which do these things? Why is this property 
 peculiar to furniture? I might reply that I only ob- 
 serve and record facts, and do not profess to enter 
 into the why and wherefore; but, indeed, it will be 
 obvious that if a heavy, inanimate body in an ordinary 
 dining-room has to rise off the floor, it cannot very 
 well be anything else but a table or a chair. That 
 this propensity is not specially attached to furniture, 
 I have abundant evidence ; but, like other experimental 
 demonstrators, the intelligence or power, whatever it 
 may be, which produces these phenomena can only 
 work with the materials which are available. 
 
 "On five separate occasions a heavy dining-table 
 rose between a few inches and one and one-half feet 
 off the floor, under special circumstances which ren- 
 dered trickery impossible. On another occasion a 
 heavy table rose from the floor in full light, while I 
 was holding the medium's hands and feet. On another 
 occasion the table rose from the floor, not only when 
 no person was touching it, but under conditions which 
 I had prearranged so as to assure unquestionable 
 proof of the fact." 1 
 
 The Researches of De Gasparin: What Causes Table-Tipping? 
 
 Considering the phenomena of table-tipping in some- 
 what more regular order, we will find that the first, 
 and what is still in many respects the most important 
 
 J Crookes : Notes. Quar. Jour, of Sci., Jan., 1874, pp. 84-5. 
 
5 ^1 
 
 ■2 o 
 
 
 2 gs 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 51 
 
 scientific investigation ever made was that of Count 
 Agenor de Gasparin, at Valleyres in Switzerland, in 
 1853, the formal report of which was shortly after 
 published in two imposing volumes. 1 The phenomena 
 were observed with unimpaired success under test 
 conditions of the most stringent, and varied kind. 
 Tables tipped, moved vigorously, and were levitated 
 repeatedly and at will for months and before any one 
 who wished to observe. Careful record was kept, and 
 a large amount of data secured. To prove the absence 
 of contact, the top of the table was dusted with flour 
 with a bellows, then the heavy table was levitated, 
 rising bodily into the air, not once, but several times. 
 Afterward "the table was scrupulously examined; no 
 ■finger had touched it, or even grazed it in the slightest 
 degree." 2 At times the tables displayed a most per- 
 verse stubbornness, refusing to stir in answer to any 
 amount of waiting or coaxing. At other times, under 
 seemingly identical conditions, "they have seen the 
 same table legs perform levitations that were so free 
 and energetic that they anticipated the hands, got the 
 start of the orders, and executed the thoughts almost 
 before they were conceived, and with an energy well- 
 nigh terrifying." 
 
 With Eusapia Paladino, most famous of all "phys- 
 ical mediums" to-day, table-tipping is so usual an 
 occurrence as no longer to excite even comment. But 
 her exploits are marvelous enough to receive later the 
 special mention they deserve. 
 
 l Des Tables tournantes, du Surnaturel en general, et des 
 Esprits, par le comte Agenor de Gasparin. Paris, Dentu, 1854. 
 
 2 For a summary of the experiments of De Gasparin, see 
 Flammarion's Mysterious Psychic Forces Chap. VI. 
 
52 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 Before I go further, however, I wish to make what 
 may seem an astonishing statement : For the purposes 
 of our inquiry it does not make one iota of difference 
 whether tables ever tipped or not. No space would be 
 given even to a discussion of the phenomena were it 
 not that no other one class of facts bulks so largely 
 in the popular conception of the methods of psychic 
 research. 
 
 When the phenomena were first observed they were 
 inexplicable by the forces of existing science. Science 
 being at fault, it was the easiest thing to lay it all 
 to "spiritual" intervention. When the phenomena at 
 last attracted the attention of men of science, attempts 
 were at once made with varying success to enunciate a 
 satisfactory theory. 
 
 Remember, I am still speaking entirely of the "phys- 
 ical" aspects of the phenomena, with the movements 
 of bodies by an inexplicable force. The alleged mes- 
 sages rapped out by tables are another matter, which 
 will be considered in their proper place. 
 
 Regarding table-tipping phenomena, science has 
 taken three attitudes : 
 
 1. Scoffing and complete denial. Forced from this 
 position by the overwhelming weight of the evidence 
 presented, it said: 
 
 2. That the phenomena were due to "unconscious 
 muscular action." This theory rests on a foundation 
 of observed experimentation and is an adequate ex- 
 planation for a good deal of the simpler phenomena. 
 Professor Faraday invented an instrument for register- 
 ing this unconscious "push and pull" action in indi- 
 vidual cases; "and Professor Jastrow further con- 
 clusively proved, in a careful series of experiments 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 5S 
 
 conducted some years ago, that not only is this action 
 present and operative in all normal individuals, but 
 that this push and pull corresponded invariably with 
 the expectation of the sitter, who had his hands on the 
 board." Not only this, but, as Mr. Carrington adds, 
 "there is a great deal of evidence that goes to show 
 that this unconscious muscular force is frequently 
 stronger and more powerful than the individual could 
 consciously control or summon. ... At all events, 
 we know that in moments of extreme fear or excite- 
 ment, when the conscious mind is largely in abeyance, 
 many acts are performed which would be quite im- 
 possible to the normal individual, being beyond his 
 normal muscular ability." 1 
 
 We even have a phrase in the melodramatic novel : 
 "With a sudden access 'of superhuman strength' the 
 hero (or heroine) tore down the barred door (or 
 severed the cable) with his (or her) bare hands"; or 
 performed some other ordinarily "impossible feat." 
 The same thing has been noted with subjects in an 
 hypnotic condition. 
 
 This theory, however, failed utterly, of course, to 
 explain the levitation or movement of articles with- 
 out contact. A third hypothesis was perforce formu- 
 lated : 
 
 3. That there is some hitherto unknown force ema- 
 nating from the human organism which is capable of 
 influencing material bodies ; and Professor Thury, in a 
 "conscientious monograph," coins the word "psychode" 
 for this "intermediary between the mind and the body," 
 which "can project itself beyond the limits of the 
 body." 
 
 Harrington: Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, p. 68. 
 
54. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 Little, however, has really been accomplished in 
 proof or disproof. Science generally accepts what 
 she can explain (table-tipping), and flatly denies any- 
 thing further (levitation), an eminently safe but rather 
 illogical proceeding! This, too, in defiance of the un- 
 qualified assertion in the strongest terms of such sci- 
 entists, writers and philosophers, many of them emi- 
 nent, as Myers, Lodge, Aksakof, Flammarion, Lom- 
 broso, De Gasparin, Richet, Crookes, Hyslop, Thury, 
 Porro, Limoncelli, Carrington, Zollner, Marvin, Bar- 
 rett, Schiaparelli, Gerosa, Sully-Prudhome, Du Prel, 
 Ermacora, Hodgson, Ochorowicz, Morselli, Bianchi 
 and hundreds of other independent and honest ob- 
 servers. 
 
 These men assert because they have seen, tested, 
 and believe they have proved. Science, generally, not 
 having seen, denies out of hand, because the phe- 
 nomena are inexplicable and "impossible." The reader 
 in this case must choose for himself. 
 
Camille Flammarion 
 
 Noted as an astronomer and as a writer and investigator of occult 
 phenomena. 
 
"THAT THE SOUL SURVIVES THE BODY I HAVE NOT 
 THE SHADOW OF A DOUBT." 
 
 That the Soul survives the destruction of the body I have 
 not the shadow of a doubt. It is not the body which pro- 
 duces life. It is Life which organizes the body. 
 
 The purely mechanical explanation of the Universe is in- 
 sufficient. We live in the middle of an unexplored world in 
 which the psychic forces play a role as yet but imperfectly 
 understood. These forces are of an order superior to the 
 physical and mechanical, generally. 
 
 To men familiar with the history of Science, the attitude 
 of people who deny certain phenomena simply because they 
 are not yet understood and explained, is simple folly. 
 The thing which we are in the habit of naming "common 
 sense" is only an expression of the state of general ignorance. 
 There are very few people who have the intelligence free and 
 broad enough to accept, without some preconceived idea, new 
 and unexplained facts. 
 
 As for me, I am only a humble student in the prodigious 
 problem of the Universe. I search and I commune with the 
 Sphinx. "What are we?" We know, proof positive, scarcely 
 more to-day than we did in the time w£en Socrates propound- 
 ed his famous maxim, Know Thyself ! ' It is true that we have 
 learned how to measure the distances to the stars, we can 
 analyze the substance of the sun, and weigh worlds. Is the 
 study of ourselves, then, less interesting than that of the 
 exterior world? This is not probable. But I hasten to warn 
 you that I am not wise enough to explain this mystery which 
 surrounds the problem of Life and Death. 
 
 I pass my life in a retired garden consecrated to one of 
 the Nine Muses (Astronomy), and in my attachment for that 
 beautiful Infant I seldom find time to visit other Temples. 
 It is only at intervals, for the renewed vigor which the change 
 brings, and by curiosity, that I permit my investigations to 
 drift in the direction of the "Unknown Shore." 
 55 
 
56 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 In the intervals of my more pressing work, during the long 
 nights passed at the top of my observatory in thought and 
 study, I have always observed certain phenomena, which 
 seemed to be the action of unknown forces. Sometimes they 
 seemed analogous to those which the magnetizer uses to put 
 his patient to sleep. Magnetism, hypnotism — these are forces 
 but little understood, by the way, even by those who make 
 use of them. 
 
 On other occasions it seemed to me that these forces were 
 similar to the action produced by thunder. And again they 
 seemed to be forces distinct from all others, a something which 
 nearest approaches to the human intelligence. For some years 
 I have been in the habit of referring to this element as the 
 Psychic Forces. In the study of these Psychic phenomena 
 we can afford to brave the smiles of the incredulous, for this 
 touches the greatest problem of Humanity — the problem of 
 Survival. 
 
 If these forces of which we have been speaking are real, 
 then they must be natural, since there is nothing in Nature 
 which is not logical. 
 
 One thing is certain, there is no effect without a cause. The 
 supernatural does not exist, and the day of miracles is past. 
 It is only by positive study of effects that we are able to 
 arrive at the cause. 
 
 One of the first conclusions at which I have arrived after 
 years of experimenting is that the human being possesses 
 within himself certain fluidic and psychic forces the nature 
 of which is as yet only imperfectly understood, and that this 
 force is capable of moving objects at a distance, without con- 
 tact. It is the expression of our Will and our desires. 
 
 it******** 
 
 Man is a double being, and that double nature is to himself 
 still a mystery. We think. But what is a thought? No 
 one knows. We walk. But what is the organic act? No one 
 knows. Tell me, he who can, how a thought is conceived, 
 and where, and what is the nature of cerebral action! It 
 is dangerous to believe, and it is dangerous not to believe, in 
 a Supreme Intelligence. As to the knowledge of the psychol- 
 ogy of the Soul, we are to-day where chemistry was in the 
 days of Albert the Grand. We know nothing! Your heart 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 57 
 
 beats night and day. It is a spring very well wound up. But 
 who wound it? 
 
 What holds the earth in space? The laws of gravitation 
 and energy. What is it that kills in a rifle hall? Its speed, 
 its energy, the invisible element which exists everywhere in 
 everything. 
 
 We know so little of our mental being that it is impossible 
 for us to know of what we ourselves are capable, and especially 
 in certain states of unconsciousness. The intelligence which 
 directs us is not always personal. 
 
 Matter is not in reality what it seems to our vulgar senses; 
 that is, to our sight and touch. But it is one with energy, and 
 is only a manifestation of the movements, invisible and im- 
 ponderable. The Universe is a vast dynamo, and matter but 
 an appearance. 
 
 We are living in the breast of an unexplored world in which 
 the psychic forces play a role as yet but little understood 
 and appreciated. We are, as regards these phychic forces, 
 in about the position in which Columbus found himself when 
 he first touched land in the New World. We are floating on 
 the borders of a great unknown. We are at the dawn of a new 
 Science, and who can foretell its influence in the world of 
 thought? 
 
 Our terrestrial organism may be compared to a harp with 
 only two strings — that of sight and that of hearing. By 
 those two nerves only are we capable of receiving sensations. 
 Now there exists in reality in Nature not two, but ten, a hun- 
 dred, a thousand kinds of movements. 
 
 Psychical science informs us that we live in the midst of a 
 world invisible to us, and that it is not impossible that there 
 exists also on the earth beings absolutely different from our- 
 selves, incapable of manifesting themselves to us, except dimly, 
 because of our very limited means or organs of communication. 
 
 The most rational means which scientific men to-day possess 
 of studying this dim connection which we have with these un- 
 known forces is through the channel of Mediums, or sensitives, 
 and this has led to the founding in all civilized countries of 
 the Societies of Psychical Research. For the thing dubbed 
 
58 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 "spiritualism" is a science and not a religion. It is a science 
 of which we know, as yet, only the A, B, C. 
 
 Scientific men of England, of America, of Germany, and of 
 Italy, who have devoted years to the study of the psychology 
 of "raps," and of the existence of these unknown forces capable 
 of moving objects at a distance, as a table or a chair — all of 
 these men are unanimous in swearing to the existence of these 
 phenomena as a fact. But no one knows their mode of repro- 
 duction. They exist as positively as the phenomena of elec- 
 tricity. There is an invisible cause which produces these 
 "raps." Is this cause within ourselves or outside of us? That 
 is the question. 
 
 In experimenting with mediums this force which comes into 
 existence usually pretends to be some reincarnated spirit of 
 the dead. But if we push our investigations and our questions 
 to the end, these so called spirits generally finish by answers 
 which would indicate that this is an error. I do not say that 
 spirits do not exist. On the contrary, I have reason to admit 
 their existence, as in the experiments I have made it is not 
 possible to eliminate the hypothesis of their existence. 
 
 There is also the possibility of the existence of the Soul after 
 death without the possibility of our being able to communicate 
 with it. 
 
 We often take our ideas for reality. This is a mistake. 
 For example, to us the air is not a solid. We pass through it 
 without effort. An iron door, on the contrary, we find impene- 
 trable. But with electricity, exactly the contrary obtains. It 
 passes through iron and finds the air an impenetrable solid. 
 Flesh, clothes and wood are transparent for the X-rays, while 
 glass is opaque. 
 
 Newton discovered that all of the celestial Planets move as if 
 attracted and held in space by a common force. He called it 
 gravity. That force was not explained in his day, and, for 
 the matter of that, it has never been explained. 
 
 A medium places his or her hand upon a table and it moves. 
 But the force which moves it is unexplained. Is it, then, 
 untrue because of that? 
 
 Let us remember that almost every scientific fact which 
 exists to-day has been denied. 
 
 Many objections have been made because a medium undej 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 59 
 
 control brings forth his best efforts in semi-obscurity. And we 
 are bound to admit that this is an inconvenience for the in- 
 vestigators. But it is in no way, to the intelligent mind, at 
 least, a suspicious circumstance. Try, if you will, to develop 
 a photographic negative anywhere except in a dark room; or 
 to produce electricity in a room the atmosphere of which is 
 saturated with humidity. Light is the natural medium for 
 producing certain effects, and it completely opposes the pro- 
 duction of certain others. Prevent, if you can, light from 
 blackening iodine, or make it blacken lime. Ask of electricity 
 why it will pass instantly from one end to another of a 
 long wire, and then why it refuses to pass through a piece of 
 glass one-eighth of an inch in diameter. Ask of night-blooming 
 flowers to expand in the daytime, and of those which open only 
 in the sunshine to blow at night. Give me a reason for the 
 diurnal and nocturnal respiration of plants. Why do plants 
 inhale oxygen, and exhale carbonic acid gas during the night, 
 when they do exactly the opposite in the sunshine? 
 
 Suppose some one says he will only believe in the existence 
 of the stars when he has seen them in the daytime. What 
 would be thought of his mentality? But it is useless to multi- 
 ply examples. We might go on indefinitely. Man is only a 
 feeble atom, a speck lost in the contemplation of the Infinite. 
 He has thought himself capable to unravel the mystery of the 
 Universe when he has not yet mastered the material forces 
 around him. He has tried to explain the grandeur of the skies 
 when he is incapable of analyzing the grain of dust at his 
 feet. 
 
 In any case, if the investigations of the Society of Psychical 
 Research have not yet given all that people pretend, nor all 
 that it will yet give, one is bound to admit that it has consid- 
 erably enlarged the nature of the understanding of the quali- 
 ties of the Soul and its faculties. It has practically demon- 
 strated the existence of the Soul as an entity, distinct from 
 the body. 
 
 Many other forces will be discovered as we make progress 
 along these lines. Things exist in the Universe of which 
 human intelligence has never dreamed. The earth turned 
 on its axis, and the celestial bodies moved in perfect harmony 
 with the laws of gravitation, ages before we were aware of it, 
 
60 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 and while we still fondly imagined the earth to be the center 
 of all, a fixed body with a flat surface. Terrestrial magnetism 
 belted the earth for centuries while the Races of men slept in 
 blissful ignorance of the existence of such a force. The possi- 
 bilities of wireless telegraphy were in the electric currents then 
 as now. The waves of the ocean lapped the shores in musical 
 cadence long before there were human ears to listen to them. 
 Our mental eyes are opening to the light of the Creation but 
 slowly. 
 
 And to sum up my convictions as regards a future existence, 
 my researches have brought me to this conclusion: 
 
 (i) That the Soul exists as a real entity, independent of 
 the body. 
 
 (2) It is gifted with faculties as yet unknown to Science. 
 
 (3) It can act at a distance, without the medium of the 
 Senses. 
 
 There exists in Nature a psychic element of variable activity, 
 the essence of which rests yet hidden. 
 
 For my own part, I shall be content if my work and investi- 
 gations, extending now over a period of more than thirty years, 
 can help to form a point of departure for those who shall come 
 after me. 
 
 — Camille Flammarion. 
 
Daniel Dunglas Home 
 
 The greatest of all so-called "physical mediums." Altho his phe- 
 nomena were quite the most wonderful on record, he was never once 
 so much as suspected of fraud. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 THE MEDIUMSHIP OF D. D. HOME 
 
 I have purposely reserved what is by far the most 
 imposing group of purely "physical" phenomena to 
 the last. If the spiritualist has already convinced you 
 of the adequacy of his evidence for the supernormal, 
 you will at least find an account of the Home phe- 
 nomena intensely interesting reading. If you are still 
 equally sure, on the contrary, that spiritualism is mere- 
 ly a gigantic hoax, the Home phenomena must at least 
 make you pause and reconsider. 
 
 Daniel Dunglas Home is by far the most striking 
 "physical" medium in the history of spiritualism, part- 
 ly from the very wonderful nature of the feats he per- 
 formed, partly from the high social and scientific rank 
 of the persons who witnessed and recorded his ex- 
 ploits, partly from the fact that never once in his 
 long career was he detected in or even so much as 
 suspected of any form of fraud. 
 
 Scotch by birth, he came to America while still 
 but a child, and resided in a small town in Connecticut 
 through youth and early manhood. Soon after the Fox 
 sisters attracted the attention of the curiosity-loving 
 public, Home found himself the possessor of medium- 
 istic ability. And it is a noteworthy testimonial to 
 the genuineness of the phenomena produced by him, 
 61 
 
62 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 that his family were so annoyed at times by his medi- 
 umistic rappings and other antics that they turned the 
 boy out-of-doors. "It is hardly likely," notes Mr. Car- 
 rington, "that if Home had control over the phenomena, 
 he would voluntarily have carried them to this extent." 1 
 
 Becoming a convert to spiritism in 1855, while still 
 a very young man, he traveled abroad in the cause 
 in which he was rapidly winning himself world-wide 
 fame. "Everywhere he went he scored distinct tri- 
 umphs, both as a medium and as a social favorite. He 
 seems to have been a man of a fascinating personality, 
 gaining with ease the friendship and confidence of all 
 who came to know him. Belief in the genuineness of 
 his pretensions was further strengthened by his per- 
 sistent refusal to accept payment for his mediumistic 
 performances — a fact which, it may incidentally be 
 said, caused most people to overlook the equally ob- 
 vious circumstance that he none the less owed his live- 
 lihood almost entirely to his mediumship, admirers 
 showering gifts upon him and frequently entertaining 
 him as their guest for months at a time." 2 
 
 His seances were attended by nobility and even 
 royalty, by scientists and philosophers, among the 
 latter Sir William Crookes; and indeed the latter's 
 famous Report is based very largely on phenomena 
 observed with Home. Everywhere he gave success- 
 ful exhibitions of absolutely inexplicable phenomena, 
 and, so far as his health would permit — for he was 
 never robust — continued to do so till the day of his 
 death, some twenty years ago in France. 
 
 Harrington : Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, p. 373. 
 2 Bruce : Riddle of Personality, p. 164. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 63 
 
 With performances as striking as those of Home, 
 the possibility of fraud must, of course, be squarely 
 faced. But the entire absence even of suspicion has 
 already been noted. Even Mr. Podmore, who attempt- 
 ed to explain every alleged spiritualistic phenomenon 
 on purely natural grounds, is forced with Home to 
 admit there is no evidence of fraud. Mr. Carrington, 
 who, as we have seen, knows the shady side of spirit- 
 ualism from A to Z, says : "So far as it is known, tho 
 Home was under far more careful and prolonged scru- 
 tiny than any other medium, fraud was never detected 
 at any of Home's seances, nor was it even suspected on 
 any occasion. . . . Home always sat in the circle, side 
 by side with the other sitters, and never made use of 
 a cabinet of any sort. He also had a great objection 
 to darkness, and insisted upon as much light as possi- 
 ble on all occasions. So far as he [Mr. Podmore] was 
 enabled to ascertain, there was not indicated in the 
 records one iota of evidence against Home's character. 
 'On the other hand,' he says, 'the internal evidence of 
 the books and narratives seems to afford good ground 
 for supposing that the phenomena were genuine.' " x 
 
 Home's Levitations 
 
 We have already noted Sir William Crookes' opin- 
 ion of the genuineness of the Home phenomena in 
 general. If stronger testimony were possible, how- 
 ever, it must be found in his remarks upon Home's 
 levitations : 
 
 "There are at least a hundred recorded instances of 
 Mr. Home rising from the ground, in the presence of 
 
 Harrington : Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, pp. 372-3. 
 
64 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 as many separate persons, and 3 have heard from the 
 lips of the three witnesses to the most striking occur- 
 rence of this kind — the Earl of Dunraven, Lord Lind- 
 say and Captain C. Wynne — their own most minute 
 accounts of what took place. To reject the recorded 
 evidence on this subject is to reject all human testi- 
 mony whatever, for no fact in sacred or profane his- 
 tory is supported by a stronger array of proofs. 1 
 
 "The accumulated testimony establishing Mr. 
 Home's levitations is overwhelming," says Sir William 
 Crookes. "It is greatly to be desired that some person, 
 whose evidence would be accepted as conclusive by the 
 scientific world — if indeed there lives a person whose 
 testimony in favor of such phenomena would be taken 
 — would seriously and patiently examine these alleged 
 facts." 
 
 It might be well now to consider certain of these 
 examples of alleged levitation. Mr. Carrington's note 
 regarding them is interesting: "Incredible as it may 
 seem that a human being should be lifted off the 
 ground, and remain in that position for some time, in 
 opposition to the law of gravity, it is, nevertheless, one 
 of the best attested of all the phenomena occurring 
 in Home's presence, the quality and quantity of the 
 evidence being both good and abundant. How famous 
 the case is may be gauged by the fact that it is men- 
 tioned in Brewer's Dictionary of Miracles, page 218." 2 
 
 First, quotations from the account of Sir William 
 Crookes contained in his Report: 
 
 "The levitation of human beings . . . has oc- 
 curred in my presence on four occasions in darkness. 
 
 'The italics are mine. 
 
 2 Carrington : Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, p. 378. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 65 
 
 ... I will here only mention cases in which the de- 
 ductions of reason were confirmed by the sense of sight. 
 
 "On one occasion I witnessed a chair, with a lady 
 sitting on it, rise several inches from the ground. On 
 another occasion, to avoid the suspicion of this being 
 in. some way performed by herself, the lady knelt on 
 the chair in such manner that its four feet were visible 
 to us. It then rose about three inches, remained sus- 
 pended for about ten seconds, and then slowly descend- 
 ed. At another time two children, on separate occa- 
 sions, rose from the floor with their chairs, in full day- 
 light, under (to me) most satisfactory conditions ; for 
 I was kneeling and keeping close watch upon the feet 
 of the chair, and observing that no one might touch 
 them. 
 
 "The most striking cases of levitation which I have 
 witnessed have been with Mr. Home. On three sepa- 
 rate occasions have I seen him raised completely from 
 the floor of the room. Once sitting in an easy-chair, 
 once kneeling on his chair, and once standing up. On 
 each occasion I had full opportunity of watching the 
 occurrence as it was taking place." 1 
 
 On another occasion Sir William wrote : "The best 
 cases of Home's levitation I witnessed were in my own 
 house. On one occasion he went to a clear part of 
 the room, and, after standing quietly for a minute, 
 told us he was rising. I saw him slowly rise up with a 
 continuous gliding movement, and remain about six 
 inches off the ground for several seconds, when he 
 slowly descended. On this occasion no one moved 
 from their places. On another occasion* I was invited 
 
 'Crookes : Notes. Quar. Jour, of Set., Jan., 1874, p. 85. 
 
66 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 to come to him, when he rose eighteen inches off the 
 ground, and I passed my hands under his feet, round 
 him, and over his head when he was in the air. On 
 several occasions, Home and the chair on which he 
 was sitting at the table rose off the ground. This was 
 generally done very deliberately, and Home sometimes 
 then tucked his feet on the seat of the chair and held 
 up his hands in full view of all of us. On such occa- 
 sions I have gone down and seen and felt all four legs 
 were off the ground at the same time, Home's feet 
 being on the chair. Less frequently the levitating 
 power extended to those next to him. Once my wife 
 was thus raised off the ground in her chair." 1 
 
 Even more conclusive, however, is the much-quoted 
 account of another levitation given in the famous 
 report of the Master of Lindsay (better known as the 
 Earl of Crawford) : 
 
 "I was sitting with Mr. Home and Lord Adare, and 
 a cousin of his. During the sitting, Mr. Home went 
 into a trance, and in that state was carried out of the 
 window in the room next to where we were, and was 
 brought in at our window. The distance between the 
 windows was about seven feet six inches, and there 
 was not the slightest foothold between them, nor was 
 there more than a twelve-inch projection to each win- 
 dow, which served as a ledge to put flowers on. 
 
 "We heard the window in the next room lifted up, 
 and almost immediately after we saw Home floating 
 in the air outside our window. 
 
 "The moon was shining into the room ; my back was 
 to the light, and I saw the shadow on the wall of the 
 
 'Journal S. P. R., Vol. VI., pp. 341-2. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 67 
 
 window-sill, and Home's feet about six inches above 
 it. He remained in this position for a few seconds, 
 then raised the window and glided into the room, feet 
 foremost, and sat down. 
 
 "Lord Adare then went into the next room to look 
 at the window from which he had been carried. It 
 was raised about eighteen inches, and he expressed his 
 wonder how Mr. Home had been taken through so 
 narrow an aperture. 
 
 "Home said, still entranced, T will show you/ and 
 then, with his back to the window, he leaned back, and 
 was shot out of the aperture, head-first, with the body- 
 rigid, and then returned quite quietly. 
 
 "The window is about seventy feet 1 from the ground. 
 I very much doubt whether any skilful tight-rope 
 dancer would like to attempt a feat of this description, 
 where the only means of crossing would be by a peril- 
 ous leap, or being borne across in such a manner as I 
 have described, placing the question of the light aside." 2 
 
 The "cousin of his" referred to was a Captain 
 Wynne; both he and Lord Adare corroborated in 
 writing the correctness of the account given above. 
 
 "Elongation": The "Heat Phenomena." 
 
 Another phenomena observed with Home, and to a 
 certain extent peculiar to him, was that of elongation. 
 There are many probably who consider the ability to 
 stretch one's fingers to double their normal length, or 
 voluntarily extend one's arm an extra foot, even more 
 
 'In his statement before the Dialectical Society he gives this 
 distance as 85 feet. 
 
 2 See the Report of the Committee on Spiritualism of the 
 Dialectical Society, p. 212. 
 
68 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 remarkable than the ability to float in the air unsup- 
 ported. 
 
 Space forbids more than a single example of this 
 phenomena, this also from the account by the Master 
 of Lindsay, as given in the Report of the Dialectical 
 Society. 
 
 "... I saw Mr. Home, in a trance, elongated 
 eleven inches. I measured him standing up against the 
 wall, and marked the place; not being satisfied with 
 that, I put him in the middle of the room, and placed 
 a candle in front of him, so as to throw a shadow on 
 the wall, which I also marked. When he awoke I meas- 
 ured him again in his natural size, both directly and 
 by the shadow, and the results were equal. I can swear 
 that he was not off the ground or standing on tiptoe, 
 as I had full view of his feet, and, moreover, a gentle- 
 man present had one of his feet placed over Home's 
 insteps, one hand on his shoulder, and the other on his 
 side, where the false ribs come near the hip-bone. . . . 
 There was no separation of the vertebrae of the spine, 
 nor were the elongations at all like those resulting from 
 expanding the chest with air; the shoulders did not 
 move. Home looked as if he was pulled up by the 
 neck; the muscles seemed in a state of tension. He 
 stood firmly in the middle of the room, and, before the 
 elongation commenced, I placed my foot on his instep. 
 I will swear he never moved his heels from the 
 ground." 1 
 
 Commenting on the evidence, Mr. Carrington says : 
 "The defects in the report seem to me to be such as 
 
 ^rom the Report of the Committee on Spiritualism of the 
 'Dialectical Society, pp. 207-8, 213-14. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 69 
 
 would be made by any person drawing up a report 
 of unusual occurrences; minor inaccuracies exist, but 
 the central facts seem to have been carefully noted, and 
 rather more than the usual care exercised against 
 fraud." 1 
 
 A third class of extraordinary incidents of which it is 
 necessary to make mention are the heat phenomena. 
 
 "I have frequently seen Home, when in a trance, go 
 to the fire and take out large red-hot coals, and carry 
 them about in his hands, put them inside his shirt, etc. 
 Eight times I have myself held a red-hot coal in my 
 hands without injury, when it scorched my face on 
 raising my hand. Once, I wished to see if they really 
 would burn, and I said so, and touched the coal with 
 the middle finger of my right hand, and I got a blister 
 as large as a sixpence; I instantly asked him to give 
 me the coal, and I held the part that burned me in the 
 middle of my hand, for three or four minutes, without 
 the least inconvenience.'" 
 
 These facts are corroborated by other writers. An- 
 other heat incident, throwing as it also does a side- 
 light upon Home's own character, is most interesting. 
 
 "Mr. Home again went to the fire, and, after stir- 
 ring the hot coals about with his hand, took out a 
 red-hot piece nearly as big as an orange, and, putting it 
 on his right hand, covered it over with his left hand, so 
 as to almost completely enclose it, and then blew into 
 the small furnace thus extemporized until the lump of 
 charcoal was nearly white-hot, and then drew my at- 
 tention to the lambent flame which was flickering over 
 
 Harrington : Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, p. 395. 
 2 Quoted in the Report of the Committee on Spiritualism of 
 the Dialectical Society, pp. 208-9. 
 
70 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 the coal and licking round his ringers ; he fell on his 
 knees, looked up in a reverent manner, held up the 
 coal in front, and said, 'Is not God good? Are not 
 his laws wonderful ?' m 
 
 It hardly seems as if Home would utter the abso- 
 lutely unnecessary blasphemous mockery implied in his 
 words if he knew that the phenomena he was producing 
 were fraudulent. 
 
 Several theories have been attempted to explain these 
 heat phenomena "naturally," but even the opponents of 
 spiritualism are forced to admit that none of the theo- 
 ries cover all the evidence. It must be remembered 
 that the coals were taken from the open grate in houses 
 where Home would have no opportunity of "fixing" 
 the coals in any way if any way were known to be pos- 
 sible. Furthermore, Home seemed able to impart his 
 strange power to other persons at will, the same persons 
 being burned by the same coal when this power was 
 withdrawn. In one instance mentioned by Sir William 
 Crookes, Home placed a blazing piece of charcoal on 
 a cambric handkerchief and fanned it to a white heat. 
 Except for a tiny burned hole, the handkerchief was 
 unharmed, and Sir William, after careful laboratory 
 analysis of the handkerchief afterward, was unable to 
 find any trace of special chemical or other preparation. 
 
 As Sir William Crookes has noted, the evidence for 
 the Home phenomena in quantity and quality is quite 
 overwhelming. There remain a respectable number of 
 scientists, entirely ignorant of this evidence, who airily 
 or angrily deny. Those, like Mr. Podmore, who have 
 examined it carefully, and yet are opposed to the whole 
 
 Proceedings S. P. R., Vol. VI, p. 103. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 71 
 
 spiritualistic hypothesis, are forced into unassenting 
 silence. 
 
 The reader may accept or not. If he does it may pre- 
 dispose him to accept certain other phenomena much 
 less spectacular and almost, if not quite, as well at- 
 tested. If he does not it will still in no way endanger 
 any constituent grounds for the solution of the main 
 problem of a future life ; for, as has already been stated, 
 these physical phenomena, true or false, are not vital 
 to its solution. 
 
"I AM CONVINCED OF THE PERSISTENCE OF HUMAN 
 EXISTENCE BEYOND BODILY DEATH." 
 
 "If any one cares to hear what sort of conviction has been 
 borne in upon my mind, as a scientific man, by twenty years' 
 familiarity with these questions which concern us, I am 
 willing to reply as frankly as I can. I am, for all personal 
 purposes, convinced of the persistence of human existence 
 beyond bodily death, and though I am unable to justify that 
 belief in a full and complete manner, yet it is a belief which 
 has been produced by scientific evidence that is based upon 
 facts and experience." 
 
 —Sir Oliver Lodge, F.R.S. 
 
 n 
 
Sir Oliver Lodge 
 
 Perhaps the most eminent English-speaking scholar in the investigation 
 of psychical phenomena. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 EUSAPIA PALADINO: THE ITALIAN 
 MEDIUM 
 
 Spiritism seems to be no respecter of persons. The 
 power of mediumship may come to a cultured uni- 
 versity graduate like William Stainton Moees ; it may 
 come to an ignorant Italian peasant woman like Eu- 
 sapia Paladino. Imagine the latter, heavy featured 
 except for her wonderful dark liquid eyes, never able to 
 read or write, not able even to speak correct Italian, 
 but using habitually a corruption of the Apulian 
 dialect, but observed for years with interest, almost 
 with awe, by the greatest scholars of Europe. 
 
 Eusapia is a Neapolitan, born in 1854 at the tiny 
 village of Minerno-Murge. Left as an orphan to the 
 scant, if kindly, care of friends, while but a baby, she 
 received an injury that may have something to do 
 with her mediumistic powers. There is a marked de- 
 pression in her head, the result of that early fall, and 
 during the trance state a cool wind, which often ac- 
 companies psychical phenomena, is felt to issue from 
 this "opening." 
 
 In the house of her peasant friends her powers first 
 became manifest through the queer antics of furni- 
 ture and bric-a-brac. But her rise in fame has been 
 spectacular. The humble servant and saleswoman, 
 turned out of her first employment for her ignorance 
 73 
 
74 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 and laziness, is now the protegee of nobility — the Duke 
 of the Abruzzi is among her patrons — and the confi- 
 dante of scientists. Incidentally, her mediumship has 
 made her wealthy. 
 
 But she is still the peasant woman, her coarseness 
 softened a little by suffering and by traces of the stress 
 of many seances, her eyes sharpened a little with the 
 native shrewdness of her class. Yet in appearance she 
 is anything but striking; in temperament she is often 
 peevish, sometimes malicious — sometimes exhibiting 
 a certain pride and dignity. 
 
 On one occasion, for instance, "she was staying 
 with the Grand Dukes in Saint Petersburg: the Grand 
 Duchess often sent for her to come and talk to her or 
 keep her company in the drawing-room, but when 
 visitors came she made an imperious sign, showing 
 her the door. Twice Eusapia rather reluctantly 
 obeyed, but at last she rebelled, and, planting herself 
 in front of the princess, she said : 'Madame la Grande 
 Duchesse, you doubtless mistake me for a basket which 
 is carried to market when it is required, and left in a 
 corner when it is done with. Either I shall remain in 
 the drawing-room with all the visitors, or I shall leave 
 the castle.' 
 
 "And the princess by blood, not to discontent the 
 princess of spiritism, consented that she should remain 
 in the drawing-room." 1 
 
 Considering her temperament, her lack of education, 
 she is in truth hardly the person one would choose 
 at random as the messenger with another world. Yet 
 
 3 From a Biography of Eusapia Paladino, by Mme. Paola 
 Carrara (the daughter of Lombroso). See the review in the 
 Annals of Psychical Science^ v. 6, p. 217. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 75 
 
 to this humble Neapolitan country woman seems vouch- 
 safed a power that is revolutionizing psychical science 
 and reviving the hopes of all humanity. 
 
 The Beginning of Eusapia's Mediumistic Career 
 
 Eusapia lacks initiative even in her spiritistic mani- 
 festations. Her seance-room habits and conventions 
 are the typical ones of spiritualism as it developed in 
 this country, for it was to a Sig. Damiani, an ardent 
 spiritist who had learned of American spiritualism 
 while in England, that she owed her earliest develop- 
 ment. He first became acquainted with her in 1872, 
 discovered her mediumistic powers, and the ten years 
 following were a period of slow development and 
 locally increasing fame under his tuition. 1 
 
 As far back as 1888, however, Eusapia had attracted 
 the notice of a number of scientists, and already num- 
 bered among her friends such men as Professor Chiaia, 
 of Naples. Convinced himself of the genuineness of 
 her phenomena, he endeavored to secure wider scien- 
 tific cooperation in his investigations, especially that of 
 his friend Lombroso, the eminent criminologist. Lom- 
 broso had been openly and even contemptuously skep- 
 tical of all psychic phenomena; and it was not till 
 February, 1891, when Professor Chiaia's accounts of 
 the alleged wonders had beeen corroborated by numer- 
 ous others, that he consented to investigate for him- 
 self. 
 
 Of these first important sittings in Naples, M. Flam- 
 marion, the noted French astronomer and author, is 
 
 Annals of Psychical Science, May, 1907, p, 334. 
 
76 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 our chief chronicler. In fact, his book, Mysterious 
 Psychic Forces, is mainly a record of these first for- 
 mal investigations of Eusapia. 
 
 The seances took place in a room chosen by Lom- 
 broso himself in a local hotel, and the arrangements 
 were entirely under his direction. Among those pres- 
 ent, besides Lombroso, were Professors Gigli, Limon- 
 celli and Vizioli, and M. Bianchi, then superintend- 
 ent of the insane asylum at Sales. 
 
 At their first seance several hours passed by without 
 marked result, and, as is often the case, bade fair to be 
 a failure. 
 
 "But," says Flammarion, telling the story, "when 
 MM. Limoncelli and Vizioli were taking leave, the 
 medium being still seated and bound, and all of us 
 standing around the table conversing . . . we heard 
 noises in the alcove, and saw . . . the round table 
 which was behind them slowly advancing toward Mme. 
 Paladino, still seated and bound. 
 
 "On seeing this strange, unexpected phenomena oc- 
 cur in full light, we were all stupefied with amazement. 
 M. Bianchi and M. Lombroso's nephew dashed into 
 the alcove, under the impression that some person 
 concealed there was producing the movement of the 
 portieres and the round table. Their astonishment was 
 unbounded when they ascertained that there was no 
 one there, and that, under their very eyes, the table 
 continued to glide over the floor in the direction of the 
 medium." 1 
 
 At another time says M. Flammarion : 
 
 "I saw, and plainly saw, the rough deal table (a table 
 
 'Flammarion: Mysterious Psychic Forces, pp. 148-9. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? TT 
 
 a yard iong and nearly two feet wide and resting on 
 four feet) rise up several times from the floor and, 
 without any contact with visible objects, remain sus- 
 pended in the air, several inches above the floor, dur- 
 ing the space of two, three and even four seconds. 
 
 "This experiment was renewed in full light without 
 the hands of the medium and of the five persons who 
 formed the chain about the table touching the latter 
 in any way." 1 
 
 Succeeding sittings of the Naples series gave fur- 
 ther manifestations : the more common poltergeist phe- 
 nomena — that is, the ringing of bells, the throwing of 
 objects about the darkened seance room, twitchings of 
 hair and beard, etc. — as well as the materialization of 
 ghostly hands. So significant were the results ob- 
 tained that Lombroso was forced to admit a growing 
 confusion in his own mind, if not actual belief in these 
 "occult" phenomena. "I regret," he wrote to a friend 
 about this time, "that I combated with so much per- 
 sistence the possibilities of the facts called spiritualis- 
 tic." 
 
 Lombroso's interest and provisional conversion were 
 contagious. So great was the weight of his authority 
 that other coteries of scientists were eager to investi- 
 gate the pretensions of the Neapolitan peasant woman. 
 
 Eusapia was at this time married and living humbly 
 in a poorer quarter of Naples. With some reluctance 
 she consented to new tests of her powers, concerning 
 which, it may be noted here, she had no theories and 
 even, it seemed, but little curiosity. 
 
 She went to Milan, giving sittings there in the pri- 
 
 ^lammarion: Mysterious Psychic Forces, p. 180. 
 
78 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 vate home of a M. Finzi. The sittings were again 
 under the direct control of Lombroso himself, assisted 
 by Dr. Ermacora, professor of natural philosophy at 
 Milan University, and M. Gerosa, a physicist of inter- 
 national repute. 
 
 Every effort was made to obviate fraud in the 
 medium and self-delusion in the investigators. The 
 latter formed an imposing company, including, be- 
 sides those named above, Charles du Prel, professor 
 of philosophy at the University of Munich; Charles 
 Richet, of Paris, an earnest and experienced student 
 of psychic phenomena; Schiaparelli, director of the 
 observatory at Milan; and M. Aksakof, councilor of 
 state of the Emperor of Russia, and destined later to 
 secure even more remarkable results from Eusapia. 
 
 Yet these sittings were a complete success, resulting 
 in the almost unqualified adherence of every member 
 present to the astounding nature of the phenomena ob- 
 served. 
 
 In their efforts to secure material proof, attempts 
 were made, and successfully, to photograph levitated 
 tables as the latter floated without support in the air. 
 Prints of "astral" (spirit?) hands were made on 
 smoked paper prepared for the purpose; yet the me- 
 dium's hands, examined immediately, were found free 
 of any sign of soot. The medium herself was levitated 
 and the spectral hands were seen on several occasions. 
 
 As a variation of her ordinary experiments, Eusapia 
 would project, without contact (that is, so she would 
 assert), a force capable of making impressions in clay 
 or plaster. 
 
 "In full light," says M. Flammarion of another occa- 
 sion, "Eusapia calls M. Morselli, and, controlled by 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 79 
 
 the two persons next her, brings him with her toward 
 the table, upon which is placed a mass of modeling 
 plaster. She takes his open hand and pushes it three 
 times toward the plaster, as if to sink the hand into 
 it and leave upon it an impression. M. Morselli's hand 
 remains at a distance of more than four inches from 
 the mass; nevertheless, at the end of the seance, the 
 experimenters ascertain that the lump of plaster con- 
 tains the impression of three fingers — deeper prints 
 than it is possible to obtain directly by means of volun- 
 tary pressure." 1 
 
 We are told that Eusapia's clay impressions are usu- 
 ally profiles ; "these profiles have a certain resemblance 
 to a Eusapia grown old, and in fact are said to be 
 reproductions of the face of 'J onn King' [her control], 
 her father in a former life." 2 
 
 We have already noted the general impression made 
 at this time upon the investigators. Lombroso was 
 at least ready to admit the probability of the existence 
 of hitherto unknown forces. 
 
 M. Sully-Prudhomme, the famous poet and author, 
 member of the French Academy and a witness some- 
 what later of many of the phenomena under con- 
 sideration, wrote: 
 
 "My conviction is that I witnessed phenomena which 
 I cannot relate to any ordinary physical law. My im- 
 pression is that fraud, in any case, is more than im- 
 probable — at least so far as concerns the displacement 
 at a distance of heavy articles of furniture arranged 
 
 ^lammarion: Mysterious Psychic Forces, pp. 183-4. (The 
 italics are mine.) 
 * Annals of Psychical Science, May, 1907, p. 354. 
 
80 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 by my companions and myself. That is all that I can 
 say about it." 1 
 
 Enrico Morselli, professor of psychology at the Uni- 
 versity of Genoa, believed most of the phenomena ob- 
 served by him to be genuine ; and Dr. Porro, the noted 
 astronomer, director in turn of the observatories at 
 Genoa and Turin and of the National Observatory of 
 the Argentine Republic, at La Plata, stated in a care- 
 ful and detailed report : "The phenomena are real. 
 They cannot be explained either by fraud or hallucina- 
 tion." 2 
 
 Morselli in May, 1907, reiterates the same view at 
 greater length in a careful summing up of Eusapia's 
 place in spiritualism : 
 
 "There can no longer be any doubt as to the reality 
 of Eusapia's phenomena. They have now been seen 
 by too many persons under excellent conditions of 
 verification, with the full certainty that the medium 
 had not her hands and feet free, and that many of the 
 phenomena occurred at a distance which excluded all 
 possibility of deception; and there are now too many 
 trustworthy men, accustomed to observe and experi- 
 ment, who say that they have now become convinced 
 that Eusapia's mediumship is genuine. 
 
 "We have now got far beyond the time when her 
 phenomena could be explained by the exchange of 
 hands and feet in the dark ; the method of inquiry into 
 her phenomena is very different. ... In fact, none 
 of the most celebrated mediums are accredited by so 
 many explicit declarations by scientific men of the 
 
 ^lammarion: Mysterious Psychic Forces, p. 177. 
 'Ibid., p. 178. 
 
Plaster Casts of Impressions in Clay- 
 Produced at a distance by an unknown force. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 81 
 
 foremost rank; no one, from Home and F. Cook on- 
 ward, has allowed the introduction into the sittings 
 of scientific instruments and methods with so much 
 tolerance as Paladino." 1 
 
 At the earlier date of which we are writing, how- 
 ever, there still lurked with Charles Richet, the cau- 
 tious, in common with the great majority even of the 
 professed psychical researchers, a remnant of anti- 
 mystical presupposition. 
 
 "I laughed at Crookes and his experiments," wrote 
 Richet; and this bias was hard to overcome. "Cer- 
 tainty," he well says, "follows on habit rather than 
 observation." He determined to subject Eusapia to 
 even more rigid tests and more varied experiments. In 
 his new studies Richet was joined by two eminent in- 
 vestigators, Von Schrenck-Notzing and Siemiradski, 
 of the French Institute; yet in their new investiga- 
 tions — this was in 1894 — they could still find no trace 
 of fraud, and manifestations occurred more wonder- 
 ful than any that had preceded. 
 
 Still unconvinced, however — for such is the strength 
 of scientific doubt — Richet invited Eusapia to his own 
 home. Here for three months the ignorant peasant 
 woman dumfounded his expert scientific knowledge 
 and met successfully every test imposed. "Alone with 
 her and Ochorowicz [a noted psychologist], a man 
 of penetrating perspicacity, I renewed my experiments 
 in the best possible conditions of solitude and quiet 
 reflection. We thus acquired," wrote Richet, "a posi- 
 tive proof of the reality of the facts announced at 
 Milan." 
 
 x Annals of Psychical Science, May, 1907, pp. 328-9. 
 
82 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 It was natural, of course, that the English Society 
 for Psychical Research should by this time have heard 
 of and should have wished to investigate phenomena 
 of such importance. Lengthy reports of her exploits 
 had appeared in the most scholarly journals of France 
 and Italy; the savants who had observed had utterly 
 failed to find evidence of fraud, and were almost a 
 unit in their acceptance of the phenomena. 
 
 The Downfall of Eusapia in England 
 
 After some delay, at the invitation of M. Richet, an 
 English committee, consisting of Professor Oliver 
 Lodge, Mr. Myers and Professor J. Ochorowicz, held 
 sittings with Eusapia; and they, like all previous in- 
 vestigators, became convinced of the genuineness of 
 the phenomena she produced. These sittings were, 
 however, strongly criticized by that militant critic, Dr. 
 Hodgson, an expert in the detection of psychic fraud ; 
 and finally, for his benefit, another series was held in 
 Cambridge, England. 
 
 Here he succeeded in discovering the medium in 
 actual trickery, for the first time, but beyond ques- 
 tion. Eusapia was consequently "immediately dropped 
 by the society." "She had been detected in trickery," 
 adds Mr. Carrington, summing up this controversy, 
 "and, according to the standards of the society, that 
 was enough to condemn her from future publicity, 
 so far as they were concerned. . . . The continen- 
 tal investigators, convinced that the medium did not 
 always practise fraud of the kind discovered by Dr. 
 Hodgson, continued their researches, and (apparently) 
 showed that phenomena were produced when trickery 
 was not possible — at least trickery of the sort Dr. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 83 
 
 Hodgson detected. So strong was this new evidence, 
 indeed, that Mr. Myers and Professor Lodge retracted 
 their former beliefs, and became more than ever con- 
 vinced that supernormal phenomena did occasionally 
 happen in Eusapia's presence, while perfectly willing 
 to admit that fraud had been practised at Cambridge, 
 and would account for all the phenomena there wit- 
 nessed. . . " x 
 
 The case seemed at that time very evidently one 
 where the unbiased investigator could not, although 
 that would be of course the easy way, discard all the 
 phenomena as fraudulent and worthless. He had still 
 to weigh and "prove" (test). 
 
 This was in fact the situation regarding Eusapia till 
 as recently as two years ago. On the one hand she 
 had been once convicted of deliberate fraud, giving, 
 of course, a strong presumption that all her phenomena 
 were fraudulent. She had been officially discredited 
 by the foremost psychical society in the world, the 
 English Society for Psychical Research; and among 
 English-speaking scientists was generally believed a 
 daring and skilful impostor. 
 
 On the other hand there was the testimony of a 
 hundred or more scholars and investigators of the first 
 rank. There were the cases of Myers and Sir Oliver 
 Lodge, actual witnesses of her fraud, and yet later 
 reconverted to belief in her supernormal powers. There 
 were the proofs of M. Flammarion, who, like Sir 
 William Crookes, not satisfied with the evidence of 
 his own eyes, on several occasions took photographs of 
 tables levitated by the medium while they floated in 
 
 Harrington: Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, pp. II, 13. 
 
84? ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 mid-air. 1 And there was finally a very striking test 
 made some years before by M. Aksakoff , who "obtained 
 a levitation, in the seances at Milan, after having tied 
 Eusapia's feet with two strings, the ends of which 
 were short and had been sealed to the floor very near 
 each foot." 2 
 
 Two years ago the student of mediumship might 
 very well have said : "The truth of the matter prob- 
 ably is that Eusapia has genuine powers ; but, when 
 they are dormant and dilatory, she cannot resist the 
 natural temptation 'to help the "spirits" along a little.' 
 Were hers the only testimony we would be justified in 
 throwing it all out of court ; having, however, evidence 
 of genuine table levitation in other cases, we can but 
 give an unbiased presentation of her case, mentioning 
 it at all simply because of its wide notoriety and his- 
 torical importance." 
 
 But that was the situation two years ago. Since 
 then she has given new proofs of her powers, so con- 
 vincing in the nature of the tests imposed that it may 
 be fairly said that a new era in psychic research has 
 been inaugurated. 
 
 There have been, as we have noted, a number of 
 conventions in the conduct of the seance most irri- 
 tating to those striving to obviate trickery : these con- 
 ventions Eusapia has boldly defied. For instance, here- 
 tofore the mystic phenomena could supposedly occur 
 only in a darkened room: some of Eusapia's most 
 wonderful manifestations have been in daylight or 
 
 ^hese were reproduced in his book. Though interesting, 
 they were taken under circumstances too adverse (photograph- 
 ically) to be conclusive. 
 
 2 Flammarion : Mysterious Psychic Forces, p. 156, footnote. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 85 
 
 the full glare of electric light. The "influences" sup- 
 posedly could not work away from their familiar 
 haunts: Eusapia's greatest triumphs have been in the 
 coldly unsympathetic interiors of physical laboratories 
 surrounded by scientific precision instruments regis- 
 tering with exactitude every phase of her manifesta- 
 tions. The usual medium is able to work only in a 
 secret cabinet and does not allow herself to be touched : 
 Eusapia has effected wonders as great as any in the 
 history of mediumship while her hands and feet were 
 tightly held and without the aid of any cabinet what- 
 ever. At last, and for the first time, we would seem 
 to have psychic phenomena brought out from the baf- 
 fling obscurity of mysticism, superstition — and fraud — 
 into the dazzling white light of purely scientific test 
 and observation — surely no inconsiderable achieve- 
 ment! 
 
 A New Series of Sittings in Genoa 
 
 The climax of Eusapia's mediumship, the sittings 
 held within the past year at Naples, were fittingly an- 
 ticipated by series of most remarkable sittings held 
 in Turin, Genoa and Milan. 
 
 In 1905 Eusapia had spent a long visit in Paris, but 
 with comparatively slight results. 
 
 Returning to Italy, in the latter part of the same 
 year, a new series was given in Milan before the local 
 Societe d'Etudes Psychiques. This series was under 
 the auspices of the Corriere delta Sera, an important 
 daily newspaper of northern Italy, and under the direc- 
 tion of such authorities as Lombroso and Fogazzaro. 
 In 1892 the then proprietor of the Corriere had been 
 instrumental in detecting Eusapia in gross fraud, name- 
 
86 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 ly that tricky releasing of a hand or foot from control 
 that had killed her pretensions in England. At this 
 time, however, Eusapia so far redeemed herself as to 
 actually convert to spiritism the paper's present edi- 
 tors. The reports of the Milan sittings were fea- 
 tured in the Corriere, and, tho inconclusive, created no 
 little comment. 1 
 
 This Milan series was quickly overshadowed in im- 
 portance, however, by the Genoa sittings, held under 
 the direction of Dr. Henrico Morselli, of whom men- 
 tion has already been made, the professor of psychiatry 
 and neurology at the University of Genoa. Among 
 his confreres were M. Bozzano, an expert in spiritistic 
 investigation; a Dr. Venzano, M. Berisso, an artist, 
 and his wife, at whose home the seances were held; 
 and M. Barzini, editor of the Corriere della Sera. 
 
 The medium, previous to the seance, was completely 
 undressed and searched. During the sittings her hands 
 and feet were carefully controlled. The room was 
 lighted, adequately if feebly, by an alcohol lamp. To 
 prevent the intrusion of a possible confederate the 
 doors were sealed on the inside. 
 
 At the very first seance there were remarkable ex- 
 amples of levitation, apports 2 and materialization. For 
 instance, says M. Barzini : 
 
 "A big table weighing eighty pounds, standing in 
 a corner by the window, on which we had placed cases 
 containing photographic plates, frames, a metronome, 
 . . . a dynamometer and other objects, approached 
 
 3 Annals of Psychical Science, v. 5, p. up. 
 
 2 " Apports" are articles suddenly introduced into the seance 
 room by the medium with no visible origin ; in other words, 
 matter apparently spontaneously created from thin air. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 87 
 
 us, then withdrew again. A frame came and lay in 
 my hand. Suddenly our plates were thrown on the 
 ground; the frames followed them. Dr. Morselli was 
 fearing for the fate reserved for his metronome when 
 we heard it mysteriously set going and ticking regular- 
 ly. A few moments later the machinery was stopped, 
 resumed its movement and was again stopped. . . . 
 Metronomes are not in the habit of doing this on their 
 own account: the experience elicited exclamations of 
 surprise from us." At once the metronome, "doubt- 
 less feeling flattered," as Barzini humorously says, 
 jumped blithely of its own accord over on to the table 
 before the medium "and began cheerily to beat time'' 
 there. All this happened in a good light. 1 
 
 At the second seance Professor Morselli had hung 
 two photographic plates on sticks tied to the back of 
 Eusapia's chair. These were to register possible radia- 
 tions emanating from the medium. During the seance 
 they heard "a delicate and restrained sound" behind 
 the medium. Upon looking they saw to their aston- 
 ishment that the knots fastening the vertical sticks to 
 the chair were slowly untying themselves. The blue 
 and white strings, plainly seen, were "patiently un- 
 done" by invisible fingers. Then, to complete the won- 
 der, the photographic frames did not fall when loose, 
 but gently floated away into the cabinet. 2 
 
 At this seance, too, there was an excellent example 
 of what is often referred to as "bulgings" of the cabi- 
 net curtain. So clear is M. Barzini's description of 
 
 Annals of Psychical Science, v. 5, p. 122. 
 'Ibid, p. 123. 
 
88 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 this case — a typical one — that it is worth repeating 
 verbatim. 
 
 "Dr. Morselli felt himself touched in several places 
 by the moving curtain. He thought he observed be- 
 hind the curtain the presence of a complete human 
 form, whose body leaned against his, the arms pressing 
 against him; we all saw the arms wrapped round by 
 the curtain. 
 
 "I got up suddenly, drawing the medium against 
 me, and I put my head between the opening of the cur- 
 tains to look into the cabinet. . . . It was empty. 
 Professor Morselli felt behind the curtain at the spot 
 where it bulged out, and was assured that it was empty. 
 What, from the outside, appeared to be a moving hu- 
 man body covered by the curtain, was, on the inside, a 
 cavity in the stuff, an empty mold. 
 
 "It reminded one of Wells' Invisible Man. I then 
 wished to touch the bulging part of the curtain on the 
 outside . . . and I encountered the effectual re- 
 sistance of a living head. I distinguished the fore- 
 head, I moved the palm of my hand downward on to 
 the cheeks and on the nose, and when I touched the 
 lips the mouth opened and seized me under the thumb ; 
 / distinctly felt the strain of a clean bite. At the same 
 moment a hand pressed against rny chest and pushed 
 me back, the curtains swelled out and fell back inert. 
 All this time the medium remained in view." 1 
 
 At the third seance Professsor Morselli caught 
 Eusapia in her usual fraud. She had, unnoticed for a 
 moment by him, released her left hand and was reach- 
 
 ^Annals of Psychical Science, v. 5, pp. 120-5. The italics 
 are mine. 
 

 
 5W 
 
 EU 
 >4i >. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 89 
 
 ing toward a trumpet which they had laid on the table. 
 He immediately cried in warning to the others "E. T. 
 V.!" [a prearranged signal of detected trickery], and 
 seized her hand again. Eusapia understood his cryptic 
 "E. T. V.," however, and said sadly : "Don't say that !" 
 Of course all the party at once redoubled the closeness 
 of their watch upon her. Now comes the remarkable 
 part, as Barzini says. "At this moment, while the 
 control was certainly more rigorous than ever, the 
 trumpet was raised from the table and disappeared 
 into the cabinet. . . . Evidently the medium had 
 attempted to do with her hand what she subsequently 
 did mediumistically." 1 
 
 This example of fraud would seem, if anything, to 
 strengthen Eusapia's position. If we are to believe a 
 hundred reliable witnesses in thousands of instances 
 her trickery is unnecessary. "Such a futile and fool- 
 ish attempt at fraud is," as Barzini says, "inexplica- 
 ble." Unless, as perhaps it is, it is actually involuntary. 
 
 Lombroso, after remarking that Eusapia "often lacks 
 common sense, but she has an intuition and intelligent 
 subtlety which contrast with her lack of culture," adds : 
 "Ingenuous to such a degree that she lets herself be 
 imposed upon and taken in by any intriguer, she yet 
 sometimes — before and during the trance — shows a 
 degree of cunning which often amounts to deceit. 
 Thus on one occasion she was seen to pull out a hair 
 in order to place it on the plate of a little balance in 
 such a way as to depress it ; another time she was sur- 
 prised while secretly getting some flowers to simulate 
 
 ^Annals of Psychical Science, v. 5, p. 208. 
 
90 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 an apport and forming of her handkerchief with her 
 hands some mannikins to represent phantoms." 
 
 Why should she attempt to do these things fraudu- 
 lently when she has apparently proved again and again 
 her ability to do them genuinely? Why, indeed? 
 
 At the fourth seance there were two especially re- 
 markable levitations. "The table rose in the air to 
 the height of our shoulders, completely isolated, and 
 while Dr. Venzano counted the seconds aloud, so as 
 to time the duration of the phenomenon, the table 
 marked each second as it was counted by raising and 
 lowering one of its ends. . . . As we followed the 
 count of seconds we were amazed at its length. But 
 the table evidently felt some pride in its performance, 
 as it continued pluckily; when sixty seconds had been 
 counted, the table fell back to the ground. . . ." 1 
 
 A little later it went up again, floating this time 
 seventy-eight seconds, which may be said to break the 
 levitation record ! 
 
 In fact, at this sitting, the psychic forces, whatever 
 they might be, appeared to be especially obliging. 
 
 "Unknown to the others," continues the record, "Dr. 
 Morselli had brought with him a piece of string, about 
 sixteen inches long ; this he laid on the table. The 
 string disappeared, then came back, wagging like the 
 tail of an animal. The professor examined it and then 
 said, in a tone of disappointment '. . . I wanted 
 to see it knotted.' " It evidently had not understood 
 what was expected of it ; but, as Barzini says, 'it was 
 not lacking in good will,' for it at once mysteriously 
 
 1 Annals of Psychical Science, v. 5, pp. 210-11. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 91 
 
 vanished, only to reappear instantaneously shortly after 
 with three neat knots tied in it at regular intervals. 1 
 
 There were numerous materializations, especially of 
 hands and of shadowy and more or less vaporous ap- 
 pearances. Sometimes these were felt ; occasionally the 
 experimenters were able to clasp the etheric members. 
 "The feeling," says M. Barzini, ". . . was very 
 curious ; they did not escape from my grasp ; they dis- 
 solved, so to speak. They slipped out of my hands 
 as if they had collapsed. They seemed like hands thai 
 had very rapidly melted and dissolved, after manifest- 
 ing a high degree of energy, and an absolutely life-like 
 appearance while performing actions." 2 
 
 The First Turin Seances 
 Shortly after the Genoa sittings, in February, 1906, 
 Lombroso held a new series with Eusapia, this time 
 in Turin. The company present was a representative 
 one: Drs. Imoda and Audenino, assistants to Prof. 
 Lombroso; M. Pomba, an engineer; Count Guy Bor- 
 relli; two lawyers, M. Maris and M. Jacques Bar- 
 baroux; M. Emile Barbaroux; Dr. Joseph Roasenda; 
 Dr. Norlenghi, a member of the municipal council of 
 Turin; Professor Jannacone, of the University of 
 Turin; M. Bocca, a publisher; two ladies, one an 
 American, and Sig. Mucchi, a newspaper man. The 
 sittings were held, this time not at a private house, but 
 in the psychiatrical laboratory of the university. Every 
 precaution was taken to obviate fraud ; although "none 
 
 1 Annals of Psychical Science, v. 5, p. 211. 
 2 From the report by M. Barzini in the Corriere delta Sera, 
 of Milan. Annals of Psychical Science, v. 5, p. 210. 
 
92 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 of the most important phenomena which occurred," 
 says Sig. Mucchi in his report, "left room for the 
 slightest suspicion of trickery. They were all of such 
 a kind that they could not be imitated even by the 
 cleverest jugglery." Moreover, this time the room 
 was lit by electric light I 1 
 
 Manifestations began almost immediately. "A cold 
 wind came from behind the curtain, which suddenly 
 opened as if it had been opened by two hands. A hu- 
 man head came out, with a pale, haggard face, of sin- 
 ister evil aspect. It lingered a moment and then dis- 
 appeared." 2 
 
 A moment later "a woman's small hand . . . 
 reappeared near the curtain, seized one of the feet of 
 the footstool, and pushed it. Sig. Mucchi broke the 
 chain [of hands] and, by a rapid action, seized the 
 warm hand, which at once seemed to dissolve and dis- 
 appeared." 3 
 
 At the close of the seance the reporter placed his 
 hand on the deep scar which the medium has on the 
 left side of her head and felt a cold, strong, continuous 
 breeze issuing from it, like a human breath. He sub- 
 sequently felt the same cold breeze issuing, though 
 less strongly, from the tips of her fingers. 
 
 It was at the third sitting that Dr. Mucchi became 
 involved in a weird struggle with the invisible entities 
 that seemed to be at work around them. A mass of* 
 clay had been placed within the cabinet in the hope 
 that Eusapia might be able to produce some of her 
 
 '■Annals of Psychical Science, v. 5, p. 305. 
 Hbid., p. 306. 
 3 Ibid., p. 306. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE?, 93 
 
 inexplicable molds therein. After some waiting they 
 were told "typtologically" — that is, by rappings with- 
 in the table — "The impression is made." 
 
 Eager to view the result, Dr. Mucchi rose and went 
 toward the cabinet. "I was about to enter," he says 
 ". . . but was repelled by two hands made of noth- 
 ing. I felt them; they were agile and prompt; they 
 seised me and pushed me back. The struggle lasted 
 for some time; the hands seemed to take pleasure in 
 resisting me ; they pushed me back if I tried to enter, 
 and pulled me forward if I retired. I ended by seiz- 
 ing the lump of clay . . ." whereupon "they thrust 
 me out with a violent shove that nearly upset every- 
 thing. There were observable on the clay two or three 
 impressions such as might be made by a closed fist." 1 
 
 Was there ever a stranger combat? A strong man 
 in a desperate physical struggle with — thin air ! In- 
 explicable, you may say, nay, impossible! Yet there 
 was an abundant if dim electric light: Dr. Mucchi is 
 a skilled observer: this phenomena is of a piece with 
 scores of well-authenticated other instances. Surely 
 the thing cannot be airily smiled away. 
 
 A little later a mandolin lying on the table in the 
 plain sight of every one played of itself; the strings 
 throbbing separately or in unison without any visible 
 cause. "One of us was asked to play on the medium's 
 fingers as if they were a mandolin ; a string sounded 
 in correspondence with each touch, and if the touch 
 was vague the sound was incomplete or strident." But 
 the still was not all. Shortly afterward "a hand, 
 which suddenly materialized, seized the instrument by 
 
 ^Annals of Psychical Science, v. 5, p. 309. 
 
94. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 the handle and placed it on the shoulder of the player, 
 and there, under his very nose, the strings shook and 
 twanged." Then "the hand dissolved and disap- 
 peared." 1 
 
 At both the third and fourth sittings appeared an- 
 other example of that, even with Eusapia, rare phe- 
 nomena, what appeared to be a materialized head. It 
 acted as though it were one known to Pomba, the 
 engineer : reaching out from the curtain its two hands, 
 it held him with a caressing gesture while it kissed 
 him. This appearance was seen by all present, being 
 plainly visible, though at no time sharply defined. It 
 seemed indeed to be continually varying in size, dimin- 
 ishing and increasing visibly, "so that sometimes it 
 appeared to be that of an adult, sometimes that of a 
 child. It was evidently subject to the variations of 
 the emission of the mediumistic force . . '. the 
 medium seemed more fatigued when the head was 
 more largely developed." 2 
 
 But, alas for the easy path toward complete belief, 
 again there was a brazen example of trickery. One 
 of the most astounding phenomena of the Genoa sit- 
 tings had been a registration of 242 pounds pressure 
 on a dynamometer, showing a greater strength than 
 that exerted by the strongest man. Who or what 
 could have so powerfully affected the instrument? 
 
 This time the invisible fingers at work on the in- 
 strument were observed more carefully, and "John" 
 was caught tampering with the needle in an unusually 
 clever way. 3 
 
 1 Annals of Psychical Science, v. 5, p. 310. 
 i Ibid., p. 313. *Ibid., pp. 311-12. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 95 
 
 Yet alas too for the decryer of all these phenomena, 
 for he must admit: 
 
 1. That apparently invisible -fingers were perform- 
 ing the trick! 
 
 2. That strength pressures of nearly 150 pounds 
 were exerted time and again in the production of levi- 
 tations which the witnesses claimed were indisputable. 
 
 Truly it is a tangled thread to unsnarl. 1 
 
 The Second Turin Seances 
 
 So suggestive had these Turin sittings been, so im- 
 portant the results obtained, that they had hardly been 
 finished ere Eusapia was prevailed upon to give a sup- 
 plementary series in the same place. The latter sit- 
 tings were under the auspices of Drs. Amedeo Herlitz- 
 ka, Carlo Foa and Alberta Aggazotti, all professors 
 in the University of Turin and assistants of the famous 
 psychologist, Professor Mosso, all comparatively 
 young men, but all enthusiastic, if cold-blooded, re- 
 searchers in laboratory science, absolutely devoid of 
 anything like superstition, and considering poor Eu- 
 sapia merely as a case in abnormal psychology, whose 
 strange manifestations must be weighed and dissected 
 in the interests of pure science. 
 
 Imagine the sensation that set half Europe on the 
 qui vive when these researchers prefaced the careful 
 report resulting with these words: "The conditions 
 under which the seances occurred are of a nature to 
 afford peculiar guarantees that we were the victims 
 neither of fraud, nor of clever charlatans, nor of hal- 
 
 Tor a detailed account of the first Turin sittings see the 
 report by Sig. Mucchi in La Stampa, a Milanese journal. See 
 also the Annals of Psychical Science, v. 5, pp. 305-14. 
 
96 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 lucination." Nay, rather the phenomena seemed to 
 them inexplicably but most wonderfully genuine; and 
 they said with convincing boldness : "Now that we are 
 persuaded of the authenticity of the phenomena, we 
 feel it our duty to state the fact publicly in our turn, 
 and to proclaim that the few pioneers in this branch 
 of biology (destined to become one of the most im- 
 portant) generally saw and observed correctly." 1 
 
 They, like the other scientists, preferred the evidence 
 of exact instruments to that even of their own eyes 
 and ears. Hence the presence of a dynamometer, a 
 revolving self-registering cylinder connected electric- 
 ally with a switch, and photographic plates wrapped in 
 light-proof paper. Besides the experimenters there 
 were present only Count Verdun, in whose house the 
 seances took place, Dr. Imoda, the Chevalier Rostain 
 and "a lady." The first sitting, as is generally the 
 case, was comparatively lacking in interest, though 
 there was considerable poltergeist phenomena; but at 
 the second, at which a Dr. Arullani had been added 
 to the company, occurred one of the most remarkable 
 happenings in the history of spiritualism. 
 
 Toward the middle of the evening there had been a 
 number of remarkable levitations, "table No. i" having 
 floated high in the air, over the heads, indeed, of some 
 of the company, also turning itself over. "Table No. 
 i" was described as "a strong table of white wood, 
 about two feet nine inches high and three feet long by 
 twenty-two inches broad, weighing seventeen pounds." 
 When it had seemed to quiet down for a moment, Dr. 
 Arullani, who was especially skeptical, approached it to 
 
 'The italics are mine. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 97 
 
 examine it closely ; but "the piece of furniture, moving 
 violently toward him, repulsed him." 1 
 
 A moment later the medium announced quietly in 
 her natural voice: "I am going to break the table." 
 ". . . All those who were on the left of the medium 
 could observe, by a very good red light, the various 
 movements of the table. The latter bent down and 
 passed behind the curtain, followed by one of us (Dr. 
 Carlo Foa), who saw it turn over, and rest on one of 
 its two short sides, while one of the legs of the table 
 came off violently, as if under the action of some 
 force pressing upon it. At this moment, the table 
 came violently out of the cabinet and continued to 
 break up under the eyes of every one present; at first 
 its different parts were torn off, then the boards them- 
 selves went to pieces. Two legs which still remained 
 united by a thin slip of wood floated above us and 
 placed themselves on the seance table." 2 
 
 Of this astounding phenomena there can seem to 
 be, from the evidence, no question. The table cer- 
 tainly existed, and after the seance was over was found 
 "broken into . . . pieces of various sizes." 3 Nor is 
 there any doubt about its breaking: "the nails were 
 torn out, the rivets and boards were broken." 4 It hap- 
 pened "in the midst of many witnesses, under good 
 . . . light. The medium was most carefully controlled 
 — during the occurrence of the most important phe- 
 nomena, Eusapia's legs were placed horizontally on our 
 knees." 4 
 
 1 Annals of Psychical Science, v. 5, pp. 378-9. 
 
 s Ibid.,p. 379. *Ibid., p. 383. 'Ibid., p. 385. 'Ibid., pp. 378-9. 
 
98 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 Furthermore, the strength required literally to pull 
 to pieces such a table is enormous, greater in fact than 
 most men could exert, to say nothing of Eusapia. 
 
 But what did rend that table ? The investigators in 
 this case admit candidly their complete mystification. 
 
Dr. Pio Foa 
 
 Professor of Pathologic Anatomy, University of Turin, and a student 
 for many years of mediumistic phenomena. 
 
"I AM CONVINCED THAT AFTER DEATH MAN DOES 
 NOT PERISH ENTIRELY." 
 
 I am convinced that after death man does not perish en- 
 tirely; all of his individuality is not destroyed; his more noble 
 and spiritual qualities persist in another life, higher and more 
 comprehensive. It is a life which we do not know as yet, but 
 which is revealed to us by an inner consciousness. The Bible 
 and the sacred books speak to us of that other life, describing 
 it in a language so picturesque and sincere that millions of 
 men have believed that they were dictated to us by some 
 one who must know perfectly the life beyond the grave. Man- 
 kind has universally attributed these pages to divine origin, 
 and has believed them to be a revelation made by God to man. 
 
 The moment we admit the probability of man's sur- 
 vival after death we must also face the possibility of the doc- 
 trine of spiritualism — that is, that it is possible that we are 
 surrounded, in the air, by spirits or beings, their pure essence, 
 which under special conditions may be able to manifest them- 
 selves to us. The question becomes one of sufficient impor- 
 tance to be worthy of scientific study and research. Thus wo 
 have to-day such men as Lombroso, Pio Foa, Richet, Flam- 
 marion, Sardou, Crookes, Stead and others, who are bringing 
 all their intelligence to bear to try to investigate and deter- 
 mine the nature of the force possessed by some individuals 
 of moving objects at a distance without contact, and of cer- 
 tain other mediumistic phenomena, materializations princi- 
 pally. 
 
 Personally, I have made a long series of investigations with 
 the celebrated medium, Eusapia Paladino, who is a Neapolitan 
 in origin. These experiments were made under strictly scien- 
 tific conditions, with the assistance of Drs. Galeotti, de Amicis, 
 Lombardi, and a few other eminent men, professors in the Uni- 
 
100 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 versity of Naples. The question is most complex ana difficult 
 to solve. 
 
 Up to the present time I would not say that we have suffi- 
 cient proof to determine exactly the nature of these forces, or 
 of the phenomena, if you prefer. But they exist and are 
 real. That has been attested to so many times, by men of 
 unimpeachable probity, that they are no longer to be denied. 
 I know there are those who claim that Eusapia Paladino is 
 a charlatan and a fraud, and that all of the scientific men are 
 mere dupes. But those assertions are made by people who have 
 never assisted at her seances. On my own account I can state 
 that with me Eusapia has never resorted to tricks. I have seen 
 a table, which was placed a yard away from the medium, 
 moved about in broad daylight without being touched by 
 any one. I have seen my own eye-glasses, which I wear 
 without a string, picked up by an invisible hand when they 
 had fallen on the floor, and placed gently on my nose again. 
 I have seen a little lock of hair placed so softly on the table 
 before us, by a force invisible, that we were not aware of 
 what was being done until we saw it lying there. We have 
 requested that flowers be placed on the table, and at a given 
 moment they appeared on a whatnot, four feet away from 
 the medium. The same nosegay I saw pass caressingly over 
 the face of one of the scientists present, and pose itself on 
 his knee. Twice I have seen a dark form, which might be a 
 head, appear behind the head of Eusapia, when she was in a 
 trance state. Gradually the form became lighter, pale, and 
 then as if illuminated. Some one asked the medium who 
 it was, and she answered in a feeble voice, "It is Peppino." 
 Another time Eusapia applied her forehead to mine, at the 
 same time saying, "Look!" And we saw a human head, very 
 pale, but clearly illuminated, appear behind her own. 
 
 But I could go on indefinitely talking of my experiments 
 with this medium, which have extended over a number of 
 years. I quite understand that to the uninitiated much of 
 this seems too strange for belief, and that only those who 
 have had the experiences can really conceive of their reality. 
 
 And as for the explanation of these manifestations, that will 
 be for coming generations to solve. — Filippo Botazri. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE LATER MEDIUMSHIP OF EUSAPIA 
 PALADINQ 
 
 While recent enthusiasm over Eusapia was still at 
 white heat, Bottazzi and Galeotti, the one of the depart- 
 ment of physics, the other professor of general path- 
 ology, at the University of Naples, the medium's na- 
 tive city, determined on a new series of sittings. These 
 were not so much for the purpose of imposing ad- 
 ditional tests; for by this time the great majority of 
 Italian investigators had come to consider fraud a dis- 
 missed solution: but it was hoped that with increased 
 knowledge of conditions favorable to mediumistic 
 manifestation new and perhaps more startling data 
 might be secured. In this they were not disappointed. 
 
 Bottazzi's introduction is a model of scientific cau- 
 tion. "Barzini's descriptions were excellent," he 
 writes, "but we wanted documents and proofs. So 
 many, however, had already seen these, and yet had 
 doubted; we ought to be able to furnish evidence 
 analogous to that given in our scientific publications." 
 
 "Everything must be registered by writing and 
 
 photography, i.e., all that can be registered. Will she 
 
 be able to impress a photographic plate? Will she be 
 
 able to illuminate a screen treated with platino-cyanide 
 
 101 
 
102 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 of barium? Will she be able to discharge a gold-leaf 
 electroscope without touching it?" 1 
 
 M. Bottazzi appreciated fully the vital weakness in 
 the usual testimony of the seance. "To assert," he 
 says, "that Mr. X., being present at a particular seance, 
 heard a touch upon a .telegraphic key which had been 
 placed in the cabinet out of reach of the medium's 
 visible hand, is obviously less valuable than to be able 
 to show the incredulous public a graphic tracing of 
 the movements of the electro-magnetic needle, connect- 
 ed with the keyboard, recorded on a sheet of smoked 
 paper at a considerable distance from the medium. 
 For it is always possible to suggest that Mr. X. was 
 the victim of hallucination. 
 
 "It will not avail to add that the sounds were heard 
 by all those present. The obstinately incredulous will 
 reply: 'That may be; but it was a case of collective 
 hallucination.' " 2 
 
 Nor was the data in this way secured insufficiently 
 scrutinized or carelessly collated. 
 
 "I wrote the detailed account of the phenomena 
 which occurred during each seance," says Bottazzi, 
 "sometimes on the same night, or else the following 
 morning; and it is from these accounts, after I had 
 interrogated my friends on certain doubtful or con- 
 troverted points, that this report has been written with 
 a calm and collected mind." 3 
 
 How far Bottazzi's mental attitude differed from 
 that of the professed spiritualist is significantly shown 
 by the phrase with which he opens the report of each 
 
 1 Annals of Psychical Science, v. 6, p. 151. 
 *Ibid„ p. 261. "Ibid., p. 267 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 103 
 
 seance. It is a statement of religious theorizing or 
 sentimental -hapsody ? Not exactly. He begins thus : 
 
 "First Seance (April lyth, 1907). 
 
 "Barometric pressure at 9 p.m. : 760.79 mm. ; tem- 
 perature, 9.7 Cent." 1 
 
 And this cold, precise exactitude, it may be noted 
 here, is matched in much of the recent work with 
 Eusapia. Listen, for instance, to a sample of Lom- 
 broso's description of the medium herself: is there 
 any trace here of emotionalism or mysticism? 
 
 Eusapia has, he says, "a stenocrotaphy — that is to 
 say, the bizygomatic diameter of her head is larger than 
 the frontal one (127 to 113); a dolichocephaly (73), 
 which, however, is ethnic ; a head of small circumfer- 
 ence (530) ; an asymmetry in the cranium as well as 
 in the face, the right side being more developed. The 
 left eye presents the Claude Bernard-Horner phenome- 
 non, as in the case of epileptics. The eyes are choroec- 
 topic above and within, and react only feebly to light, 
 but have good power of accommodation," etc., etc. 2 
 
 Nor were the assistants invited by Bottazzi required 
 to have spiritualistic leanings or even knowledge. On 
 the other hand, "It was thought advisable to choose 
 sitters quite new to mediumistic seances . . . per- 
 sons whose scientific prestige was indisputable." 3 
 
 Eusapia's new inquisition, if we may call it that, 
 showed, therefore, some new names, but those equally 
 distinguished in scientific circles. Besides Galeotti 
 
 1 Annals of Psychical Science, v. 6, p. 271. 
 'Ibid., pp. 167-8. 3 Ibid., p. 153. 
 
104. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 and Bottazzi, there were M. Luigi Lombardi and Dr. 
 Scarpa, both professors in the electrical department of 
 the Naples Polytechnic High School ; Dr. T. de Amicis, 
 a physician and professor of dermatology in the Uni- 
 versity of Naples ; and Dr. Pansini, a noted expert in 
 medical semeiotics; Emanuele Jona, an engineer, and 
 president of the Italian Electro-technical Association ; 
 the venerable Senator Antonio Cardarelli, professor of 
 clinical medicine at the university; and Nicola Minu- 
 tillo, instructor in Roman law. Only a part of these 
 persons were present at all the seances. 
 
 The experiments took place in a room forming part 
 of the physiological laboratories of the university. The 
 walls were bare of curtain or ornament: the furniture 
 the simplest: the cabinet, which Eusapia was not even 
 allowed to touch, was one improvised by Bottazzi him- 
 self. "Although she approached it, . . . and felt 
 impelled several times to touch the outside of the cur- 
 tain, she never," he says, "put her hand into the cabinet, 
 and never examined the interior of it, either before or 
 during a seance." 1 
 
 At all sittings her hands and feet were held contin- 
 uously by two or more of the party, wary of the slight- 
 est suspicious movement, and cognizant of every 
 tremor, even, that she might make. Moreover, even 
 in the selection and disposition of the scientific appa- 
 ratus, effort was made to assure a minimum of oppor- 
 tunity for fraud. "The receiving instruments which 
 were to be put in motion, and the surface on which 
 they rested, were generally, after the first seance, so 
 firmly fixed, that, in spite of all her efforts, Paladino 
 
 1 Annals of Psychical Science, v. 6, p. 268. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 105 
 
 could scarcely even move them. ... I passed the 
 electric wire and the tubes through holes made in the 
 wood," says Bottazzi, "or I arranged them so that 
 they only passed over a very small portion of the sur- 
 face." 1 
 
 "The mediumistic chain was not always strictly 
 maintained. In addition to two breaks demanded by 
 Eusapia, Bottazzi, Galeotti and Scarpa frequently rose 
 from their seats and left the room, either to put the 
 cylinders in motion in the neighboring room, or to 
 look for some string, asked for by Eusapia, or for 
 some other reason. 
 
 "Our seances have always been accompanied by a 
 certain amount of movement on the part of those 
 present; a convinced spiritist who was present at the 
 seventh seance was scandalized by it ; but this was very 
 natural. Spiritists attend with their souls already at- 
 tuned to admiration; their faith is absolute (so much 
 the better for them and such as they), and nothing 
 disturbs them. We, on the contrary, were disturbed 
 by doubts, and I am not even now, as I write, free from 
 them, after seven seances in which I have seen the oc- 
 currence of phenomena in which fraud could play no 
 part." 2 
 
 "Often, Mme. Paladino, when completely entranced, 
 was not satisfied with the contact of only two con- 
 trollers, but she asked in a faint voice for the hand of 
 another neighboring sitter, or she desired that a hand 
 should be placed on her knees, and that she might lay 
 her forehead on the head of one of the controllers." 8 
 
 1 Annals of Psychical Science, v. 6, pp. 269-70. 
 2 fbi'd, pp. 378-9. *fbid., p. 380. 
 
106 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 We cannot follow those momentous sittings in detail, 
 but merely outline briefly a few of the more wonderful 
 phenomena that occurred. We must remember that 
 even the simplest poltergeist manifestations that oc- 
 curred — the shaking of the table, the setting in motion 
 of a metronome, the throwing of small objects about 
 the room spontaneously, the beating of a drum — even 
 these phenomena are wonderful enough when we con- 
 sider the rigidity of the tests imposed by these zealous 
 but skeptical savants. "We obliged her to do things 
 she had never done before," says Bottazzi naively ; and 
 surely they did ! 
 
 The Startling Materializations Produced at Naples 
 
 But these phenomena sank into comparative insig- 
 nificance, for, at the third sitting, in plain sight, a small 
 table rose spontaneously and floated in midair, while, 
 as Bottazzi notes, "we watched it in amazement" ; and, 
 at this same seance, at which Mme. Bottazzi was pres- 
 ent, a great black hand and arm crept slowly out from 
 behind the curtain of the cabinet, lightly touched Mme. 
 Bottazzi, who happened to be nearest, frightening her 
 severely, then apparently dissolved into thin air. 
 
 Here was a phenomenon which defied explanation, 
 which dazed belief. Imagine the impression it made 
 on these sober, hard-headed men of science, apparently 
 face to face with what an hour before they might well 
 have called "impossible." 
 
 "We felt the sensation as of contact with a real hand," 
 says Bottazzi, reporting the phenomenon, "bony, nerv- 
 ous, often neither hot nor cold, but sometimes hot; a 
 hand, in fact, of flesh and bones and blood. To whom 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 107 
 
 does this hand belong, which is generally encountered 
 more than half a yard away from the medium's head, 
 and while her visible hands are rigorously controlled by 
 her two neighbors? 
 
 "Is it the hand of a monstrous long arm which liber- 
 ates itself from the medium's body, then dissolves, to 
 'materialize' afresh afterward? 
 
 "Is it something analogous to the pteropod of an 
 amceba, which projects itself from the body, then re- 
 treats into it and appears again in another place? 
 
 "Mystery I" 1 
 
 At a later sitting this same great black hand came 
 out from the curtain and gently grasped Bottazzi by 
 the nape of the neck. At this seance, Dr. Porro, the 
 astronomer, was present. "Letting go Professor Por- 
 ro's hand," says Bottazzi (Porro was next him in the 
 circle), "I felt for this ghostly hand and clasped it. 
 It was a left hand, neither hot nor cold, with rough, 
 bony fingers, which dissolved under pressure. It did 
 not retire by producing a sensation of withdrawal ; it 
 dissolved, dematerialized, melted." 
 
 These astral hands — "etheric hands" is the term 
 Lombroso uses to describe them — are not always visi- 
 ble; yet they would seem to be the active instruments 
 in the production of the poltergeist phenomena. A 
 mandolin plays itself; the keys of a typewriter strike 
 of themselves spontaneously; an invisible something 
 ripples over the keys of a piano ; an electric light switch 
 is closed repeatedly (a switch several feet from Eu- 
 sapia, while her limbs are carefully controlled) ; a tiny 
 electric dynamo is wound up and set going ; a vase of 
 
 3 l Annals of Psychical Science, v. 6, pp. 285-6. 
 
108 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 flowers is transported about the room. These things 
 happen, are attested to by unimpeachable witnesses. 
 What causes them? "Astral hands?" Hands formed 
 of some substance of which we know nothing, shot out 
 from the body of the medium at will in different direc- 
 tions and at lightning speed? 
 
 "What a colossal fabrication!" the reader may ex- 
 claim. "Why, that's absolutely impossible !" 
 
 Impossible? The scientist is coming to the point 
 where he no longer dares call anything "impossible." 
 Impossible? when these pseudo limbs have been seen 
 and handled, not once, but repeatedly ! 
 
 Dr. Giuseppe Venzano saw a monstrous, shadowy 
 arm spring out spontaneously from Eusapia's shoulder 
 and grasp a glass of water ; three other scientists pres- 
 ent simultaneously witnessed the same thing. 
 
 "At another time," says Bottazzi, "later on, the same 
 hand [the black hand of which mention has already 
 been made] was placed on my right forearm — I saw 
 a human hand, this time of natural color, and I felt 
 with mine the back of a lukewarm hand, rough and 
 nervous. The hand dissolved (I saw it with my own 
 eyes) and retreated as if into Mme. Paladino's body, 
 describing a curve." 1 
 
 Is there anything hesitating or equivocal about that 
 statement? Bottazzi saw it, and, lest he alone might 
 have been deceived, a dozen others saw similar phe- 
 nomena. 
 
 Fontenay gives a more detailed and significant de- 
 scription of these materialized hands in their typical 
 form. "The materialization was incomplete," he says, 
 
 1 Annals of Psychical Science, v. 6, p. 413. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 109 
 
 "or seemed so to me. It did not appear very solid, and, 
 although the apparition was very rapid, it seemed to 
 me that the fingers were not all distinct and separate 
 from each other. I had the impression of an enormous 
 crab's claw rather than of a real hand. Imagine a 
 lined mitten, or rather a very large hand, of which the 
 thumb and forefinger were pressed together, and the 
 three other fingers also pressed together. 
 
 "This apparition was seen and described as I have 
 just described it, with very slight variations, by the 
 majority of those present." 1 
 
 The hands, we are told, were of various sizes, some 
 gigantic in dimensions, some normal; and lest there 
 be any mistake about their objective reality, Bottazzi 
 had photographs taken of them. 2 
 
 On another occasion, near the close of a sitting, the 
 cabinet was opened somewhat inadvertently, and the 
 ghostly fragments of arms and legs were found lying 
 inside. 
 
 "The apparitions, or materializations," says Bottazzi, 
 at another tme, "were numerous and multiple. . . . 
 I saw hands and closed fists appear over Mme. Pala- 
 dino's head, in the opening between the curtains ; some- 
 times they were of ordinary size, at others at least 
 three times larger than Mme. Paladino's hand and fist. 
 Twice I advanced my hand rapidly to seize them, chief- 
 ly because those farthest off affirmed that these were 
 objects presented by the usual invisible hand; but I 
 
 Annals of Psychical Science, v. 7, p. 182. 
 *Some of similar photographs of "materialized hands" are 
 reproduced in this volume. 
 
110 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 was always too late; the apparition dissolved, and I 
 found the space vacant." 1 
 
 At the eighth sitting Ensapia was controlled in a way 
 that would seem to destroy any lingering shred of an 
 opportunity for fraud. Heavy cords were bound tight- 
 ly about her wrists, these were led through iron rings 
 sunk in the floor, and the ends sealed with lead seals, 
 similar to those used in this country to secure the 
 doors of freight cars. Tightly bound as she was, so 
 tightly bound as to be hardly able to move, other pre- 
 cautions were not relaxed in the slightest. Yet, for- 
 tunately for the adherents of spiritualism, there were 
 continued levitations and striking materializations of 
 Eusapia's astral limbs. 
 
 Galeotti, who happened to be holding Eusapia's right 
 arm, suddenly cried: "I see two left arms identical 
 in appearance. One is on the little table, and it is 
 that which Mme. Bottazzi touches. [Mme. Bottazzi 
 was "controlling" the medium on the other side.] The 
 other seems to come out of the medium's shoulder, to 
 approach and touch Mme. Bottazzi, and then return 
 and melt into the medium's body again. This is not 
 an hallucination. I am awake. I am conscious of two 
 simultaneous visual sensations, which I experience 
 when Mme. Bottazzi says she has been touched." 2 
 
 Another remarkable phenomenon in connection with 
 Eusapia's manifestations of which mention should be 
 made was the strange lights which appeared. In the 
 fourth sitting, simultaneously with the materializations, 
 
 ^Annals of Psychical Science, v. 6, pp. 383-4. 
 'Ibid., p. 422. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? Ill 
 
 little curling tongues of flame, pale mauve in color, had 
 floated across the curtains of the cabinet. 
 
 At other times these flames appeared above Eusapia's 
 head. "They seemed to me," says Bottazzi, "like little 
 flames, in size like those of an ordinary candle, but 
 shorter and not of yellow light, but rather violet, more 
 luminous in the center, more attenuated at the 
 periphery; they seemed to disengage themselves from 
 the body of the medium, then rose with a slow, undu- 
 lating movement, dissolving into space." 1 
 
 At the Turin sittings lights appeared which also 
 "started from the medium's head, but they were pro- 
 jected like a minute Roman candle." 2 
 
 Is This Psychic Energy a Form of Radio- Activity? 
 
 What was the nature and cause of these luminous 
 appearances, not uncommon at spiritualistic seances, 
 but rarely, if ever, before under expert scientific ob- 
 servation? In the light of the then recent discoveries 
 of the Curies the answer came almost spontaneously: 
 Might they not be some form of radio-activity? 
 
 And experiment seemed to confirm the suggestion. 
 
 Flammarion noted a "diaphanous luminosity" issuing 
 from the hole, as well as round the fingers, almost form- 
 ing "a second misshapen outline." Lombroso, in cor- 
 roboration, noted that by merely holding a photo- 
 graphic plate, masked by three thicknesses of light- 
 proof paper, in the medium's hand, an X-ray-like print 
 of her index finger was made on the plate, as if there 
 was radio-activity therein. Simultaneously, her hand 
 
 '■Annals of Psychical Science, v. 6, p. 383. 
 'Ibid., p. 308. 
 
112 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 shuddered convulsively and she went into the trance 
 state. 
 
 Lombroso, in fact, goes even further, and, in a care- 
 ful summing up of the Paladino phenomena recently 
 published, advances the daring theory that the spiritual 
 agents themselves are composed of radio-active mat- 
 ter. The 'theory, coming from such a source, is indeed 
 epoch-making, and his statement of it deserves to be 
 quoted in his own words. 
 
 "This is the first occasion, if I am not mistaken," 
 he says, "that we have come into intimate experimental 
 contact with these phenomena — I will even say with 
 the organism called spirit — with these transitory, im- 
 palpable representatives of the life beyond, the existence 
 of which is both maintained and disputed, through fear 
 or through respect for universal tradition, renewed, as 
 it is, by thousands of facts which occur constantly 
 under our very eyes. And we find, as I already fore- 
 saw some years ago, that these bodies belong to that 
 other state of matter, the radiant state, which has now 
 a sure foothold in science, and which is the only hy- 
 pothesis which can reconcile the ancient, universal be- 
 lief in the persistence of some manifestation of life 
 after death, with the results of science." 1 
 
 In fact, wonderful as these phenomena seem, their 
 trend seems not at all in support of a spiritualistic 
 hypothesis. Those that know most are still chary of 
 explanation, but the greater part of the explanations 
 that have been attempted have been along biological 
 lines. 
 
 The idea of an "astral body," of the power of the 
 
 Annals of Psychical Science, v. 7, p. 179. 
 
Colonel Albert De Rochas 
 
 Propounder of the theory of the "astral double" and noted for his work 
 in the photography of "etheric" bodies. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 113 
 
 human personality to project to a distance a more or 
 less substantial image of itself, is not a new one to the 
 student of occultism. Already, too, in the study of hyp- 
 notism, De Rochas had taught the possibility of what 
 he termed the "fluidic double." He claimed that in 
 the trance state the psychic herself, or the hypnotizer if 
 the trance be hypnotic, is able to externalize limbs or 
 even the complete body of the entranced subject. This 
 "astral" externalization is visible to the subject as a 
 cloud of smoky vapor; to the others present it is gen- 
 erally invisible. 
 
 Yet De Rochas claims to demonstrate the objective 
 existence of the astral body. For instance, unnoticed 
 by the psychic, he pinches the air where he thinks the 
 astral body may be floating, and there is a resulting 
 reflex on the corresponding portion of the psychic's 
 body. It is interesting to note in this connection that 
 Morselli has discovered with Eusapia a marked "ex- 
 ternalization of sensibility," has succeeded in making 
 her feel pin pricks in the air (her eyes being closed), 
 "an inch or two from her skin." 1 
 
 The "fluidic double" of De Rochas, as a whole, or 
 in parts, forms itself in obedience to the thought of 
 the medium or of those present. It moves with marvel- 
 ous precision, regardless of darkness (in fact, light 
 seems inimical to its production), and with wonderful 
 swiftness. 
 
 We have not yet considered one remarkable feature, 
 the synchronism in movement between Eusapia's invisi- 
 ble (or visible) "astral" limbs and her natural body. 
 This synchronism had been noted several years before. 
 
 Annals of Psychical Science, May, 1907, p. 345- 
 
114 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 At the earliest Naples sittings Flammarion noticed 
 that almost imperceptible tremors of Eusapia's hand 
 coincided with blows struck several feet away, appar- 
 ently by an invisible hand. Somewhat later it was 
 recorded that the impressions of hands in clay syn- 
 chronized with little convulsive pushes of Eusapia's 
 hands. 
 
 But in these astounding Bottazzi sittings the corre- 
 spondence was too complete to be mere coincidence. 
 When the little table before mentioned commenced to 
 move about the room it was seen that each little jerk- 
 ing movement of the table was accompanied by a con- 
 vulsive jerk from Eusapia. Says Bottazzi on this 
 point : "Each advance of the table corresponded with 
 the most perfect synchronism with the push of Eusa- 
 pia's legs against Jona's knees — in other words she 
 really executed movements identical with those that 
 she would have made had she been pushing the table 
 with her visible limbs." 
 
 At another time "a glass was flung from the cabinet 
 by these invisible agencies, and this fling coincided 
 exactly with a kick which Paladino gave to Jona, as 
 if the same will governed both movements." 
 
 At another time "Eusapia said distinctly: 'I have 
 touched the smoked cylinder ; look at my fingers.' She 
 held out her one hand, then the other toward us. We 
 carefully examined her fingers : there was no trace of 
 smoke on them. On the cylinder, however, was very 
 clearly visible the impression of little finger tips, like 
 those of Eusapia." 1 
 
 At another time Professor de Amicis was drawn to- 
 
 x Annals of Psychical Science, v. 6, pp. 404-5. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 115 
 
 ward the cabinet with some force by an invisible arm. 
 As he approached, the curtain bellied out and an in- 
 visible face was pressed against his and invisible lips 
 kissed his own. "At the same time," says Bottazzi 
 significantly, "Eusapia's lips moved as if to kiss, and 
 she made the sound of kissing, which we all heard." 
 
 During the fifth sitting occurred the mandolin play- 
 ing already mentioned. The instrument lay before them 
 in full light several feet from where Eusapia sat; yet 
 as the strings moved so moved her finger tips in unison. 
 "It would be necessary to have Paladino's fingers in 
 the palm of one's hand," says Bottazzi, and it was he 
 who had them so on this occasion, "to be convinced 
 that the evolutions, twangings of the strings, etc., all 
 synchronized with the very delicate movements of her 
 fingers, and with the dragging and pushing movements 
 of the medium's hand, as if she were directed in the 
 execution of these movements by a will which knew 
 the effect to be produced. These were not irregular, 
 impulsive, disordered movements; they were precise 
 and coordinated, whether they were movements of 
 one finger or of several fingers, and were identical with 
 those which we should make if we wished to seize 
 or to vibrate the strings with precision and delicacy." 1 
 
 In short, as Bottazzi himself says, "Whatever may 
 be the mediumistic phenomenon produced, there is 
 almost always at the same time movement of one or 
 several parts of the medium's body." 
 
 Moreover, there seemed to be with these "astral" 
 limbs of Eusapia's a continuous and very natural proc- 
 ess of education to unaccustomed uses. She spoke as 
 
 ^Annals of Psychical Science, v. 6, pp. 380-90. 
 
116 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 though they were veritable parts of her organism, but 
 parts which were often inadequate and fumbling, the 
 limbs of a child learning to walk, the fingers of a 
 pianist training in dexterity. 
 
 "During the seance Professor Galeotti and I in- 
 vited 'John,' in Italian, in French, and in English (these 
 are small concessions that it is necessary to make to 
 Eusapia's deep-rooted predilections), to make the rod 
 of the metronome move, to lower the balance and to 
 press the ball of India-rubber ; we afterward explained 
 how these objects were made, and what movements 
 should be made with the hands in order to move, to 
 lower, and to press them. In vain ! She excused her- 
 self, saying that she did not find, or that she did not 
 see these objects, or that she did not know how to do it. 
 Then she complained that the objects were too far 
 off, that she could not reach them. . . ." 
 
 "In the following seances, as we shall see," says 
 Bottazzi, "Eusapia obeyed these same orders ; the but- 
 tons were pressed, the rod of the metronome was set 
 swinging, etc., and the fact that we did not obtain 
 these results in the first seances shows, in my opinion, 
 that Eusapia needed to learn how to make these move- 
 ments, with which her invisible hands were unfamiliar, 
 just as she would have to learn to make them with 
 her visible hands." 1 
 
 Eusapia's Manifestations and the Problem of the Future Life 
 
 So far, therefore, from Eusapia's manifestations 
 helping to answer the question, "Are the dead alive ?" 
 
 Annals of Psychical Science, v. 6, pp. 277-8. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 117 
 
 they seem at first glance but to render the issue mare 
 confusing. 
 
 Are discarnate (disembodied) spirits necessary to 
 an explanation of Eusapia's poltergeist phenomena and 
 materializations? "Not at all," reply Morselli, Bot- 
 tazzi, Porro, Foa, Galeotti and most of the eminent in- 
 vestigators who have witnessed her exploits. More 
 probably, say they, the explanation is purely biological ; 
 we have here to do with hitherto unsuspected powers 
 of the bodily organism, powers very wonderful and im- 
 portant, but not all mystical or in any respect spiritual. 
 
 "One thing is certain," says Bottazzi, for instance, 
 "that it is not a being, foreign to the organism of the 
 medium, who produces the mediumistic phenomena; 
 because she herself is aware of them, and she either 
 indicates this by her words or it becomes apparent 
 through the relation which the phenomena bear to other 
 accompanying incidents." 1 
 
 On the other hand, the most eminent of them all, 
 Lombroso himself, like our own Crookes, maintains 
 now that some theory of discarnate spirits is the only 
 one adequately explaining all the phenomena. In sup- 
 port of this view, Lombroso relates the following sig- 
 nificant manifestation : 
 
 "One day Eusapia said to M. R. : 'This phantom 
 comes for you.' She then fell at once into a profound 
 trance. A woman of great beauty appeared, who had 
 died two years before; her arm and shoulders were 
 covered by the edge of the curtain, in such a way, 
 however, as to indicate the form. Her head was cov- 
 ered with a very fine veil ; she breathed a warm breath 
 
 1 Annals of Psychical Science, v. 6, p. 397. 
 
118 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 against the back of M. R.'s hand, carried his hand up 
 to her hair, and very gently bit his fingers. Meanwhile, 
 Eusapia was heard uttering prolonged groans, showing 
 painful effort, which ceased when the phantom disap- 
 peared. The apparition was perceived by two others 
 present, and returned several times. An attempt was 
 then made to photograph it. Eusapia and John con- 
 sented, but the phantom, by a sign with the head and 
 hands, indicated to us that she objected, and twice 
 broke the photographic plate. 
 
 "The request was then made that a mold of her 
 hands might be obtained, and although Eusapia and 
 John both promised to make her comply with our de- 
 sire, they did not succeed. In the last seance, Eusapia 
 gave a more formal promise; the three usual raps in 
 the table endorsed the consent, and we indeed heard a 
 hand plunged in the liquid in the cabinet. After some 
 seconds, R. had in his hands a block of paraffin, with 
 a complete mold, but an etheric hand advanced from 
 the curtain and dashed it to pieces. 
 
 "This concerned — as we afterward learned — a wom- 
 an who had a strong reason for leaving no proof of 
 her identity. It is evident, therefore . . . that a 
 third will can intervene in spiritistic phenomena, which 
 is neither that of 'John,' nor of Eusapia, nor of those 
 present at the seance, but is opposed to all of them." 1 
 
 A little later he adds : "It is true that the majority 
 of the motor phenomena, and the most intelligent phe- 
 nomena, start from the neighborhood of the medium, 
 especially on the left side, which (she being left- 
 handed) is the strongest in the trance. It is true that 
 
 l Annals of Psychical Science, v. 7, pp. 175-6. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 119 
 
 these efforts are preceded by synchronous movements 
 on the part of the medium; it is true that sometimes 
 an ethereal body which serves as an arm, and which 
 moves the objects, has been seen to issue from her 
 skirt or from her back ; in full light; but it does not 
 follow because the medium is a great factor, even the 
 greatest factor, in these efforts that they are exclusively 
 her own doing." 1 
 
 But even admitting "discarnate spirits" as an, or 
 even the, explanation, does not assume necessarily, we 
 must remember, that these discarnate spirits are the 
 spirits of the dead. That would still remain to be 
 proved — the "problem of identity," the final problem. 
 
 ^Annals of Psychical Science, v. 7, p. 177. 
 
"SPIRITUALISTIC PHENOMENA ARE AUTHENTIC" 
 
 It would require a volume to demonstrate that the dead have 
 a fragmentary existence which completes itself in the presence 
 of the medium. 
 
 I am just finishing a work which contains many experi- 
 ments and graphic demonstrations, together with my psycho- 
 logical and chemical studies. This book will be published in 
 English. 
 
 But to sum up in a few words, I have attended at least a 
 hundred spiritualistic seances at Genoa, at Turin, at Naples 
 and at Venice. 
 
 I am perfectly convinced of the authenticity of the phe- 
 nomena produced by the medium Eusapia Paladino. Never- 
 theless, when she finds herself in a condition not favorable 
 to the production of these phenomena, such as raising a table 
 off the floor and moving objects about the room, she does not 
 hesitate to resort to tricks. This is partly due to a great 
 desire to please those who expect something from her. 
 
 Also, I am convinced that before many years this celebrated 
 medium will be incapable of producing them at all. Her 
 power is diminishing day by day. The spiritualistic force 
 with which she is gifted is becoming extinct. I do not make 
 this statement by guess, but by actual observation of her. 
 
 Already, at the present time, she materializes but rarely, 
 whereas a few years ago she did this with comparative ease. 
 At the actual moment, also, her materializations have become 
 vague in outline, fragmentary, a sort of phosphorescence diffi- 
 cult to distinguish. 
 
 As to the explanation of her manifestations, Eusapia Pala- 
 dino is a confirmed hysteric, owing, probably, to an accident — 
 to a blow which she received on the head, in the right temple, 
 when she was a child of three years. The scar remains, a 
 deep hole in the temple. During her trances there exhales 
 from this hole in the temple a gaseous vapor. 
 
 As to whether science can rend asunder the mystery which 
 120 
 
Dr. Cesar Lombroso 
 
 Alienist Professor of Psychiatry, 
 the science of criminology, and one 
 Eusapia Paladino. 
 
 University of Turin, founder of 
 of the foremost investigators of 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 121 
 
 surrounds the production of these phenomena, I will say of 
 certain of them, yes; of others, no, not yet. Science has not 
 made the necessary advance to affirm positively whether they 
 are a reality, or whether they may be due to trick or possibly 
 to the hallucination of those who witness them. 
 
 But as to the moving of objects at a distance without con- 
 tact, such as raising a table from the floor or the moving of 
 objects about the room — such as a chair, for instance — in my 
 opinion there is no longer any room for doubt as to their 
 authenticity. There are a number of instantaneous photo- 
 graphs in existence, for the matter of that, which speak for 
 themselves. 
 
 These were taken after every precaution had been taken 
 by the scientific men present to prevent fraud. The medium, 
 Eusapia Paladino, had both her legs and her hands tied, while, 
 for further safety, an investigator sat on each side of her 
 holding her hands and with a foot pressed down firmly on 
 each of her feet. And yet the photograph taken at the instant 
 shows the table almost twelve inches off the floor! 
 
 But I have seen other things more wonderful than this; I 
 was present one day when a pot of flowers weighing six 
 pounds, which was sitting on the table around which were 
 grouped the scientific men, suddenly lifted itself in the air, 
 making a circle over our heads, and then settled down near 
 the spot from which it had risen. 
 
 On another occasion, at Venice, I assisted at a most strange 
 occurrence. 
 
 By the aid of the medium we invoked the spirit of a defunct 
 
 countess, Countess M . The spirit was very long in making 
 
 her appearance, and when she did she quickly disappeared, 
 leaving a message written on the table in Latin. It read: 
 "There is a dirty pig among you." We were stupefied. And 
 again we begged the spirit to return and explain. When she 
 did, she wrote: "I will not come again until he leaves the 
 room." 
 
 Naturally, we all remained, as no one was willing to pose 
 as the pig. 
 
 Finally she came and indicated the one meant. He was a 
 well-known literary man, known and respected by us all. For 
 
122 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 a moment he was nonplussed. Then a light broke over his 
 face. In his wanderings he had picked up a book for its rare 
 binding. It was an old but very obscene brochure. He had 
 it in his pocket. 
 
 As to the levitations of the table, it has been proved that 
 the weight of Paladino increases during the time the table 
 is in the air exactly the weight of the table, although there 
 are a hundred witnesses ready to take oath that she does 
 not touch it. And I am willing to make a deposition that the 
 table rises in the air, as well as to the moving of objects at 
 a distance, without contact, and that this is done honestly, 
 without any trick whatsoever. 
 
 — Cesar Lombroso. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 OBSESSION AND DUAL PERSONALITY 
 
 It is a rather interesting fact that three very emi- 
 nent scientists, speaking, so far as I know, independ- 
 ently, have used the same figure of speech to denote 
 those extensions of human consciousness which we are 
 about to study. 
 
 The scientist knows that all our forces — heat, light, 
 electricity — are merely vibrations of the ether at widely 
 differing velocities. If the atmosphere vibrates a hun- 
 dred or a thousand times a second, and the vibration 
 strikes the drum of our ear, we call the effect "sound." 
 If the ether vibrates a certain number of million times 
 a second the vibrations will cause a steel needle to 
 swing — we call that effect "electricity." When vibra- 
 tions, a million times faster yet, strike the retina of 
 our eye, we say that they are "light." Sound, elec- 
 tricity, heat, light — they are all but vibrations of the 
 ether, growing inconceivably faster and faster as we go 
 up the ascending scale. 
 
 Ten years ago scientists thought they had reached 
 the end of the scale: now they see no end. Millions 
 of times a. second faster than light are vibrations that 
 we call the X-ray ; even faster are the "N-rays ;" and 
 faster and faster yet the radiations from radium, and 
 other wonderful forces that men are finding in exist- 
 ence as they reach out into the Unknown. 
 123 
 
124 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 But even as the whole great scale fades away at 
 the end into something still beyond our grasp, so each 
 part of it, distinct by itself, is not continuous with the 
 other parts. 
 
 Between the vibrations that we call "electricity," and 
 the vibrations that we call "heat," we imagine there 
 must be other vibrations filling up the gap : but we do 
 not know, simply because we have no senses that can 
 comprehend them. The spectrum is just such a little 
 scale. Below the darkest red at the lower end we can- 
 not see: at the other end, as the vibrations get faster 
 and faster thru the orange, the blue and the violet, is 
 another unknown gup. That is, we cannot see it: but 
 surely the vibrations are there. Some of them, for in- 
 stance, that we have never seen, and never can see, 
 mark their presence on- a photographic plate. "The 
 limits of our spectrum," as Myers says, "do not inhere 
 in the sun that shines, but in the eye that marks his 
 shining. Beyond each end of that prismatic ribbon are 
 ether-waves of which our retina takes no cognizance. 
 Beyond the red end come waves whose- potency we 
 still recognize, but as heat and not as light. Beyond 
 the violet end are waves still more mysterious; whose 
 very existence man, for ages, never suspected, and 
 whose intimate potencies are still but obscurely 
 known." 1 
 
 That is the figure of speech to which I at first re- 
 ferred. Just as there are limits at either end of the 
 scale of vibrations beyond which our own senses can 
 tell us nothing, so may there be psychic forces at work 
 beyond the limits of our consciousness. These are 
 
 'Myers : Human Personality, p. 18. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 125 
 
 seemingly supernatural to us, when by some chance we 
 witness their effect, but really are no more supernatural 
 than the X-ray that pierces the solid body, or the in- 
 visible ultra-violet ray that marks the photographic 
 plate. 
 
 Dr. Osier, one of the three scientists to whom I re- 
 ferred, in one of his Ingersoll lectures on immortality, 
 said : "There is much to suggest, and it is a pleasing 
 fancy, that outside our consciousness lie fields of psy- 
 chical activity analogous to the invisible yet powerful 
 rays of the spectrum. The thousand activities of the 
 bodily machine, some of them noisy enough at times, 
 do not in health obtrude themselves upon our con- 
 sciousness, and just as there is this enormous subcon- 
 scious field of vegetable life, so there may be a vast su- 
 praconscious sphere of astral life, the manifestations 
 of which are only now and then in evidence." 1 
 
 Myers utters almost the same thought. Just as there 
 are unknown and unsensed forces at work beyond the 
 limits of the spectrum, "even thus," he says, "I venture 
 to affirm, beyond each end of our conscious spectrum 
 extends a range of faculty and perception, exceeding 
 the known range, but as yet indistinctly guessed. The 
 artifices of the modern physicist have extended far in 
 each direction the visible spectrum known to Newton. 
 It is for the modern psychologist to discover artifices 
 which may extend in each direction the conscious spec- 
 trum as known to Plato or to Kent. The phenomena 
 cited in this work carry us, one may say, as far onward 
 as fluorescence carries us beyond the violet end. The 
 'X-rays' of the psychical spectrum remain for a later 
 
 a Quoted in Hyslop : Science and the Future Life, p. 340. 
 
126 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 age to discover. Yet something of clearness will be 
 gained by even this rudimentary mental picture — rep- 
 resenting conscious human faculty as a linear spectrum 
 whose red rays begin jwhere voluntary muscular con- 
 trol and organic sensation begin\ and whose violet rays 
 fade away at the point at which man's highest strain 
 of thought or imagination merges into reverie or ec- 
 stasy." 1 ) 
 
 The third is Sir W. Crookes, who uses almost the 
 same figure, which Dr. Funk, in his introduction to 
 The Widow's Mite, thus comments upon: 
 
 "If I understand correctly Mr. Crookes' table of vi- 
 brations, the differences between sound, electricity, 
 light, X-rays and radium are only the differences in 
 the frequency of vibrations or waves — those of sound 
 in the coarse atmosphere, and those of the others in 
 ether, possibly something higher ; that is, if an ear were 
 sufficiently sensitive, it could hear color, hear the 
 beauty of a picture. Radium is vibration up to the 
 sixtieth degree or step. . . . 
 
 "The human body is coarse, made up of slow, slug- 
 gish vibrations, but were these vibrations as rapid as 
 those of the X-rays, our bodies would be invisible and 
 pass thru many solids ; and were they as rapid as ra- 
 dium, they would pass thru all solids, as Christ's res- 
 urrected body passed thru the walls of the chamber at 
 Jerusalem. Scientists will soon make the miracles of 
 Christ elementary. Already they are changing their 
 attitude toward what has been regarded as supernat- 
 ural." 
 
 'Myers: Human Personality, pp. 18-19. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 127 
 
 Do not misunderstand these statements. They are 
 not explanations of psychic phenomena; I do not say 
 that "ghosts" have anything to do with the spectrum : 
 these are simply figures of speech, analogies to make 
 clear one very important fact, that apparitions, clair- 
 voyance and all the other very wonderful phenomena 
 that I mentioned in the first paper, are not necessarily 
 .?«/> ^natural. Simply because they are not a part of 
 our every-day consciousness does not mean that they 
 do not exist, any more than X-rays do not exist be- 
 cause we can't see them : they are supernatural no more 
 than the X-ray is supernatural. 
 
 Clairvoyance, telepathy may be new powers of the 
 human organism — that is, new to our past experience 
 — but just as much a part of our universe as light or 
 sound: they are governed likewise by natural laws, 
 perhaps by the very same laws. Let us see. 
 
 The Hypothesis of the "Subliminal Self" 
 
 No name stands higher in the realm of knowledge 
 which we are discussing than that of Frederic W. H. 
 Myers, already several times mentioned. From the 
 very foundation of the Society for Psychical Research 
 none worked more enthusiastically; none reasoned 
 more keenly; none gave of time and effort more gen- 
 erously. Naturally idealistic in temperament, it was 
 natural that his sympathies should be early aroused: 
 it was also natural that he should press on, more di- 
 rectly perhaps than the facts warranted, to the goal 
 which he very soon set up — the scientific proof of an 
 existence after death. 
 
 Yet not so fast as entirely to vitiate his work. His 
 
I 
 
 128 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 enthusiasm was tempered with patience, and he com- 
 bined in the formation of his own theories an admirably 
 catholic judgment and a keen sense of proportion and 
 ability of analysis. As a result, his master work,, Hu- 
 man Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death, a 
 two-volume summing up of his life-long study of the 
 psychic problem, must be conceded, with all its faults, 
 an epoch-making contribution to the literature of psy- 
 chology. This work, published shortly after his death 
 — for he was cut off in middle life "at the zenith" of his 
 power — gave to the world the first complete working 
 out of his hypothesis of the subliminal self; and its ap- 
 plication to the problems under consideration. And, 
 "daring in its conception, it was applied by him with 
 even greater boldness. It was not enough to utilize 
 it as an excellent working hypothesis to explain . . . 
 phenomena which . . . the Society for Psychical 
 Research had made it impossible for science longer to 
 ignore. If, on the one hand, it could be plausibly main- 
 tained by him that, for example, men of genius owe 
 their fame to a capacity for utilizing powers which lie 
 too deep below the threshold of consciousness for the 
 ordinary man's control ; that the appeal of the hypnotist 
 is to the subliminal . . . self, and that it is the sub- 
 liminal self that sends and receives telepathic mes- 
 sages, he could, on the other hand, see every reason 
 for affirming that the indwelling principle, unifying the 
 subliminal and supraliminal, persists after the death and 
 decay of the bodily organism." 1 
 
 And what was this hypothesis of "the subliminal 
 self"? 
 
 'Bruce : Riddle of Personality, pp. 45-6. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 129 
 
 The definition of "self" current in psychology is 
 probably familiar. Myers himself quotes Reid for a 
 clear summing up of the conservative idea of person- 
 ality, the answer that the average man would give 
 to the question, What is it that "I" is? What do I 
 mean when I say "myself"? 
 
 "My personal identity, . . . implies the continued 
 existence of that indivisible thing which I call 'myself.' 
 Whatever this 'self may be, it is something which 
 thinks and deliberates and resolves and acts and suf- 
 fers. I am not thought, I am not action, I am not feel- 
 ing; I am something that thinks and acts and suffers. 
 My thoughts and actions and feelings change every 
 moment ; they have no continued, but a successive, ex- 
 istence; but that self, or I, to which they belong, is 
 permanent. . . . The identity of a person is a perfect 
 identity; ... it is impossible that a person should be 
 in part the same and in part different, because a per- 
 son ... is not divisible into parts." 1 
 
 This is clear and exact, as simple as any definition 
 of anything as intangible as "self" could be. It had 
 done duty as the accepted idea of the nature of per- 
 sonality for a century; in fact, since the birth of the 
 science of psychology. 
 
 The trouble was, it was altogether too simple to de- 
 fine a thing which scientists were discovering was very 
 complex indeed. The old definition did not cover the 
 facts : the old idea of "self" had to be broadened very 
 materially. Mr. Bruce summarizes very clearly some 
 of the difficulties in which psychologists found them- 
 selves. 
 
 'Reid : Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man, p. 318. 
 
130 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 "If this unity and continuity on which Reid lays 
 such stress be the essential elements of the 'self,' what 
 becomes of it in the disintegrations affecting it during 
 bodily life? Where locate it in insanity, in hysteria, 
 in somnambulism, spontaneous or induced, in the trance 
 states of mediums apparently surrendering their organ- 
 ism to the control of some extraneous self ? Still more 
 perplexing becomes the problem, on the basis of the 
 'common-sense' view of personality, when there is in- 
 volved complete, or seemingly complete, disintegrations 
 [cases of "dual personality"], such as those revealed in 
 the experience of Mary Reynolds and Ansel Bourne." 1 
 
 Some new conception of "self" became imperative. 
 Myers attacked the problem enthusiastically, yet seri- 
 ously, and his new hypothesis was the result of many 
 years' study and elaboration. If its completed form did 
 not appear till 1903, it was tentatively submitted to 
 the attention of the scientific world as far back as 1887. 
 In an article on The Drift of Psychical Research 2 he 
 had written : "Considerable evidence has already been 
 laid before the world to show that: 1. There exists 
 in each of us a subliminal self ; that is to say, a certain 
 part of our being, conscious and intelligent, does not 
 enter into our ordinary waking intelligence, nor rise 
 above our habitual level of consciousness, into the 
 supraliminal life. 2. This subliminal life exerts facul- 
 ties above the normal — faculties, that is to say, which 
 apparently transcend our known level of evolution. 
 Some of these, as hyperesthesia, or keener sensibility, 
 and hypermesia, or fuller memory, seem to be exten- 
 
 1 Bruce: Riddle of Personality, p. 34. 
 J In the National Review, v. 24. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 131 
 
 sions of faculties already known. Others, however, 
 altogether exceed our [ordinary] range of powers : as 
 telepathy . . . clairvoyance . . . retrocognition ... or 
 precognition. ... 3. This subliminal knowledge or 
 faculty . . . may be communicated to our conscious- 
 ness ... by means of sensory or motor automatism." 
 
 In the first chapter of his masterwork he outlines 
 his theory of the "subliminal self" in more elaborate 
 form: 
 
 "The idea of a threshold {limen, . . .) of conscious- 
 ness — of a level above which sensation or thought must 
 rise before it can enter into our conscious life — is a 
 simple and familiar one. The word subliminal — mean- 
 ing 'beneath the threshold' — has already been used to 
 define those sensations which are too feeble to be indi- 
 vidually recognized. I propose to extend the meaning 
 of the term, so as to make it cover all that takes place 
 beneath the ordinary threshold, ... of consciousness 
 — not only those faint stimulations whose very faint- 
 ness keeps them submerged, but . . . sensations, 
 thoughts, emotions, which may be strong, definite and 
 independent, but which . . . seldom merge into that 
 supraliminal current of consciousness which we habitu- 
 ally identify with ourselves. 
 
 "Perceiving . . . that these submerged thoughts and 
 emotions possess the characteristics which we associate 
 with conscious life, I feel bound to speak of a sub- 
 liminal, . . . consciousness — a consciousness which we 
 shall see, for instance, uttering or writing sentences 
 quite as complex and coherent as the supraliminal con- 
 sciousness could make them. Perceiving further that 
 this conscious life beneath the threshold . . . seems to 
 be no . . . intermittent thing ; . . . but that there also 
 
132 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 is a continuous subliminal chain [or chains] of mem- 
 ory . . . involving just that kind of individual and per- 
 sistent revival of old impressions and response to new 
 ones, which we commonly call a Self — I find it per- 
 missible and convenient to speak ... of a subliminal 
 Self. 
 
 "I do not, indeed, by using this term, assume that 
 there are two . . . parallel selves existing always with- 
 in each of us. Rather I mean by the subliminal Self 
 that part of the Self which is commonly subliminal; 1 
 ... I conceive that there may be — not only co-opera- 
 tions [between these two parts of the Self] . . . — but 
 also upheavals and alternations of personality of many 
 kinds, so that what was once below the surface may, 
 for a time, or permanently, rise above it. And I con- 
 ceive, also, that no Self of which we can here have cog- 
 nizance is, in reality, more than a fragment of a larger 
 Self . . ." 2 
 
 The above should be read carefully, as it is one of 
 the most important keys to the scientific explanation 
 to the whole range of psychic phenomena. To put 
 the hypothesis even more simply, Myers believes that 
 we possess, not one simple "self," but a complex "self," 
 composed, as it were, of many parts. One of these 
 parts, he says, comes up into the consciousness of 
 every-day life ; that part is the "self" we know, the one 
 that hears, sees, talks, thinks, loves. The other parts 
 of our "self" are usually "below the threshold" of con- 
 sciousness, are "sub-liminal." Ordinarily, we do not 
 
 ^hese italics, and the paragraphing of the quotation, are 
 mine. 
 'Myers: Human Personality, Vol. I., pp. 14-15. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 133 
 
 know they are there: but they, he says, are the parts 
 that are at work in our dreams ; they are the ones that 
 are acted upon by the hypnotist. It is these subliminal 
 parts of our "self," he goes on, that give us premoni- 
 tions, that are capable of practising clairvoyance and 
 telepathy, and, finally, may be that part of the "self" 
 that persists after the change we call "death." 
 
 A very important hypothesis this, as you can see. 
 Clearly understood at the outset, it will make very clear 
 and possible a great deal of the most wonderful phe- 
 nomena of which we are going to speak. 
 
 Bear in mind, then, as we go on, this new idea of 
 "self." It is something like an iceberg: a small part 
 of it out in the sunlight of consciousness, feeling the 
 breezes — meaning by them the various forces that re- 
 cord themselves on our five senses. But a large part 
 of it below the surface of the water, sub-liminal, out 
 of sight and knowledge of this daylight of conscious- 
 ness. 
 
 But at times a little light does filter down thru the 
 lower mass, and we say we have dreams ; and once in 
 a while the submerged part strikes an obstruction un- 
 seen by the conscious self, and a tremble shudders up 
 thru the whole, and we say we have a "premonition" ; 
 and once in a while some warm current (of disease, 
 perhaps) will eat away part of the iceberg, and it will 
 "turn turtle," and the "self" we knew every day will 
 go down out of sight, and another "self" (but, after 
 all, only another part of the same "self," of the same 
 iceberg) will flash up out of the unknown into the day- 
 light of consciousness; and to the outer world it will 
 seem that a new person has taken possession of the 
 former person's body. 
 
134 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 This phenomena of "dual personality" is not so rare 
 as one might suppose. By Myers' hypothesis, just out- 
 lined, we all have other personalities latent within us ; 
 we are all, as it were, possible cases of Dr. Jekyl and 
 Mr. Hyde, if only the chance comes right to bring out 
 one of our "other selves." 
 
 Yet, for all that, the cases which have been noted 
 are profoundly interesting; several have been studied 
 with great care, but space forbid us to more than 
 mention them here. 
 
 Cases of Dual Personality 
 
 There was Mary Reynolds, a Pennsylvania girl, who 
 woke one day from a deep sleep as one new born. Her 
 relatives and friends were strangers to her ; everything 
 she had ever known, even how to talk, had vanished, 
 and had to be learned anew. Even her manner and 
 disposition had changed. After a few weeks she woke, 
 this time her original self, with no memory of the 
 period when she had been Mary Reynolds No. 2. So 
 she alternated between her two personalities — or rather 
 the two parts of her own personality, so distinct as to 
 seem two separate people — for several years. Finally, 
 however, Mary Reynolds No. 2 got the better of Mary 
 Reynolds No. 1, and remained as the Mary Reynolds 
 till her — or shall we say "their"? — death. 
 
 Then there was Mme. B., carefully studied by Pro- 
 fessor Janet, among others, who had three distinct per- 
 sonalities, called, respectively, by him, Leonie, Leontine 
 and Leonore. Unlike Mary Reynolds, these "selves" 
 seldom alternated spontaneously, but generally ap- 
 peared at various stages of hypnosis. Leonie knew 
 nothing of the existence of the other two Madame B. s ; 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 135 
 
 Leontine knew what Leonie did and thought and said, 
 but nothing about Leonore; while Leonore knew all 
 about what happened when both Leonie and Leontine 
 had command. 
 
 Another French case, Felida X., shows even more 
 concretely the absolute change of personality which a 
 case of this kind exhibits. Felida X., when she had 
 lapsed back into her first self, "knew nothing of the 
 dog that played at her feet, or of the acquaintance of 
 yesterday. She knew nothing of her household ar- 
 rangements, her business undertakings, her social du- 
 ties." Making a virtue of necessity, Felida accustomed 
 herself, whenever she felt the premonitory symptoms 
 of an attack, to write letters to her other self, giving 
 full directions as to the conduct of her domestic and 
 social affairs, and in this way she was enabled to bridge 
 the gap in memory to some extent. 
 
 The case of Miss Beauchamp, who had four distinct 
 personalities, is, perhaps, most interesting of all, but 
 too long and complex to quote here. The third one, 
 who called herself "Sally," had an impish disposition, 
 which caused Miss Beauchamp (meaning by that Miss 
 Beauchamp's body's first inhabitant) no end of trou- 
 ble. Miss Beauchamp, who was in straitened circum- 
 stances financially, was by nature cautious and thrifty. 
 "Sally" frittered away her carefully hoarded earnings. 
 Miss Beauchamp was deeply religious and guarded in 
 her actions. "Sally" was irreligious, coquettish, and 
 addicted to smoking cigarets. Miss Beauchamp wear- 
 ied easily. "Sally" never felt tired, and would fre- 
 quently take her other self, all unconsciously, on long 
 walks, allowing Miss Beauchamp to awake from the 
 trance state in some distant suburb, penniless and worn 
 
136 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 out. For a time Dr. Prince (who had the case under 
 observation) "gave her some relief by hypnotizing 
 'Sally' into quiescence, but before long 'Sally' be- 
 came unmanageable even with the aid of hypnotism. 
 She had her good qualities, however. Once, .according 
 to Dr. Prince, when Miss Beauchamp despairingly 
 gave up the struggle and essayed suicide by gas, 'Sal- 
 ly' assumed control, turned off the gas, and opened 
 the window." 1 
 
 The situation was saved by the appearance on the 
 scene of Personality No. 4, who routed 'Sally' and 
 Nos. 1 and 2; and has remained since then the only 
 "Miss Beauchamp." 
 
 The Remarkable Case of Ansel Bourne 
 
 The case of Ansel Bourne is such a clear example 
 of dual personality that I venture to describe it at great- 
 er length. 
 
 Mr. Bourne had been more or less subject to semi- 
 epileptic seizures, partly resulting from a sunstroke 
 suffered when a young man. The latter event was also 
 indirectly the cause of a deep religious awakening, 
 which resulted in his becoming an itinerant preacher. 
 One morning in 1861, being at that time 61 years old, 
 and residing in the village of Greene, R. I., he myste- 
 riously disappeared. 
 
 Some two weeks later a stranger, named A. J. 
 Brown, appeared in Norristown, Pa., and renting a 
 store of a Mr. Earle, set up a little shop for the sale 
 of confectionery and notions. Mr, Brown, appearing 
 
 "Bruce : Riddle of Personality, pp. 86-9. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 137 
 
 respectable and steady-going, was admitted into the 
 Earle family, and lived with them for six weeks. Dur- 
 ing this period he took an active part in the work of 
 the local church, ran his store methodically and suc- 
 cessfully, and gained the acquaintance and respect of 
 his new neighbors. 
 
 Suddenly, early one morning, he aroused the Earles 
 with inquiries as to where he was ; denied that he 
 owned a shop ; that he had ever seen the Earles, or that 
 his name was Brown. He declared his name was Ansel 
 Bourne, and became so excited that he was thought 
 to be insane, and put under surveillance. He prevailed 
 on the local physician, however, to telegraph his 
 nephew, Andrew Harris, in Providence ; and three days 
 later this gentleman appeared, wound up "Mr. 
 Brown's" store and accounts, and took his thoroly be- 
 wildered uncle back home. 
 
 But how did he happen to be in Norristown, Pa.? 
 He could not tell himself, for he remembered not a 
 scrap of the events of the last two months. Luckily, 
 Dr. Hodgson heard of the case, became acquainted 
 with Mr. Bourne, and succeeded in hypnotizing him. 
 Lo, as Dr. Hodgson half anticipated, in the hypnotic 
 state Mr. Bourne again became "Mr. Brown," with a 
 memory of all that he had done during that two months 
 previously blank. This he related in detail to Dr. 
 Hodgson ; and the facts given were such that the whole 
 account was afterward independently verified. "He 
 said" [while in the hypnotic state], says Dr. Hodgson, 
 in his report on the case, "that his name was Albert 
 John Brown; that on January 17, 1887, he went from 
 Providence to Pawtucket in a horsecar, thence by train 
 to Boston, and thence to New York, where he arrived 
 
138 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 at 9 p.m., and went to the Grand Union Hotel, regis- 
 tering as A. J. Brown. He left New York on the 
 following morning and went to Newark, N. J. ; thence 
 to Philadelphia, where he arrived in the evening, and 
 stayed for three or four days in a hotel near the 
 depot. ... He thought of taking a store in a small 
 town, and after looking around at several places, among 
 them Germantown, chose Norristown, . . . 
 
 "He stated that he was born in Newton, N. H., 
 July 8, 1826 (he was born in New York City, 
 July 8, 1826), had passed thru a great deal of trouble, 
 losses of friends and property; loss of his wife was 
 one trouble — she died in 188 1 ; three children living — 
 but everything was confused prior to his finding him- 
 self in the horsecar on the way to Pawtucket; he want- 
 ed to get away somewhere — he didn't know where — 
 and have rest. He had six or seven hundred dollars 
 with him when he went into the store. He lived very 
 closely, boarded by himself, and did his own cooking. 
 He went to church, and also to one prayer-meeting. 
 At one of these meetings he spoke about a boy who 
 had kneeled down and prayed in the midst of the pas- 
 sengers on a steamboat from Albany to New York 
 [an incident of which he was well aware in the Ansel 
 Bourne personality]. 
 
 "He had heard of the singular experience of Ansel 
 Bourne, but did not know whether he had ever met 
 Ansel Bourne or not. ... He used to keep a store 
 in Newton, N. H., and was engaged in lumber and 
 trading business [Ansel Bourne had at one time been 
 a carpenter] ; had never previously dealt in the business 
 which he took up at Norristown. He kept the Norris- 
 town store for six or eight weeks; how he got away 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 139 
 
 from there was all confused; since then it had been 
 a blank. The last thing he remembered about the store 
 was going to bed on Sunday night, March 13, 1887. 
 ... He did not feel 'anything out of the way.' Went 
 to bed at eight or nine o'clock, and remembered lying 
 in bed, but nothing further." 1 
 
 But what, you ask, have these phenomena of dual 
 personality, interesting though they are of themselves, 
 to do with our main problem of the future life? The 
 relation of the two will be clear enough if we carry 
 this alternation of personality a single step further. 
 
 So far — unless we except the irrepressible "Sally," 
 who claimed that she was an entirely distinct person- 
 ality — we have witnessed, according to Myers' hypothe- 
 sis, various parts of a person's self successively in con- 
 trol of his body. Now we come to a group of cases, 
 where the original personality has been displaced by 
 what claims to be an outside personality altogether ; in 
 other words, the body is "possessed" by another 
 "spirit," and this spirit claims to be discamate; that is, 
 belonging to a person that is dead. 
 
 The Famous Case of the "Watseka Wonder" 
 
 A complete discussion of this phenomena of "con- 
 trol" by an exterior personality (motor automatism 
 is the name given it by Myers) may better be reserved 
 a little till we take up the question of mediumship. I 
 shall, however, give the history of one very striking 
 case here, to show the intimate relation between it and 
 dual personality. 
 
 'S. P. R. Proceedings, Vol. VII., pp. 221-58. 
 
140 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 The case of Rancy Vennum, the "Watseka Wonder," 
 so called, is attested to — so far as the facts can be at- 
 tested — very strongly, the evidence having been exam- 
 ined with "great pains" by Col. J. C. Bundy, who is en- 
 dorsed by Myers as "a skilful and scrupulously honest 
 investigator," by his associate, Dr. Stevens, by Dr. 
 Hodgson, and by Myers himself. For the story of 
 "the Wonder" I can do no better than quote the ex- 
 cellent condensation given by Dr. Funk. 1 
 
 "Rancy Vennum was a girl about fourteen years of 
 age, living, in 1878, at Watseka, Ind. In the same 
 town had died, in 1865, thirteen years before, a girl by 
 the name of Mary Roff. Mary died about a year after 
 Rancy 's birth. Of course, the girls never knew each 
 other. Rancy's parents were not Spiritualists, and, 
 up to this time, Rancy had always been in good health. 
 Her trouble began with trances, in which she said she 
 visited heaven and angels. She heard voices at night 
 calling her. 
 
 "Her experiences at this time seemed to be those 
 of an insane person. She became sullen and disagree- 
 able, and her friends thought of sending her to an 
 asylum. One day Rancy said that a spirit by the name 
 of Mary Roff wanted to come to her, and the next 
 day Mr. Vennum called at the office of Mr. Roff and 
 informed him that his daughter claimed to be Mary 
 Roff, and wanted to go home. He said: 'She seems 
 like a child real homesick, wanting to see her pa and 
 ma and her brothers.' 
 
 x Funk: The Widow's Mite, pp. 408-12. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 141 
 
 "After the supposed control of Mary Roff, Rancy 
 became 'mild, docile, polite, and timid, knowing none 
 of the family, but constantly pleading to go home,' 
 and 'only found contentment in going back to heaven, 
 as she said, for short visits.' 
 
 "About a week after Mary took control of Rancy's 
 body, Mrs. A. B. Roff and her daughter, Mrs. Min- 
 erva Alter, Mary's sister, hearing of the remarkable 
 change, went to see the girl. As they came in sight, 
 far down the street, Mary Rancy, looking out of the 
 window, exclaimed exultingly, 'There come my ma and 
 sister Nervie !' — the name by which Mary used to call 
 Mrs. Alter in girlhood. As they came into the house 
 she caught them around their necks, wept and cried 
 for joy, and seemed more homesick than before. At 
 times she seemed almost frantic to go home [to the 
 Roff home]. 
 
 "On the nth day of February, 1878, they sent the 
 girl to Mr. Roff's, where she met her 'pa and ma' and 
 each member of the family, with the most gratifying 
 expressions of love and affection, by words and em- 
 braces. On being asked how long she would stay, 
 she said, 'The angels will let me stay till some time 
 in May'; and she made it her home there till May 21, 
 three months and ten days, a happy, contented daugh- 
 ter and sister in a borrowed body. 
 
 "The girl, now in her new home, seemed perfectly 
 happy and content, knowing every person and every- 
 thing that Mary knew when in her original body, twelve 
 to twenty-five years ago, recognizing and calling by 
 name those who were friends and neighbors of the 
 family from 1852 to 1865, when Mary died, calling 
 attention to scores, yes, hundreds, of incidents that 
 
142 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 transpired during her natural life. During all the 
 period of her sojourn at Mr. Roff's she had no knowl- 
 edge of, and did not recognize any of, Mr. Vennum's 
 family, their friends or neighbors, yet Mr. and Mrs. 
 Vennum and their children visited her and Mr. Roff's 
 people, she being introduced to them as to any stran- 
 gers. After frequent visits, and hearing them often 
 and favorably spoken of, she learned to love them as 
 acquaintances, and visited them with Mrs. Roff three 
 times. 
 
 "One day she met an old friend and neighbor of Mr. 
 Roff's, who was a widow when Mary was a girl at 
 home. Some years since the lady married a Mr. Wag- 
 oner, with whom she yet lives. But when she met Mrs. 
 Wagoner she clasped her around the neck and said: 
 'O Mary Lord, you look so very natural, and have 
 changed the least of any one I have seen since I came 
 back.' Mrs. Lord was in some way related to the 
 Vennum family, and lived close by them, but Mary 
 could call her only by the name by which she knew her 
 fifteen years ago, and could not seem to realize that 
 she was married. Mrs. Lord lived just across the 
 street from Mr. Roff's for several years, prior and up 
 to within a few months of Mary's death; both being 
 members of the same Methodist church, they were very 
 intimate. . . . 
 
 "One evening, in the latter part of March, Mr. Roff 
 was sitting in the room waiting for tea, and reading 
 the paper, Mary being out in the yard. He asked Mrs. 
 Roff if she could find a certain velvet headdress that 
 Mary used to wear the last year before she died. If 
 so, to lay it on the stand and say nothing about it, to 
 see if Mary would recognize it. Mrs. Roff readily 
 
/ ,m 
 
 The "Watseka Wonder," the Most Famous Recorded 
 Case of Obsession 
 
 The Roff home in 1877, where most of the recorded events occurred. 
 
 III. Mary Roff, whose spirit ap- 
 parently returned to inhabit the 
 body of Lurancy Vennum. 
 
 IV. The Vennum house in Watseka, Illinois. 
 
 II. 'Rancy Vennum, who. as 
 girl of fourteen, developed i 
 markable mediumistic powers. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 143 
 
 found and laid it on the stand. The girl soon came 
 in, and immediately exclaimed as she approached the 
 stand, 'Oh ! there is my headdress I wore when my hair 
 was short !' She then asked, 'Ma, where is my box of 
 letters ? Have you got them yet ?' Mrs. Roff replied, 
 'Yes, Mary, I have some of them.' She at once got 
 the box, with many letters in it. As Mary began to 
 examine them she said: 'Oh, ma, here is a collar I 
 tatted! Ma, why did you not show to me my letters 
 and things before?' The collar had been preserved 
 among the relics of the lamented child as one of the 
 beautiful things her fingers had wrought before Lu- 
 rancy was born; and so Mary continually recognized 
 every little thing and remembered every little incident 
 of her girlhood. . . . 
 
 "Scores of tests were made like those just mentioned, 
 which seemed to establish, as nearly as anything could 
 establish, the identity of this spirit control. After three 
 months and ten days' sojourn in Rancy's body, Mary 
 told her supposed parents that Rancy was coming back, 
 and that she must return to the angels. When Rancy 
 returned she had to be introduced anew to all of the 
 new acquaintances that Mary had made, even to Mary's 
 doctor and to the members of the Roff family. Her 
 health was restored. She grew to womanhood, and 
 afterward married. . . . 
 
 "In this strange Watseka case it will be observed 
 that the person that claimed to be Mary Roff never 
 appeared to any one at Watseka except thru the 
 body of Rancy. She never materialized in an inde- 
 pendent body; at any rate, no one reported to have 
 seen such a materialization. If this was a spirit, as 
 Mr. Hodgson thinks, then it was a case'of obsession." 
 
144 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 Here we have a straightforward and seemingly con- 
 vincing narrative. Unfortunately for unbiased cre- 
 dence, further embellishments are given, especially by 
 enthusiastic spiritualist writers, which weaken rather 
 than strengthen the report. 
 
 Tho the most important, the alleged "Mary Roff" 
 possession was not the only one. At an earlier date 
 she claimed to be "Katrina Hogan," sixty-three years 
 old, and recently arrived from Germany "thru the air." 
 At this time "the girl sat near the stove, in a common 
 chair, her elbows on her knees, her hands under her 
 chin, feet curled up on the chair, eyes staring, looking 
 in every way like an 'old hag.' . . . She appeared sullen 
 and crabbed, calling her father 'Old Black Dick,' and 
 her mother 'Old Granny.' " At another time she 
 claimed to be a young man, "Willie Canning," son of 
 "Peter Canning," who had "ran away from home, got 
 into difficulty, changed his name several times, and 
 finally lost his life." 1 
 
 These appear suspiciously like the amazingly coher- 
 ent and detailed cases of dual personality of which we 
 have already noted examples. As showing, however, 
 the attitude of the spiritualist, we are told, for example, 
 that at the birth of her first child (about four years 
 after she married George Binning, a respectable farmer 
 living near Watseka) "she was entranced, her eyes 
 turned heavenward, beautiful smiles played over her 
 features as the work of deliverance went painlessly on, 
 
 1 From a sketch of the life of Lurancy Vennum, by E. W. 
 Stevens, published in The Carrier Dove, a spiritualist paper of 
 San Francisco, in 1887. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 145 
 
 and not until the new soul voiced its presence did she 
 show any sign of consciousness of what occurred." 1 
 
 Mary Roff herself, it may be noted, suffered from 
 acute hysteria, was under almost constant medical care, 
 and by the neighbors generally was considered actually 
 insane. She was often thrown spontaneously into a 
 deep trance, sometimes suffering acute pain. 
 
 In the summer of 1864 she seemed to have almost 
 a mania for bleeding herself for relief, as she said, "of 
 the lump of pain in the head." Drs. Fowler, Secrest, 
 and Putwood, were called, and applied leeches. She 
 would apply them herself to her temples, and liked 
 them, treating them like little pets, until she seemed 
 sound and well. 
 
 On Saturday morning, July 16, 1864, in one of her 
 desponding moods, she secretly took a knife with her 
 to the back yard, and cut her arm terribly, until, bleed- 
 ing excessively, she fainted. This occurred about 9 
 a.m. She remained unconscious until 2 p.m., when 
 she became a raving maniac of the most violent kind, 
 in which condition she remained five days and nights, 
 requiring almost constantly the services of five of the 
 most able-bodied men to hold her on the bed, altho 
 her weight was only one hundred pounds, and she 
 had lost nearly all her blood. When she ceased raving 
 she looked and acted quite natural and well, and could 
 do everything she desired as readily and properly as 
 at any time in her life. Yet she seemed to know no 
 one, and could not recognize the presence of persons 
 at all, altho the house was nearly filled with people 
 night and day. She had no sense whatever of sight, 
 
 'From an appendix to the above sketch by Dr. Cora Ellison. 
 
146 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 feeling, or hearing, in a natural way, as was proved by 
 every test that could be applied. She could read blind- 
 folded, and do everything as readily as when in health 
 by her natural sight. She would dress, stand before 
 the glass, open and search drawers, pick up loose pins, 
 do anything and all things readily, and without annoy- 
 ance, under heavy blindfoldings. 1 
 
 This remarkable phenomenon of clairvoyance is at- 
 tested to by numerous witnesses, including the physi- 
 cians attending, the editor of the Iroquois County Re- 
 publican, and later of the Danville Times, and the local 
 clergymen. She repeatedly read lengthy extracts from 
 closed books and the writing within sealed letters. 
 
 Trom a biography of A. B. Roff, by Dr. Cora Ellison, in 
 The Carrier Dove, a well-known spiritualist magazine. 
 
Frederic W. H. Myers 
 
 A keen and earnest investigator of psychical phenomena, an eminent 
 psychologist, and formulator of the hypothesis of the "subliminal self." 
 
"OUR RECORDS PROVE THE PERSISTENCE OF THE 
 SPIRIT LIFE." 
 
 I will briefly state facts which our records [the records of 
 the Society for Psychical Research] have, to my mind, actually 
 proved. 
 
 In the first place, they prove survival, pure and simple; 
 the persistence of the spirit's life as a structural law of the 
 universe; the inalienable heritage of each several soul. In the 
 second place, they prove that between the spiritual and the 
 material worlds an avenue of communication does, in fact, 
 exist — that which we call the despatch and the receipt of tele- 
 pathic messages, or the utterance and the answer of prayer. 
 In the third place, they prove that the surviving spirit retains, 
 at least in some measure, the memories and the loves of earth. 
 Without this persistence of love and memory, should we, in 
 truth, be the same? To what extent has any philosophy or 
 any revelation assured us of this until now? 
 
 V 
 
 ********* 
 
 For theses like the following, considerable evidence has al- 
 ready been laid before the world: 
 
 There exists in each of us a subliminal self; that is to say, 
 a certain part of our being, conscious and intelligent, does not 
 enter into our ordinary waking intelligence. 
 
 This subliminal self exerts faculties above the normal; 
 faculties, that is to say, which apparently transcend our known 
 level of evolution. Some of these, as hyperesthesia (keener 
 sensibility) and hypermesia (fuller memory), seem to be 
 extensions of faculties already known. Others, however, alto- 
 gether exceed our ordinary range of powers, as telepathy, or 
 direct knowledge of other minds; clairvoyance, or direct knowl- 
 edge of distant facts; retrocognition, or direct knowledge of 
 past facts; and precognition, or knowledge of facts in the 
 future. 
 
 In this . . . environment where telepathy operates, many 
 147 
 
148 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 intelligences may affect our own. Some of these are the 
 minds of living persons; but some appear to be discarnate, 
 that is, spirits like ourselves, but released from the body, al- 
 though still retaining much of the personality of earth. These 
 spirits appear still to have some knowledge of our world, and 
 to be in certain ways able to affect it. The messages that 
 reach us from this other world, although mixed with much 
 triviality and confusion, are on the whole concordant. 
 
 ********* 
 The discarnate spirit seeking to talk to earth sees 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 -mani- 
 festation. 
 
 Even in such fashion, through Mrs. Piper's trances the 
 thronging multitude of the departed press to the glimpse of 
 light. Eager, but untrained, they interject their uncompre- 
 hended cries; vainly they call the names that no man answers; 
 like birds that have beaten against a lighthouse, they pass 
 in disappointment away. 
 
 It is our duty to search for and train such other favored 
 individuals as already show this form of capacity for medium- 
 ship, always latent, perhaps, and now gradually emergent in 
 the human race. The investigator must remember that this 
 inquiry must be extended over many generations; nor must 
 he allow himself to be persuaded that there are short cuts to 
 mastery. I will not say that there cannot be any such things 
 as occult wisdom, but every claim of this kind examined has 
 proved deserving of complete distrust. We have no confidence 
 here more than elsewhere in any methods except the open, 
 candid, straightforward methods which the spirit of modern 
 science demands. —Frederic W. H. Myers. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 CLAIRVOYANCE AND CLAIRAUDIENCE 
 
 Before we outline a few typical examples of clair- 
 voyance, a word should be said regarding the nature 
 of the phenomenon itself, for the medium is usually, 
 but not necessarily, in a light trance, and this medium- 
 istic trance state is accompanied by marked physiologic 
 changes. 
 
 The first stage is usually one of super-emotional ac- 
 tivity. The medium "sighs deeply . . . yawns and hic- 
 coughs." 1 Her facial expression may in a few mo- 
 ments run the gamut of all the emotions. "Some- 
 times," we are told of Eusapia, "her face flushes ; the 
 eyes become brilliant and liquid, and are opened wide. 
 The smile and the motions are the mark of the erotic 
 ecstasy. She says 'mio caro' ('my dear'), leans her 
 head upon the shoulder of her neighbor, and courts ca- 
 resses when she believes that he is sympathetic. It is 
 at this point that phenomena are produced, the success 
 of which causes her agreeable and even voluptuous 
 thrills. During this time her legs and her arms are in 
 a state of marked tension, almost rigid, or even undergo 
 convulsive contractions. Sometimes a tremor goes thru 
 her entire body." 2 With other mediums the breathing 
 
 ^lammarion : Mysterious Psychic Forces, p. 143. 
 Hbid. 
 
 149 
 
150 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 becomes labored, and, voluntarily or involuntarily, 
 much slower. There may be a decided change in the 
 heart action, the pulse often rising to one hundred and 
 twenty times a minute. There may be semi-hysteria 
 at this stage, sudden contractions of the muscles with 
 a resultant twitching of the limbs, all of which are 
 probably more painful to the spectator than to the sub- 
 ject. 
 
 To this often succeeds a second intermediate stage 
 of quiescence and pallor. The limbs become relaxed 
 listlessly or rigid; the eyes close; the face becomes 
 deathly pale and the skin clammy and moist, "frequent- 
 ly covered with perspiration." 
 
 In the final and usual stage of mediumistic trance 
 there is more natural action. The balls of the eyes 
 are rolled up so that only the whites are visible, but 
 the subject seldom appears to be in pain. The medium 
 is now extremely sensitive to light, sudden light pro- 
 ducing the physiologic and emotional effect of acute 
 hysteria; and Maxwell believes that in extreme cases 
 light might even prove fatal. There is hyperesthesia 
 (increased sensibility) in all the nerve centers, and the 
 whole body is sometimes in a shiver of continuous 
 twitchings and tremblings. As to the medium's own 
 feelings during this period, Flammarion has this to 
 say of Eusapia: "She suddenly experiences an ardent 
 desire to produce the phenomena ; then she has a feel- 
 ing of numbness and the goose-flesh sensation in her 
 fingers ; these sensations keep increasing ; at the same 
 time she feels in the inferior portion of the vertebral 
 column the flowing of a current which rapidly extends 
 into her arms, as far as her elbows, where it is gently 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 151 
 
 arrested. It is at this point that the phenomenon takes 
 place." 1 
 
 To this stage occasionally succeeds a fourth of deep 
 torpor, complete obliviousness to all sensory stimuli 
 like sound or light, regular but sometimes almost sus- 
 pended breathing and heart action, and relaxation or 
 rigidity of the limbs. 
 
 Progression from one stage to another, and from 
 consciousness to the trance state and vice versa, is, we 
 should remember, spontaneous and apparently volun- 
 tary with the medium. There is no hypnosis ; tho the 
 coming of the trance state seems to be hastened by har- 
 mony in the attendant circle, by low, pleasant noises, 
 like soft singing, and by the linking of the circle of 
 hands. 
 
 There is every reason for thinking that the morbid 
 phenomena accompanying the trance transition are un- 
 natural, and due to our, as yet, imperfect understand- 
 ing of essential conditions. Mrs. Piper's mediumship 
 has so far improved of recent years that the transition 
 is now accompanied with no more physical disturbance 
 than a simple falling to sleep. Whereas in her early 
 experiences she looked forward with more or less dread 
 to the purely physical ordeal, there is now a calmness 
 and utter lack of annoyance in the various stages of 
 the trance state: 
 
 With most manifestations there is, nevertheless, an 
 unquestionably severe vital strain' on the physical forces 
 of the medium. Those who have seen Home immedi- 
 ately after some- remarkable exhibition of psychic pow- 
 er, pale as death, his face covered with perspiration, 
 
 'Flammarion : Mysterious Psychic Forces, p. 142. 
 
152 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 and so weak as to be almost or quite in a fainting 
 condition — few of those who have seen him thus, re- 
 marks Sir William Crookes, could doubt the genuine- 
 ness of the phenomena he exhibited. 
 
 Clairvoyance 
 
 Before attempting any explanation of clairvoyance 
 or clairaudience, let us gain as clear an idea as possible 
 of what they are, by giving some typical examples. 
 
 Mr. Podmore quotes a simple case of alleged clair- 
 voyance as told in a letter from Professor Gregory, of 
 the University of Edinburgh, in which the latter tells of 
 a lady, unknown to him personally, but hypnotized 
 by a friend of his. By seemingly clairvoyant power, 
 while in the trance, she described Professor Gregory's 
 house in Edinburgh most accurately. 
 
 "I now asked her to go to Greenock," continues Pro- 
 fessor Gregory, "forty or fifty miles from where we 
 were ... to visit my son, who resides there with a 
 friend. She soon found him, and described him accu- 
 rately, being much interested in the boy, whom she 
 had never seen or heard of. She saw him, she said, 
 playing in a field outside a small garden in which stood 
 a cottage, at some distance from the town, on a rising 
 ground. He was playing with a dog. I knew there 
 was a dog, but had no idea of what kind, so I asked 
 her. She said it was a large but young Newfoundland, 
 black, with one or two white spots. It was very fond 
 of the boy, and played with him. 'Oh ! a she cried sud- 
 denly, 'it has jumped up and knocked off his cap.' She 
 saw in the garden a gentleman reading a book and 
 looking on. He was not old, but had white hair, while 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 153 
 
 his eyebrows and whiskers were black. . . . Being 
 asked to enter the cottage, she did so, and described the 
 sitting-room. In the kitchen she saw a young maid- 
 servant preparing dinner, for which a leg of mutton 
 was roasting at the fire, but not quite ready. She also 
 saw another elderly female. On looking again for the 
 boy, she saw him playing with the dog in front of the 
 door, while the gentleman stood in the porch and 
 looked on. Then she saw the boy run upstairs to the 
 kitchen, which, she observed with surprise, was on the 
 upper floor of the cottage (which it is) and receive 
 something to eat from the servant — she thought a 
 potato. 
 
 "I immediately wrote all these details down and sent 
 them to the gentleman, whose answer assured me that 
 all, down to the minutest, were exact, save that the boy 
 did not get a potato, but a small biscuit, from the cook. 
 The dog was what she described ; it did knock off the 
 boy's cap at the time and in the place mentioned; he 
 was himself in the garden with a book, looking on; 
 there was a leg of mutton roasting and not quite ready ; 
 there was an elderly female in the kitchen at that time, 
 altho not of the household. Every one of which facts 
 was entirely unknown to me, and could not, therefore, 
 have been perceived by thought-reading, altho, had 
 they been so, as I have already stated, this would not 
 have been less wonderful, but only a different phenome- 
 non." 
 
 In the next two instances you will note that in each 
 case the phenomena are ascribed to "spirits." But for 
 the present we will ignore the cause of the phenomena, 
 
154 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 our purpose now being simply to establish the existence 
 of clairvoyance in carefully recorded cases. 
 
 Sir William Crookes tells of a lady who was "writing 
 automatically by means of the planchet. I was try- 
 ing to devise," he says, "a means of proving that what 
 she wrote was not due to 'unconscious cerebration.' 
 The planchet, as it always does, insisted that, altho 
 it was moved by the hand and arm of the lady, the 
 intelligence was that of an invisible being who was 
 playing on her brain as on a musical instrument and 
 thus moving her muscles. I therefore said to this in- 
 telligence: 'Can you see the contents of this room?' 
 'Yes/ wrote the planchet. 'Can you see to read this 
 newspaper?' said I, putting my finger on a copy of 
 the Times, which was on a table behind me, but with- 
 out looking at it. 'Yes,' was the reply of the planchet. 
 'Well,' I said, 'if you can see that, write the word which 
 is now covered by my finger, and I will believe you.' 
 The planchet commenced to move. Slowly, and with 
 great difficulty, the word 'however' was written. I 
 turned around and saw that the word 'however' was 
 covered by the tip of my finger. 
 
 "I had purposely avoided looking at the newspaper 
 when I tried this experiment, and it was impossible 
 for the lady, had she tried, to have seen any of the 
 printed words, for she was sitting at one table and the 
 paper was on another table behind, my body interven- 
 ing." 1 
 
 You will note that in this, as in the previous in- 
 stance, neither party knew beforehand the information 
 to be given. 
 
 1 Crookes : Notes. Quar. Jour, of Set., Jan., 1874, pp. 91-2. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 155 
 
 Dr. Funk quotes the following example of clairvoy- 
 ance related by Dr. Savage from his own experience : 
 Dr. Savage "said to a spirit that was writing through 
 the hand of a young man : 
 
 " 'If you are really a person, and are really here, you 
 ought to be able to go somewhere in the city for me, 
 and find out something at my request, return, and tell 
 me about it.' 
 
 "The spirit said he had never done anything of the 
 kind, but would try. Dr. Savage sent him to his house 
 to find out what Mrs. Savage was doing. Mrs. Sav- 
 age had told the doctor before he left home that morn- 
 ing that she would be away all forenoon. In four or 
 five minutes the spirit returned and said : 'Mrs. Savage 
 was at home, and when I was there she was standing 
 in the front hall, saying good-by to a caller.' The doc- 
 tor believed that she was anywhere but home. Yet it 
 turned out that a caller had come, and Mrs. S. did not 
 go elsewhere, as she had expected ; and on comparing 
 notes, Dr. Savage found that at the time that the spirit 
 said he called she was saying good-by to her guest." 1 
 
 The following story of alleged clairvoyance during 
 a dream appeared in the Paris Matin, a typical example 
 of clairvoyance as met with in spiritualistic literature. 
 It is, of course, valueless as proof, however, lacking as 
 it does any documentary or testimonial corroboration. 
 
 "A Rev. Dr. Perring, a minister near London, had 
 recently buried his eldest son. Two nights after the 
 funeral Mr. Perring saw in a dream his son covered 
 with blood, and heard exactly the voice of his son say : 
 'Oh, father, do come and stop them ; I cannot rest in 
 
 'See Funk: The Widow's Mite, p. 254. 
 
156 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 my coffin !' The poor father, very upset by the dream, 
 tried to sleep again, when another vision came. He 
 heard again the voice of his son shouting and scream- 
 ing, and the words, 'Oh, father, they are pulling my 
 body to pieces !' As soon as the daylight came the min- 
 ister went to the church, and saw that the grave had 
 been disarranged; and after further examination, that 
 some one had been in in the night and had broken the 
 jaws of the corpse and had stolen the teeth. After 
 inquiry the police found the teeth at a dentist's in the 
 locality." 
 
 Another example of clairvoyance, somewhat more 
 carefully attested, but still by itself unconvincing, is 
 that related of a very remarkable contemporary boy 
 medium, John Flottum, of Singsaas, in Norway. 
 
 The exploit in question, typical of many similar ones 
 performed by him, was the finding of the body of Helge 
 Dehli, a wealthy farmer of the Tonset neighborhood. 
 This was in June, 1907, and Flottum was at that time 
 but thirteen years old. This case was investigated by 
 the Christiania Aftenposten, one of the most important 
 Norwegian dailies, and is considered by them convinc- 
 ingly attested to. 
 
 Flottum was not sent for till Dehli had been missing 
 eight days, and every usual method of search had been 
 exhausted in vain. Arrived at the Dehli farm, near 
 Glommen, he looked at the missing man's photograph. 
 Then suddenly he "hurried into the house and sat down 
 to draw. The drawing gradually took shape until it 
 represented a map of the surrounding country (a sec- 
 tion unfamiliar to the boy), then he drew a line along 
 the track which the missing man had taken after he 
 left his home. 
 
WW 
 
 The Famous Bertha Huse Case of Clairvoyance 
 
 Lake near Enfield. 
 
 Mrs. Edwin Huse, 
 mother of Bertha. 
 
 Mrs. Titus, 
 the medium. 
 
 The "Shaker Bridge," scene of the tragedy. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 157 
 
 "The work was evidently a great effort to him. He 
 supported his head with one hand, while with the other 
 he traced the lines, bit by bit, with a long interval be- 
 tween each stroke, while the perspiration ran down his 
 face. . . . He saw the man with his 'inner vision' ; he 
 saw him leave the house and wander along the track 
 which he had marked out. . . . Now and then the man 
 vanished from the boy's vision, and then the drawing 
 came to a standstill." 
 
 At such a point, with Dehli lying, to the boy's clair- 
 voyant sight, under a large tree near a river, the boy, 
 despite the most exhausting efforts, could go no fur- 
 ther. Search was enthusiastically begun, however, by 
 the whole parish, following the twisting trail marked 
 on the boy's map, and next day the tree which the boy 
 had seen was found. Dehli was not there, but his hand- 
 kerchief was, and at sight of it the boy passed off into 
 an even more painful trance. 
 
 Early the next morning Flottum ordered a boat, 
 which circled over the river as he directed. "Suddenly 
 he stood up and exclaimed, 'This is where he lies!' 
 And sure enough, the body was found at the very spot." 
 
 In appearance Flottum is described as a lively, nor- 
 mal, thoroly healthy boy. His clairvoyant power was 
 not discovered till he was twelve years old, but he has 
 already given many startling manifestations of his abil- 
 ity. 
 
 The Celebrated Case of Bertha Huse 
 
 With the celebrated case of Bertha Huse, however, 
 we seem to attain a new standard of care in investi- 
 gating the claims alleged and in corroborating the facts 
 
158 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 in question. Were the Flottum and Matin cases un- 
 supported by corroborative instances, we might dis- 
 miss them offhand as coincidences, or even outright fic- 
 tion ; but can we do the same with the Huse case ? 
 
 On Monday, October I, 1898, a Miss Bertha Huse 
 left her home at Enfield, N. H., before the rest of the 
 family had arisen, and mysteriously disappeared. She 
 was last seen alive by neighbors who noticed her walk- 
 ing toward the so-called Shaker Bridge. Later in 
 the day, alarmed at her inexplicable absence, the fam- 
 ily instituted a search, and during the afternoon sev- 
 eral hundred men and boys scoured the woods and 
 near-by lake shore. This being fruitless, a Mr. Whit- 
 ney, a local mill owner, sent to Boston for divers, and 
 one named Sullivan searched the lake all day Tuesday, 
 and Wednesday till noon, especially around the Shaker 
 Bridge, on which Bertha had last been seen, but no 
 trace of her was found. 
 
 On this same Wednesday evening a Mrs. Titus, liv- 
 ing in Lebanon, a village about five miles from Enfield, 
 started in her doze with a horrified cry and unseeing, 
 staring eyes, that so alarmed her husband that he woke 
 her up. When he had shaken her into consciousness 
 she said: "Why did you disturb me? In a moment 
 I should have found that body." 
 
 In the middle of the night his wife again woke him 
 with moans, and this time he waited till she spoke. Still 
 asleep, she said in a monotonous undertone: "She 
 followed the road down to the bridge, and on getting 
 part way across it, stepped out on that jutting beam 
 which was covered by white frost. . . . While so stand- 
 ing she slipped on a log, fell backward, and slid in un- 
 derneath the timberwork of the bridge. You will find 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 159 
 
 her lying head in, and you will only be able to see one 
 of her rubbers projecting from the timberwork." 
 
 Mr. Titus lighted a lamp and watched and talked 
 with her for an hour in very low tones; when ques- 
 tioned on this subject she would answer, but would not 
 hear about other things. She said something about 
 cold, and Mr. Titus said, "Are you cold, Nellie?" She 
 said, "Oh, oh! I am awfully cold." (It was late fall; 
 the water of the lake was almost freezing, and Mrs. 
 Titus seemed to be speaking of the drowned girl.) 
 
 Now, on Sunday, the day before the suicide of Ber- 
 tha Huse, Mrs. Titus had said to her husband: 
 "George, something awful is going to happen. I can- 
 not tell you what it is, now, but can later on." On 
 Monday morning, at 6.40, as he was leaving for the 
 Mascoma Flannel Company's mill, where he worked, 
 she said, shuddering, that it had "happened." It was 
 not till that night that the Tituses heard of the girl's 
 disappearance. 
 
 On the morning following his wife's clairvoyant mes- 
 sage (Thursday), at her earnest solicitation, Mr. Titus 
 told it to Mr. Ayer, his employer, and to others ; and 
 finally, the same day, the two went over to Enfield and 
 enlisted the rather incredulous interest of Mr. Whit- 
 ney. The diver listened to them both, but replied that 
 he had searched in vain the previous day in the spot 
 now indicated by Mrs. Titus as she stood on the bridge. 
 She, however, was insistent. "You did not search 
 there," she said, pointing more closely, and describing 
 exactly the position in which the body lay. To humor 
 her he put on his suit, and five minutes later brought 
 the corpse to the surface. Unscrewing his helmet, he 
 said: "I did not look in that place yesterday as the 
 
160 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 brush and debris were so thick there that I could not 
 see; in fact, all I could feel of the body was the rubber 
 projecting from the timberzvork" 
 
 This would seem to be one of the most convincing 
 cases of alleged clairvoyance on record, being care- 
 fully investigated at the time by Dr. Harris Kennedy, 
 of Roxbury, a cousin-in-law of Professor William 
 James, of Harvard, and by the latter eminent psycholo- 
 gist. The details are attested to by numerous wit- 
 nesses, the full account being given in Volume I of 
 the Proceedings of the American Society for Psychical 
 Research. 
 
 Mrs. Titus had had occasional trances (involuntary), 
 a tendency inherited from her mother, but had at the 
 time little, if any, reputation as a spiritualist. She did 
 not know Bertha Huse. Previous to finding the body, 
 Mr. Titus had imparted his wife's message to a large 
 number of reputable persons who now bear witness to 
 the seeming reality of her powers. 
 
 Several "natural" explanations of the case have been 
 made, such as the fact that traces of footprints were 
 seen on the bridge, the theory that Mrs. Titus, con- 
 trary to both her own and her husband's testimony, 
 might have been in Enfield at six o'clock that cold win- 
 ter morning and have seen the girl commit suicide. 
 But neither of these, improbable as they would seem 
 in themselves, explain how Mrs. Titus could describe 
 the exact position of the body. Sullivan, the diver, 
 says: "She was lying in a deep hole, head down. It 
 was so dark that I could not see anything ; I had to feel 
 entirely." At this place the water was eighteen feet 
 deep, and, as he says, completely dark; besides that, 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 161 
 
 the supporting timbers of the bridge would have hid- 
 den the body from the roadway. 
 
 Subsequently the diver gave details of rescuing bod- 
 ies, and added: "It is my business to recover bodies 
 in the water, and I am not afraid of them ; but in this 
 instance I was afraid of the woman on the bridge. 
 . . . How can any woman come from four miles away, 
 and tell me, or any other man, where I would find this 
 body ?" 
 
 I have detailed these examples of clairvoyance be- 
 cause they are typical. But do not suppose they are 
 isolated cases. Nearly all instances of clairaudience 
 include clairvoyance; and of simple clairvoyance the 
 literature of spiritualism abounds in examples. Sir 
 William Crookes quotes several, substantiated in the 
 most precise terms ; the note-books and published works 
 of the Rev. Stainton Moses, the great English medium, 
 are full of cases; Myers gives a score in his Human 
 Personality, especially the very striking, if horrible, 
 Storie case; other instances are noted by Dr. Funk, 
 Mr. Podmore, Dr. Hyslop, and other writers on the 
 subject. I shall quote some of these later in the discus- 
 sion of the closely allied telepathic phenomena. 
 
 Clairaudience 
 
 Clairaudience seems to differ from clairvoyance in 
 two respects. It seldom occurs except in combination 
 with clairvoyance, and it generally consists of a sin- 
 gle detached sound or a short sentence. I have seen 
 no record, for instance, of the receipt, clairaudiently, 
 of an extended discourse. 
 
 We do have, on the other hand, such incidents as 
 that related by Commander T. Aylesbury, of Sutton, 
 
162 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 Surrey, where a drowning boy utters a cry that is heard 
 by both his mother and his sister in England, fourteen 
 thousand miles away. 1 We have the case quoted by 
 Dr. Funk, where two sisters in Brooklyn hear a brother 
 in Texas, whom they believed was dead, inquiring 
 about a letter. 2 We have the example, also noted in 
 The Widow's Mite, of the Jeannette. "A few years ago 
 the wife of one of the officers on board of the Jean- 
 nette, 5 the vessel sent by the New York Herald to ex- 
 plore the polar seas, wrote to me that one night she 
 was suddenly awakened, and was amazed to see her 
 husband at her bedside. He said to her, 'Count, 
 count.' She says that she heard distinctly a ship's bell. 
 She heard the word again, 'Count.' She counted six 
 strokes, when he said, 'Six bells, and the Jeannette is 
 lost,' and the vision disappeared. She wrote that 'the 
 Jeannette was lost at the time I had that vision.' " 
 
 Another case in which the human voice is carried 
 many hundred miles is noted in the Proceedings of 
 the Society for Psychical Research. 
 
 "On September 9, 1848, at the siege of Mooltan, 
 Major-General R., C.B., then adjutant of his regi- 
 ment, was most severely and dangerously wounded, 
 and, supposing himself dying, asked one of the officers 
 with him to take the ring off his finger and send it to 
 his wife, who at the time was fully one hundred and 
 fifty miles distant, at Ferozepore. 
 
 " 'On the night of September 9, 1848, I was lying on 
 my bed,' " says his wife, who tells the story, " 'between 
 
 ^yers : Phantoms of the Living, v. 2, pp. 227-8. 
 *Funk: The Widow's Mite, pp. 312-14. 
 'Ibid., p. 311. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 168 
 
 sleeping and waking, when I distinctly saw my hus- 
 band being carried off the field, seriously wounded, 
 and heard his voice saying, "Take this ring off my 
 finger and send it to my wife." All the next day I 
 could not get the sight or the voice out of my mind. 
 In due time I heard of General R. having been severely 
 wounded in the assault on Mooltan. He survived, 
 however, and is still living. It was not for some time 
 after the siege that I heard from Colonel L., the offi- 
 cer who helped to carry General R. off the field, that 
 the request as to the ring was actually made to him, 
 just as I had heard it at Ferozepore at that very 
 time.' "* 
 
 What Is Clairvoyance? 
 
 For these cases of clairvoyance and clairaudience, 
 assuming, if necessary, for the moment, that they are 
 genuine occurrences, there is, of course, the immediate 
 and easy explanation of "spiritual" intervention. 
 
 But, leaving spirits for a moment out of it, is there, 
 first, no possibility of any other, any "natural" explan- 
 ation ? For if there is, we are bound to advance it. 
 
 In the first place, I venture to assert that we dare 
 not, from our present knowledge, set any limits to the 
 possible powers of our mere bodily organism. A man 
 would immediately say, for example, "Why not 'set 
 limits'? My will, for example, can move only my arm 
 and what my arm can touch — in other words, only those 
 objects which are actually in contact with the 'proto- 
 plasmic skeleton' which represents the life of my or- 
 ganism." Yet a moment's thought will show that this 
 
 *S. P. R. Proceedings, v. i, pt. i, pp. 30-1. 
 
164. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 is not strictly true. "I can sometimes," says Myers, 
 "move objects not in actual contact, as by melting them 
 with the heat, or (in . . . dry air . . .) kindling them 
 with the electricity which my fingers emit. And," he 
 goes on, "I see no very definite limit to this power. 
 I do not know all the forms of energy which my fin- 
 gers might, under suitable training [or suitable condi- 
 tions], emit." 1 How prophetic these words of Myers 
 are is brought home by the fact that, as we saw in the 
 second article on Eusapia Paladino, Lombroso has very 
 recently suggested with some basis that the human 
 body is itself continually emitting hitherto unknown 
 radiations allied to the mysterious "N-rays !" 
 
 But if we are, after all, still ignorant of all the pos- 
 sible powers of the body, how much more are we igno- 
 rant of the limits to be set for the abilities of the "self" 
 which controls that body! And especially does our 
 ignorance appear overwhelming when we consider, as 
 we have done, that this "self" of ours is not a simple 
 unit, but includes a whole host of "subliminal" parts, 
 of which we have hardly as yet so much as proved the 
 existence. 
 
 We already have, however, a collection of phenom- 
 ena acting as a guide, because they illustrate very un- 
 usual abilities of this same "subliminal self," namely, 
 the phenomena of hypnotism. The hypnotic trance, we 
 remember, simply means, according to» Myers' theory, 
 that the subject's body is temporarily under the con- 
 trol of some one of the subliminal parts of his own 
 "self." 
 
 Each of these selves which develop under hypnosis 
 
 ^yers: Human Personality, p. 313. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 165 
 
 has its own individuality, its own knowledge and feel- 
 ings and memories. At one stage of hypnosis, for 
 example, the subject may be under the control of a 
 part of his subliminal self, which we will call "X." 
 "X" thinks that he is Professor So-and-so, of the Uni- 
 versity of So-and-so, and he will act, speak, talk and 
 think as that professor would. Wake the subject up, 
 and he will have no memory of his "professor" state, 
 when the "X" part of his personality had control ; but 
 put him back (by hypnotizing him again) into the "X" 
 condition, and he will pick up again the "professor" 
 life just where he left off with it a little before, remem- 
 bering all that he did in his former trance, but nothing 
 of his own life outside it. 
 
 But there is something even more interesting. When 
 the subject is in "X" state let the hypnotizer say to 
 him, "Sixty minutes from now shut the window behind 
 you." The subject is then awakened, and remembers 
 absolutely nothing of his "X" state or of the command 
 given him while in it. But exactly sixty minutes later, 
 unconsciously, and without knowing why he does it, 
 the subject gets up and closes the window indicated. 
 Deep down in his subliminal self, in that "X" part of 
 his personality unknown to his consciousness, that com- 
 mand was waiting all the time, and when the moment 
 came it rushed up from below the threshold and made 
 the body for a moment obey it. 
 
 Now — and this is the significant point — a study of 
 hypnotism shows us that the subliminal self, when it 
 thus has temporary control of the body, is able to do 
 very unusual things. When it pleases, it is able, for 
 instance, to do what the conscious will can never do — 
 change the tissue structure of the body. That is, a man, 
 
166 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 in certain stages and conditions of Hypnosis, not only 
 can imagine, in answer to the hypnotizer's suggestion, 
 that he is burned, but can actually, by thinking, raise a 
 blister on the spot indicated. 
 
 For some years psychologists have been aware of a 
 very remarkable phenomena, known as stigmatization. 
 The name came from the fact that its earliest sponta- 
 neous manifestations were the result of brooding over 
 "the stigmata of Christ's passion — the marks of 
 wounds in hands and feet and side." It was soon found 
 that these morbid imaginings could actually produce 
 upon the subject the marks of the wounds. This is 
 another case of the subliminal self's control over the 
 tissues of the body ; for stigmatization is merely a step 
 further. The subject has put himself into a semi- 
 hypnotic state ; instead of being hypnotized by an ex- 
 ternal mind, he has put himself under the control of 
 his own subliminal self. 
 
 But this part of the personality can do more than 
 change tissue structure. By suggestion, for example, 
 the hypnotic subject's eyes may be made to run as he 
 smells of simple water ; and conversely, obeying a simi- 
 lar suggestion, the fumes of strong ammonia may cause 
 not a tear. Here we have control of the secretions. 
 The subliminal self can make the muscles as rigid as 
 stone (catalepsis) ; it can create or dissipate hunger, 
 alcoholism, and other desires and appetites, almost at 
 will ; it can, to a certain extent, nullify or restore any 
 of the senses. 
 
 Doing all these things, it was very early seen that 
 hypnosis was an efficient agent in the cure of disease. 
 Let the patient but put himself partly under the con- 
 trol of his subliminal self, and results so marvelous as 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 167 
 
 to seem almost "miraculous" may be effected. Mind- 
 cure, so called — "suggestive therapeutics" — is nothing 
 new to the psychologist, nor original to the Christian 
 Science denomination, as the latter would sometimes 
 have us believe. Christian Science does deserve every 
 credit, however, for emphasizing in a large way its 
 remedial practicability. 
 
 Doing these things too, knowing that we are but be- 
 ginning to open up a vast domain of unknown powers 
 governed by the subliminal portion of our conscious- 
 ness, powers infinitely greater and more wonderful 
 than those exerted by the conscious self, and in further 
 view of the large evidence for the occurrence of the 
 phenomena, we would seem to have a ground sufficient 
 to prevent a dogmatic denial of the very possibility of 
 at least occasional cases of genuine clairvoyance. 
 
 Precognition, or Prophecy 
 
 Rarely, but occasionally, in the history of spiritual- 
 ism, occur cases of actual precognition, or prophecy, 
 when the clairvoyant sight of the medium, in some 
 wonderful way, seems actually to pierce the veil of the 
 future. Mere flashes of this precognitive knowledge 
 we call premonitions; these will be considered later. 
 But here are two very striking and carefully attested 
 cases of clairvoyant prophecy. The first is the account 
 of a Mrs. McAlpine, quoted in the Report on the Cen- 
 sus of Hallucinations, and corroborated by a sister of 
 Mrs. McAlpine and the local papers : x 
 
 "I remember in the June of 1889, I drove to Castle- 
 blaney, a little town in the County Monaghan, to meet 
 
 Reported in S. P. R. Proceedings, v. 9, p. 416. 
 
168 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 my sister, who was coming by train from Longford. 
 I expected her at three o'clock, but as she did not come 
 with that train, I got the horse put up, and went for a 
 walk in the demesne. The day was very warm and 
 bright, and I wandered on under the shade of the trees 
 to the side of a lake, which is in the demesne. Being 
 at length tired, I sat down to rest upon a rock at the 
 edge of the water. My attention was quite taken up 
 with the extreme beauty of the scene before me. There 
 was not a sound or movement, except the soft ripple 
 of the water on the sand at my feet. Presently I felt a 
 cold chill creep thru me, and a curious stiffness of my 
 limbs, as if I could not move, though wishing to do so. 
 I felt frightened, yet chained to the spot, and as if im- 
 pelled to stare at the water straight in front of me. 
 Gradually a black cloud seemed to rise, and in the midst 
 of it I saw a tall man, in a suit of tweed, jump into the 
 water and sink. 
 
 "In a moment the darkness was gone, and I again 
 became sensible of the heat and sunshine, but I was 
 awed, and felt 'eerie' — it was then about four o'clock 
 or so — I cannot remember either the exact time or date. 
 On my sister's arrival I told her of the occurrence ; she 
 was surprised, but inclined to laugh at it. When we 
 got home I told my brother; he treated the subject in 
 much the same manner. However, about a week after- 
 ward, Mr. Espie, a bank clerk (unknown to me), com- 
 mitted suicide by drowning in that very spot. He left 
 a letter for his wife, indicating that he had for some 
 time contemplated his death. My sister's memory of 
 the event is the only evidence I can give. I did not 
 see the account of the inquest at the time, and did not 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 169 
 
 mention my strange experience to any one, saving my 
 sister and brother." 1 
 
 Another example was communicated to Professor 
 Richet by Professor Thoulet. 
 
 "During the summer of 1867 I was officially the as- 
 sistant, but in reality the friend, in spite of difference 
 in age, of M. F., a former officer in the navy, who had 
 gone into business. We were trying to set on foot 
 again the exploitation of an old sulphur mine at Riva- 
 nazzaro, near Voghera, in Piedmont, which had been 
 long abandoned on account of a falling in. . . . 
 
 "I knew that Madame F., who lived at Toulon, and 
 with whom I was slightly acquainted, would soon be 
 confined. . . . 
 
 "M. F. and I slept in adjoining rooms, and as it was 
 hot, we left the door between them open. One morn- 
 ing I sprang suddenly out of bed, crossed my room, 
 entered that of M. F., and awakened him by crying 
 out : 'You have just got a little girl ; the telegram 
 says . . .' Upon this I began to read the telegram. 
 M. F. sat up and listened ; but all at once I understood 
 that I had been asleep, and that consequently my tele- 
 gram was only a dream, not to be believed ; and then, 
 at the same time, this telegram, which was somehow 
 in my hand, and of which I had read about three lines 
 aloud, word for word, seemed to withdraw from my 
 eyes as if some one were carrying it off open ; the words 
 disappeared, though their image still remained; those 
 which I had pronounced remained in my memory, while 
 the rest of the telegram was only a form. 
 
 ^rom the Report on the Census of Hallucinations in the 
 S. P. R. Proceedings, v. 10, p. 332. 
 
170 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 "I stammered something; M. F. got up and led me 
 into the dining-room, and made me write down the 
 words I had pronounced; when I came to the lines 
 which, though they had disappeared from my memory, 
 still remained pictured in my eye, I replaced them by 
 dots, making a sort of drawing of them. Remark that 
 the telegram was not written in common terms; there 
 were about six lines of it, and I had read more than 
 two of them. . . . 
 
 "Two or three days after I left for Toree ; I tried in 
 vain to remember the rest of the telegram ; I went on 
 to Turin, and eight or ten days after my dream I re- 
 ceived the following telegram from M. F. : 'Come di- 
 rectly. You were right.' 
 
 "I returned to Rivanazzaro, and M. F. showed me a 
 telegram which he had received the evening before. 
 I recognized it as the one I had seen in my dream ; the 
 beginning was exactly what I had written, and the end, 
 which was exactly like my drawing, enabled me to 
 read again the words which I saw again. Please re- 
 mark that the confinement had taken place the evening 
 before, and therefore the fact was not that I, being in 
 Italy, had seen a telegram which already existed in 
 France — this I might with some difficulty have under- 
 stood — but that I had seen it ten days before it existed, 
 or could have existed, since the event it announced had 
 not yet taken place. I have turned this phenomenon over 
 in my memory, and reasoned about it many times, try- 
 ing to explain it, to connect it with something, with a 
 previous conversation, with some mental tension, with 
 an analogy, a wish — and all in vain." 
 
William T. Stead 
 
 Editor of the English "Review of Reviews," writer and humanitarian- 
 an earnest believer in spiritualism. 
 
"I DO NOT BELIEVE THE DEAD DEPART." 
 
 The question, "Do the Dead Return?" is best answered by 
 asking another question: "Do the dead depart?" 
 
 I do not believe the dead depart. They are still with us, 
 closer and nearer than they ever were before they laid aside 
 this earthly vesture of decay. 
 
 The space at my disposal is too brief to set forth even in 
 barest outline the reasons which have brought me to this 
 conviction. But they are such that I do not believe any fair- 
 minded, inteligent person, who will devote himself to a care- 
 ful examination of the phenomena on which this conviction 
 rests, will come to any other conclusion than that at which 
 I have arrived. 
 
 Recent scientific discoveries have rendered the hypothesis of 
 communication between the living and the so-called dead 
 much more thinkable by the average man that it was fifty 
 or even fifteen years since. Photography, the telephone, the 
 X-rays and wireless telegraphy are accustoming mankind to 
 the possibility of many things which our fathers would have 
 dismissed as absolutely incredible. Fifty years ago the possi- 
 bility of holding vocal converse with a friend at a distance of a 
 hundred miles would have been scouted as scientifically out 
 of the question. To hear a voice while seeing no man was 
 in former times deemed so uncanny an experience as to justify 
 an assumption of a supernatural agency. 
 
 All previous generations, as the result of invariable expe- 
 rience, linked together as an obvious axiom that when the 
 ear could hear the eye must be able to see the speaker. That 
 assumption has been broken down by the telephone. 
 
 Wireless telegraphy has familiarized us with the possibility 
 of transmitting thought by electric waves even across the 
 Atlantic without the need of a telegraph cable. The phe- 
 nomena of thought-reading or telepathy have shown that 
 mind can communicate with mind without an electric battery. 
 171 
 
172 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 All these things have done much to break down skepticism, 
 and I no longer fear being written down as a lunatic when 
 I say that I have the same confidence as to the certainty of 
 communication with friends who have passed over into the 
 other world as I have in our ability to talk through the tele- 
 phone to distant friends. 
 
 Several years ago a dearly loved friend of mine promised 
 me that if she passed over before I did she would endeavor 
 to do four things: (i) She would use my hand by means of 
 automatic writing to communicate with me; (2) she would 
 make herself visible in her habit as she lived to one or more 
 of her friends who possessed the gift of seeing; (3) she would 
 come and be photographed; (4) she would control some medium 
 and give me a message hall-marked as genuine by a private 
 sign known only to her and myself. 
 
 Within a year of her death she did all four. She wrote with 
 my hand describing her experiences after her transition. She 
 appeared once in broad daylight in the street to one friend. 
 To another she appeared in a well-lighted dining-room when 
 dinner was being served, and she also appeared to a third less 
 publicly. She has been photographed four or five times, the 
 portrait being instantly recognizable by all who knew her, 
 although except to clairvoyants no form was visible before the 
 camera. None of the photographs so produced was identical 
 with any of those taken during her earth-life. The fourth and 
 last test was given unexpectedly by a strange medium to a 
 friend of mine. It referred to an incident that transpired at 
 her death, and it was accompanied by the mathematical sym- 
 bol which we had privately agreed upon as the one which 
 should be the test or hall-mark of her identity. 
 
 —William T. Stead. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 GHOSTS 
 
 Perhaps no one class of spiritualistic phenomena 
 bulks more important in the popular imagination than 
 that of apparitions of the dead. Indeed, "ghosts," if 
 the spiritualist can prove that they exist, whatever 
 explanation we put upon their appearance, must be 
 conceded an important link in our chain of evidence 
 regarding a life after death. 
 
 Very early in its career the Society for Psychical 
 Research, under the leadership of Mr. Edmund Gur- 
 ney, undertook the study of apparitions, and with such 
 success that they were soon able to assert that they 
 had proved there were such things as "ghosts" They 
 compiled, over a period of many months, a careful Cen- 
 sus of Hallucinations observed by over seventeen thou- 
 sand individuals. The work was in the hands of a 
 special committee, of which Mr. Frank Podmore, Pro- 
 fessor Henry Sidgewick and F. W. H. Myers were 
 members, and associated with them were some four 
 hundred enumerators. 
 
 These last were asked to propound to twenty-five 
 adults, chosen at random, the following question : 
 
 "Have you ever, when believing yourself to be com- 
 pletely awake, had a vivid impression of seeing or be- 
 ing touched by a living being or inanimate object, or of 
 173 
 
174 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 hearing a voice; which impression, so far as you could 
 discover, was not due to any external physical cause?" 
 
 Every effort was made to remove bias, pro or con, 
 and to secure honest answers, without regard to the 
 possible final result. 
 
 This result was, however, as we have seen, startling. 
 After deducting all questionable hallucinations due by 
 any possibility to sleep or disease (insanity or de- 
 lirium), there remained one thousand six hundred and 
 eighty-four answers, or ten per cent., more or less 
 strongly affirmative. Three hundred and fifty-two of 
 these "ghosts" which were seen were apparitions of 
 living persons, and one hundred and sixty-three appa- 
 ritions of the dead. But, more than this, sixty-three 
 of these were circumstantially attested apparitions al- 
 most or quite coincident (within twelve hours) with 
 the time of death. Allowance on the one hand for pos- 
 sible lapse of memory, and on the other every leeway 
 for possible error, fraud, or coincidence in the testi- 
 mony, reduced the number of accepted coincidences 
 one-third. 
 
 Perhaps the startling nature of the fact just given 
 is not at first sight apparent. Here we have a half 
 hundred people out of seventeen thousand-odd who say 
 that they saw a ghost of a person within twelve hours 
 of that person's death. Well, what of it? you say. Ad- 
 mitting these people are honest in their belief, you 
 prove nothing ; it may have been all their imagination ; 
 as the scientist would say, their "ghosts" were all hal- 
 lucinatory, apparitions which existed merely in the 
 minds of the percipients, and without any objective 
 quality. 
 
 But the committee combined with their census a 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 175 
 
 few statistics. It took but very little simple mathe- 
 matics to ascertain that at the current annual death 
 rate for England and Wales (19.15 per 1,000 in 1890) 
 the chances that any given person would die on a 
 given day were nineteen thousand to one. This meant 
 that, if nineteen thousand apparitions of living persons 
 were witnessed on a given day, one, and one only, 
 by the laws of chance, should be that of a person dying, 
 about to die, or recently dead. 
 
 But — and mark you, this is the significant point — 
 we have in the Census, as we have seen, not twice or 
 even a hundred times this number, but over four hun- 
 dred times this number which, by chance alone, should 
 have occurred. 
 
 The complete results of the Census were printed in 
 Myers' Phantasms of the Living and in the Proceed- 
 ings of the Society, together with all the figures ob- 
 tained, and the methods and allowances used in secur- 
 ing the final result. Not a person, after an examina- 
 tion of the evidence, can question the absolute fair- 
 ness of calculation and the large margin of possible 
 error allowed. Yet the Census rendered unavoidable 
 this very striking, and, indeed, epoch-making conclu- 
 sion, which the committee italicized : "Between deaths 
 and apparitions of the dying person a connection exists 
 which is not due to chance. This we hold as a proved 
 fact." 
 
 And the point is not merely that in some mysterious 
 way a person is more likely at about the time of an- 
 other person's death to see (or think he sees) an appa- 
 rition of that person. If we think a moment we see 
 that the real truth is deeper and more important. 
 
 In most of the cases the "percipient" (the person 
 
170 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 who saw the apparition) did not know that the person 
 was dying (or dead) : in very many cases he was not 
 thinking of the dying person at all, and did not even 
 know that he was ill, or (if death was due to an acci- 
 dent) that he was in any possibility of danger. In 
 other words, there would be no reason why the per- 
 cipient should at that moment see an apparition, except 
 that at that moment the apparition did really exist. 
 One man might, some day, happen to have an hallu- 
 cination of a man at that moment dying. But if a 
 hundred men "happen" to have hallucinations of peo- 
 ple at that moment they are dying, we have every 
 reason to say that here is something more than mere 
 hallucination — that the ghosts seen really do exist. 
 
 And striking as this mathematical proof is, it is still 
 not the most convincing, as Myers well points out. 
 
 "I must add that while this argument from statis- 
 tics and percentages . . . constitutes technically the 
 strongest support of the thesis of causal connection 
 between deaths and apparitions, it is yet by no means 
 the only support, nor even the most practically con- 
 vincing. Those deaths and those apparitions are not 
 mere simple momentary facts — as tho we were deal- 
 ing with two clocks which struck simultaneously. Each 
 is a complex occurrence, and the correspondence is 
 often much more than a mere coincidence of time alone. 
 Sometimes, indeed, the alleged coincidence is so de- 
 tailed and intimate that, if the evidence for a single 
 case is fully believed, the case is enough to carry con- 
 viction." 1 
 
 'Myers : Human Personality, v. I, pp. 573-4- 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 177 
 
 "Spirit Photography" 
 
 If a "ghost" can make impression on the eye — that 
 is, be seen — why can it not make an impression on a 
 photographic plate? More than this, since the pho- 
 tographic plate is incontestably more sensitive than the 
 human eye, that is, sensitive to rays that we cannot 
 "see" at all, what more possible — nay, even probable — 
 than that the camera shall record the presence of 
 "ghosts" utterly invisible to the eye? And what fur- 
 ther or stronger proof, continues the advocate of "spirit 
 photography," what further or stronger proof is neces- 
 sary in support of apparitions than the appearance of 
 unmistakable pictures of them upon a photographic 
 plate ? The camera cannot lie. 
 
 There is the crux of the discussion of this particular 
 class of phenomena ; we know very well that the cam- 
 era is, on occasion, a most accomplished and unblush- 
 ing liar; so much so, indeed, that those best qualified 
 to judge look on every spirit photograph with well- 
 founded suspicion. The subject is, however, one so 
 closely allied with that of apparitions, and so widely 
 considered a part of spiritism, that before proceeding 
 further with our "ghosts" we will examine it a little, 
 if only to dismiss it from consideration. 
 
 "Fraud has been writ large over spirit photography," 
 says Dr. Funk, "and all spirit photographs are viewed 
 by the public with more suspicion, perhaps, than is any 
 other class of psychic phenomena." 1 "That these spirit 
 photographs," adds Mr. Carrington, "can be produced 
 by trickery no one doubts who is acquainted with the 
 
 Tunk: The Widow's Mite, p. 451. 
 
178 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 evidence and the facts in the case. Granting that the 
 medium is free to manipulate the plates, before, during 
 and after the seance, or at any one of these times, it 
 is well known that he is able to produce exact repro- 
 ductions of supposedly spirit forms by purely fraudu- 
 lent means. . . ." 1 
 
 And continuing, Mr. Carrington outlines some of 
 the numerous ways in which fraudulent spirit photo- 
 graphs may be produced. 
 
 "By a clever device, the sensitive plate may be im- 
 pressed with the figure of a ghost while in the dark 
 slide, on the way to or from the operating-room, or 
 even while in the camera itself. Indeed, twenty differ- 
 ent varieties of deceptions may be practiced without 
 exposure. A common artifice is to place a microscopic 
 picture within the camera box, so that, by means of a 
 small magnifying lens, its image may be thrown upon 
 the plate. Spectral effects may also be produced by 
 covering the back of a sensitive plate with pieces of 
 cut paper, and using artifices well known to retouch- 
 ers. . . . Extraordinary spectral effects, such as that 
 of a man shaking hands with his own ghost, cutting 
 off his own hand, or followed by his own dopple ganger, 
 may be produced by 'masking,' a process which it 
 would take too long to describe here. There is scarcely 
 any conceivable absurdity in portraiture which may 
 not be accomplished by the camera ; and the peculiari- 
 ties of the business are so extraordinary, the opportuni- 
 ties for humbug so excellent, and the methods and mod- 
 ifications of methods whereby spirit photographs may 
 
 Harrington : Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, p. 206. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALP7E? 179 
 
 be manufactured, so numerous, that it is hopeless for 
 any person totally ignorant of photography to detect 
 fraud." 1 
 
 Undoubtedly the most usual method of deception, 
 however, is the device of "double exposure," a trick 
 perfectly familiar to every photographer. The sight 
 of the hazy "ghost" in the developt picture, with the 
 furniture behind it showing dimly thru its "spectral" 
 robes, is quite convincing — unless you know how it 
 is done. 
 
 I cannot forbear quoting here a description, most 
 amusing in its naivete, of another mediumistic trick 
 closely allied to spirit photography. 
 
 "Sometimes a circle is treated to the rare sight of 
 seeing a picture form or materialize before their eyes, 
 when no human hand is touching the canvas, the pic- 
 ture apparently forming upon it of its own accord! 
 This is a most astonishing test. Here is the explana- 
 tion: 
 
 "A picture is made with concentrated solutions of 
 sulphocyanide of potassium, ferrocyanide of potassium 
 and tannin, all of which will be invisible until brought 
 out by the proper reagent. This is a weak solution 
 of tincture of iron, which is thrown upon the canvas 
 by means of an atomizer. The first then comes out 
 red, the second blue, and the third black. Either the 
 medium, or a confederate, creeps behind the canvas 
 during the seance, and thoroly sprays over the back 
 of the picture, when it will develop as stated. In order 
 to cover the sound of the atomizer, a music-box is set 
 
 'Carrington ; Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, p, 216, 
 
180 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 going, or the sitters are requested to sing 'Nearer, 
 My God, to Thee.' m 
 
 But altho the evidence is strongly presumptive of 
 fraud in nearly every case of spirit photography, it 
 would be hardly fair to the spiritualists to leave the 
 subject without citing at least one comparatively well- 
 attested case on the other side. This particular ex- 
 periment was performed by the Rev. J. T. Wills, D.D., 
 pastor of the Franklin Street Presbyterian Church, 
 San Francisco, Cal., and is quoted by Dr. Funk. "I 
 wish to say that for some time past my friend, Dr. 
 W. J. Pierce, of this city, had been telling me some 
 strange things about spirit photography, which seemed 
 to be incredible, and but for the fact that they were 
 told me by such a man as Dr. Pierce, I should have 
 paid no attention to them; but having known him 
 for over thirty years as a man of truth, I could not 
 doubt his word for one moment, but fearing it possible 
 that the doctor might be deceived in some way in the 
 matter, I said to him that I would like to see for my- 
 self how the thing was done, and, if possible, find out 
 the secret of the process ; and so to gratify my wish, 
 the doctor made an engagement with the medium, Mr. 
 Edmund Wyllie, to meet me at the doctor's office on 
 April i, at 4 p.m., where the doctor has a dark room, 
 and all the equipment for photography development 
 purposes. At the time appointed I went, and on my 
 way I called at a place where photographic supplies 
 are sold, and bought a half dozen 4x5 Crown-Cramer 
 sensitized plates, and took them with me in my coat 
 pocket to the office, where I met the medium, who 
 
 Harrington : Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, pp. 222-3. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 181 
 
 impressed me as being an honest man. After some 
 little talk with him, I told him I wanted to test the 
 matter for myself, and that I would like him to wash 
 his hands, which he did, first in alcohol, then with 
 soap and water, then again in alcohol, and then he dried 
 them thoroly with a clean towel ; and when his hands 
 were examined, and found to be perfectly clean, we 
 went into the dark room, which was not really dark, 
 but was lighted with a little lamp with orange-color 
 light, such as photographers use in the developing- 
 room. Then I took the plates out of my pocket and 
 took one plate out of the package, and after marking 
 it on one corner, thus, <?, and holding it at each cor- 
 ner of the end toward me, I held the plate toward the 
 medium, who placed his hands, the one on top of the 
 other, underneath, holding the plate between his palms, 
 while I continued to hold on to the corners and never 
 let it go from my grasp for one instant, until, to my 
 surprise, ... I heard three distinct taps upon the 
 plate; then the medium removed his hands and I put 
 the plate at once into the developer and developt it 
 myself. Neither was it out of my possession for one 
 second from the time that I bought it, some four blocks 
 away, until I had it fully developt; and to my aston- 
 ishment . . . there was the face of a lady on it, and 
 that so plain, that it has been recognized by my daugh- 
 ter as the likeness of a lady who was never in Cali- 
 fornia, and who died in England several years ago." 1 
 Apparitions of the Living 
 But certainly not spirit photography, and perhaps 
 not even that summing up of the Census of Hallucina- 
 
 ^uoted in Funk: The Widow's Mite, pp. 463-4. 
 
182 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 tions, seem to be sufficient reason for such a daringly- 
 positive statement as the following one of Dr. Savage : 
 
 "There is no sort of question that there are phan- 
 tasms of both the dead and living ; but no scientific man 
 takes that as proving immortality. It simply raises 
 a question as to what they are and what they mean. 
 But that what we call ghosts exist, no unprejudiced 
 student has the slightest doubt." 1 
 
 Once again I feel called upon to repeat a warning 
 that I have already given. I cannot, in any brief 
 space, begin to give the complete arguments for or 
 against any of the propositions here submitted. For 
 complete briefs of either side, for circumstantial, re- 
 peated and detailed examples, the interested reader 
 must turn to the works cited. If he thinks he dis- 
 covers a flaw in the writer's presentation, he must re- 
 member that the omission was purposed, and, indeed, 
 rendered necessary by the treatment adopted. 
 
 But let him remember this : there are no gaps wit- 
 tingly left which have not been satisfactorily filled in 
 the primary sources : my purpose is to give a condensa- 
 tion of the results obtained by others, to summarize 
 the salient points in the work of many men. When I 
 state that the Census "seems to prove" the coincidence 
 of death apparitions, I mean that the reader who dis- 
 covers apparent loopholes in my presentation will find, 
 on reference to the original work, that probably all 
 his objections were foreseen and adequately answered. 
 Did the Census itself fail to present a connected chain 
 of argument, I would so have stated. To enter into 
 any exhaustive study of the evidence would mean, not 
 
 lavage : Life After Death, p. 257. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 183 
 
 a series of short articles, but a series of volumes. I can 
 here but digest, with typical examples, the results ob- 
 tained by reputable men who have themselves made the 
 exhaustive research. 
 
 For the truth of the occurrence of apparitions of 
 living persons there is a formidable amount of evi- 
 dence; so much so, that Dr. Funk, among many oth- 
 ers, says, "it now seems certain." 
 
 "Whether," he adds, "this vision is mental, or seen 
 by the eye, is not yet certainly established. It is cer- 
 tain that the person who sees the vision is often as 
 sure that he sees with his eyes as he is of anything else 
 that his eyes see. . . ." x 
 
 The first instance I shall give is a premonitory one 
 (that is, one shortly before death), and is related by the 
 distinguished scientist, Dr. Geo. J. Romanes, F.R.S. 
 
 "Toward the end of March, 1878, in the dead of the 
 night, while believing myself to be awake, I thought 
 the door at the head of my bed was opened, and a 
 white figure passed along the side of the bed to the 
 foot, where it faced about and showed me it was cov- 
 ered, head and all, with a shroud. Then, with its 
 hands it suddenly parted the shroud over the face, re- 
 vealing between its two hands the face of my sister, 
 who was ill in another room. I exclaimed her name, 
 whereupon the figure vanished instantly. Next day 
 (and certainly on account of the shock given me by 
 the above experience) I called in Sir W. Jenner, who 
 said my sister had not many days to live. She died, 
 in fact, very soon afterward. 
 
 "I was in good health, without any grief or anxiety. 
 
 x Funk: The Widow's Mite, p. 390. 
 
184* ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 My sister was being; attended by our family doctor, 
 who did not expect anything serious ; therefore, I had 
 no anxiety at all on her account, nor had she herself. 
 I have never, either before or after this, had such an 
 experience. . . " x 
 
 This is but a sample of a very large number of such 
 "premonitory apparitions" contained in the records of 
 the Society for Psychical Research. Several others 
 will be given later in the consideration of premonitions 
 as such. 
 
 The Projection of the "Astral Body"? 
 
 If ghosts of living persons can occur spontaneously 
 there is, of course, the possibility that they can be 
 produced at will; and, indeed, we find that there are 
 on record a number of such successful attempts. One 
 very striking case seen by a Miss G., happened in 
 broad daylight, and was the result of a strong effort 
 of will power on the part of a Mr. Kirk, who made 
 the attempt thus to project his own "ghost." 
 
 "A peculiar occurrence happened to me on the 
 Wednesday of the week before last," says Miss G., 
 reporting the case to the Society. "In the afternoon 
 (being tired by a morning walk), while sitting in an 
 easy chair near the window of my room, I fell asleep. 
 At any time I happen to sleep during the day (which 
 is but seldom), I invariably awake with tired, uncom- 
 fortable sensations, which take some little time to pass 
 off; but that afternoon, on the contrary, I was sud- 
 denly quite wide awake, seeing Mr. Kirk standing near 
 my chair, dressed in a dark-brown coat, which I had 
 frequently seen him wear. His back was toward the 
 
 ^yslop : Science and the Future Life, p. 49, 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 185 
 
 window, his right hand toward me; he passed across 
 the room toward the door . . . but when he got about 
 four feet from the door, which was closed, he disap- 
 peared." 1 
 
 Another case, reported at length by Mr. Myers, is 
 remarkable for two reasons : there were two percipients 
 and the experiment was repeated, each time success- 
 fully. The evidence was closely examined by Mr. Gur- 
 ney, and is corroborated in many important details, 
 and is remarkably strong thruout. The account is 
 written by Mr. S. H. B., who "projected" the "ghost" 
 of himself in this instance. 
 
 "On a certain Sunday evening in November, 1881, 
 having been reading of the great power which the 
 human will is capable of exercising, I determined with 
 the whole force of my being that I would be present in 
 spirit in the front bedroom on the second floor of a 
 house situated at 22 Hogarth Road, Kensington, in 
 which room slept two ladies of my acquaintance, viz., 
 Miss L. S. V. and Miss E. C. V., aged, respectively, 
 twenty-five and eleven years. I was living at this time 
 at 23 Kildare Gardens, a distance of about three miles 
 from Hogarth Road, and I had not mentioned in any 
 way my intention of trying this experiment to either 
 of the above ladies, for the simple reason that it was 
 only on retiring to rest upon this Sunday night that 
 I made up my mind to do so. The time at which I 
 determined I would be there was one o'clock in the 
 morning, and I also had a strong intention of making 
 my presence perceptible. 
 
 Report on the Census of Hallucinations. S. P. R. Proceed- 
 ings, Vol. X., p. 270. 
 
186 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 "On the following- Thursday I went to see the ladies 
 in question, and in the course of conversation (with- 
 out any allusion to the subject on my part) the elder 
 one told me that on the previous Sunday night she 
 had been much terrified by perceiving me standing by 
 her bedside, and that she screamed when the apparition 
 advanced toward her, and awoke her little sister, who 
 saw me, also. 
 
 "I asked her if she was awake at the time, and she 
 replied most decidedly in the affirmative; and upon 
 my inquiring the time of the occurrence, she replied 
 about one o'clock in the morning. 
 
 "This lady, at my request, wrote down a statement 
 of the event and signed it. 
 
 "This was the first occasion upon which I tried an 
 experiment of this kind, and its complete success star- 
 tled me very much. 
 
 "Besides exercising my power of volition very 
 strongly, I put forth an effort which I cannot find 
 words to describe. I was conscious of a mysterious 
 influence of some sort permeating in my body, and had 
 a distinct impression that I was exercising some force 
 with which I had been hitherto unacquainted, but which 
 I can now, at certain times, set in motion at will." 1 
 
 The account is verified by both the Misses Verity. 
 
 Dr. Funk notes another interesting case, where a 
 man's spirit — if we are to believe his account — traveled 
 several hundred miles by train, returning to his body 
 just in time to prevent his being given up as dead. He 
 seemed, however, to be invisible to others thruout this 
 strange experience. 
 
 1 Myers : Phantasms of the Living, v. i, pp. 104-9. 
 I 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 187 
 
 Is it possible that a human being can, by willing to 
 do so, send a ghost of itself (what an East Indian 
 adept would call its "astral body") hundreds or thou- 
 sands of miles almost instantaneously? Is it possible, 
 in the first place, that a man's spirit, accompanied, or 
 without this ghostly body, can leave the material body 
 and travel at will, seemingly regardless of time or 
 space ? It may seem safer to say that, as yet, we don't 
 know ; but there are instances which seem to point in 
 this direction. 
 
 Apparitions of the Dead 
 
 In seeking the explanation of ghosts, not of the liv- 
 ing but of the dead, as of other matters lying entirely 
 outside ordinary human experience, our only clue, as 
 Myers says, is some attempt at continuity with what 
 we already know. Thus we have seen that telepathy, 
 and even clairvoyance, are not inconceivable in this 
 day of the wireless telephone, the proved existence of 
 those mysterious rapid vibrations of the ether of which, 
 as yet, we know tantalizingly little except that exist- 
 ence, and the, as yet, almost unknown "higher" forces 
 of the human mind and body. 
 
 But granting the possibility of clairvoyance, that is, 
 granting the projection, for many miles, of a power 
 of sight, it is but a step to view as possible the similar 
 projection of the apparition of a living person. And 
 similarly, as Dr. Hyslop notes, "If thoughts of the liv- 
 ing can produce hallucinations at a distance, it is but 
 a step to the supposition that the dead, if they actually 
 survive death, can produce similar effects. . . J" 1 
 
 a Hyslop : Borderland of Psychical Research, p. 192. 
 
188 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 "If they survive death," you will notice. But be- 
 fore attempted explanation, let us consider a few, a 
 few out of a very large number, of typical instances of 
 the phenomena itself. 
 
 We have one on the authority of no less a person 
 than Lord Brougham, the philosopher and scientist, 
 who was traveling in Sweden at the time of the inci- 
 dent he describes. 
 
 "We set out for Gothenberg, determined to make 
 Norway. About one in the morning, arriving at a de- 
 cent inn, we decided to stop for the night. Tired with 
 the cold of yesterday, I was glad to take advantage 
 of a hot bath before I turned in, and here a most re- 
 markable thing happened to me — so remarkable that 
 1 must tell the story from the beginning. 
 
 "After I left the high school I went with G., my 
 first intimate friend, to attend the classes in the uni- 
 versity. There was no divinity class, but we frequently 
 in our walks discussed and speculated upon many grave 
 subjects — among others, on the immortality of the soul, 
 and on a future state. This question, and the possibil- 
 ity, I will not say of ghosts walking, but of the dead 
 appearing to the living, were subjects of much specu- 
 lation; and we actually committed the folly of draw- 
 ing up an agreement, written with our own blood, to 
 the effect that whichever of us died the first should 
 appear to the other, and thus solve the doubts we had 
 entertained of the 'life after death.' 
 
 "After we had finished our classes at the college, 
 G. went to India, having got an appointment there in 
 the civil service. He seldom wrote to me, and after 
 the lapse of a few years I had almost forgotten him; 
 moreover, his family having little connection with Edin- 
 
Spirit Photography- 
 Alleged photograph of an ancient, taken in Chicago by Mr. Blackwell 
 (on the left). This same "spirit" has appeared on his plates in many 
 parts of the world. 
 
ARE THE DEAD AMVE? 189 
 
 burgh, I seldom saw or heard anything of them, so that 
 all his schoolboy intimacy had died out, and I had 
 nearly forgotten his existence. I had taken, as I have 
 said, a warm bath, and while lying in it, and enjoying 
 the comfort of the heat after the late freezing I had 
 undergone, I turned my head around, looking toward 
 the chair on which I had deposited my clothes, as I 
 was about to get out of the bath. On the chair sat G., 
 looking calmly at me. How I got out of the bath I 
 know not, but on recovering my senses I found myself 
 sprawling on the floor. The apparition, or whatever 
 it was that had taken the likeness of G., had disap- 
 peared." 1 
 
 This, it will be noted, rests entirely on Lord Brough- 
 am's personal word; but remembering the bias of his 
 writings, it seems unlikely that he would fabricate a 
 ghostly visit. 
 
 Here is another typical instance of an apparition 
 occurring at or soon after the moment of death. 
 
 "A gentleman," says Dr. Hyslop, relating the inci- 
 dent, "had a friend whom he calls J. P., that had gone 
 out to the Transvaal, in Africa. When they bade 
 each other farewell they expected to see each other 
 again. But one night the narrator had gone to bed 
 about one o'clock. Early in the morning this expe- 
 rience took place: 
 
 " 'Standing by my bed, between me and the chest of 
 drawers, I saw a figure, which, in spite of the unwonted 
 dress — unwonted, at least, to me — and of a full black 
 beard, I at once recognized as that of my old brother 
 officer. He had on the usual khaki coat worn by the 
 
 Quoted in Hyslop: Science and the Future Life, pp. 48-9. 
 
190 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 officers on active service in eastern climates. A brown 
 leather strap, which might have been the strap of his 
 field-service glass, crossed his breast. A brown leather 
 girdle, with sword attached on the left side, and revol- 
 ver-case on the right, passed around his waist. On 
 his head he wore the ordinary white pith helmet of 
 service. I noticed all these particulars in the moment 
 that I started from sleep, and sat up in bed looking at 
 him. His face was pale, but his bright black eyes 
 shone as keenly as when, a year and a half before, they 
 had looked upon me as he stood with one foot on the 
 hansom, bidding me adieu.' 
 
 " 'Fully impressed for the brief moment that we were 
 
 stationed together at C , in Ireland, or somewhere, 
 
 and thinking I was in my barrack-room, I said, "Hello, 
 P. ! Am I late for parade ?" P. looked at me steadily 
 and replied, "I'm shot." 
 
 " ' "Shot !" I exclaimed. "Good God ! How, and 
 where ?" 
 
 " ' "Through the lungs," replied P., and as he spoke 
 his right hand moved slowly up to his breast until the 
 fingers rested over the right lung. 
 
 " ' "What were you doing ?" I asked. 
 
 " ' "The general sent me forward," he answered, and 
 the right hand left the breast, to move slowly to the 
 front, pointing over my head to the window, and at 
 the same moment the figure melted away. I rubbed 
 my eyes, to make sure I was not dreaming, and sprang 
 out of bed. It was 4.10 a.m. by the clock on my man- 
 telpiece.' 
 
 "That day the gentleman looked for news from the 
 war, but found none, and spoke to a friend about his 
 experience, and on the next day the news placed his. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 191 
 
 friend, J. P., among the killed in the battle of Lang's 
 Neck. The London Gazette shows that the man was 
 killed probably between eleven and twelve o'clock on 
 January 28. It seems probable that the narrator's time, 
 4.10 in the morning, is wrong for his experience, but 
 Mr. Gurney thinks that the apparition took place after 
 death, or very close to it. . . " 1 
 
 I cannot here relate another interesting case, given 
 by Dr. Hyslop on the authority of Mr. Ira Sayles, of 
 the U. S. Geological Survey, of an apparition of a 
 young man which pointed to a bullet hole over its right 
 eye (discovered afterward to be really the cause of his 
 death) ; or of the very striking case of the twin brother 
 of Mrs. Storie, already mentioned, who was run over 
 while asleep on a railroad track. Mrs. Storie's narra- 
 tive is given at length in Phantasms of the Living; and 
 the way in which she saw the entire tragedy, as it was 
 taking place hundreds of miles away from her, makes 
 very interesting reading. Neither can I do more than 
 mention the gentleman who saw an apparition of his 
 brother in a theater in Toronto, while the latter was 
 dying in China ; or the interesting case reported by the 
 well-known writer and physician, Dr. S. Weir Mitch- 
 ell; or of the apparition of Lord L , seen by the 
 
 Duchess of Hamilton. 
 
 The Morton "Haunting" 
 
 Something further, however, must be said regard- 
 ing the famous Morton case, partly because it is prob- 
 ably the best authenticated instance of "haunting" on 
 
 Quoted in Hyslop: Enigmas of Psychical Research, pp. 
 245-7- 
 
192 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 record, partly because it stands as a type of a large 
 class. Unlike those previously mentioned, this is an 
 instance where the ghost appears some years after the 
 death of the person. 
 
 The case was most fully described by a Miss R. C. 
 Morton, whose paper, a Record of a Haunted House, 
 appears in Volume VIII of the Proceedings. 1 The 
 ghost in question was seen independently, however, 
 by at least twenty other persons besides herself, six 
 of whom made "independent first-hand statements." 
 These witnesses were examined by Frederic Myers 
 personally, and their testimony was so detailed and 
 completely corroborative that, were this an incident in 
 ordinary life, the assumption would be considered 
 proved beyond the shadow of a doubt. 
 
 The house in which the Mortons resided "was built 
 about the year i860; the first occupant was Mr. S., 
 an Anglo-Indian, who lived in it for about sixteen 
 years. During this time, in the month of August, year 
 uncertain, he lost his wife, to whom he was passion- 
 ately attached, and to drown his grief took to drink- 
 ing. About two years later Mr. S. married again. 
 His second wife, a Miss I. H., was in hopes of curing 
 him of his intemperate habits, but instead, she also 
 took to drinking, and their married life was embittered 
 by constant quarrels, frequently resulting in violent 
 scenes. . . . She died on September 23, 1878. 
 
 "After Mr. S.'s death the house was bought by Mr. 
 L., an elderly gentleman, who died rather suddenly 
 
 ^he following quotations regarding the case are from this 
 paper. 
 
Mr. Frank Podmore 
 
 Most scholarly of all the anti-spiritualistic investigators of psychical 
 phenomena. His masterly attack, "A History of Modern Spiritualism," 
 is the authority. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 193 
 
 within six months of going into it. The house then 
 remained empty for some years — probably four. 
 
 "During this time there is no direct evidence of 
 haunting, but when inquiry was made later on, much 
 hearsay evidence was brought forward. In April, 1882, 
 the house was let by the representatives of the late 
 Mr. L. to Captain Morton, . . ." 
 
 Miss Morton continues: 
 
 "The family consists of Captain M. himself; his 
 wife, who is a great invalid; neither of whom saw 
 anything; a married daughter, Mrs. K., then about 
 twenty-six, who was only a visitor from time to time, 
 sometimes with, but more often without, her husband ; 
 four unmarried daughters : myself, then aged nineteen, 
 who was the chief percipient, and now give the chief 
 account of the apparition ; E. Morton, then aged eight- 
 een; L. and M. Morton, then fifteen and thirteen; 
 two sons, one of sixteen, who was absent during the 
 greater part of the time when the apparition was seen ; 
 the other then six years old. 
 
 "My father took the house in March, 1882, none of 
 us having then heard of anything unusual about the 
 house. We moved in toward the end of April, and it 
 was not until the following June that I first saw the 
 apparition. 
 
 "I had gone up to my room, but was not yet in bed, 
 when I heard some one at the door, and went to it, 
 thinking it might be my mother. On opening the door 
 I saw no one ; but on going a few steps along the pas- 
 sage I saw the figure of a tall lady, dressed in black, 
 standing at the head of the stairs. After a few mo- 
 ments she descended the stairs, and I followed for a 
 short distance, feeling curious what it could be. I 
 
194. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 had only a small piece of candle, and it suddenly burnt 
 itself out; and being unable to see more, I went back 
 to my room. 
 
 "The figure was that of a tall lady, dressed in black 
 of a soft woolen material, judging from the slight 
 sound in moving. The face was hidden in a hand- 
 kerchief held in the right hand. This is all I noticed 
 then; but on further occasions, when I was able to 
 observe her more closely, I saw the upper part of the 
 left side of the forehead and a little of the hair above. 
 Her left hand was nearly hidden by her sleeve and a 
 fold of her dress. As she held it down, a portion of a 
 widow's cuff was visible on both wrists, so that the 
 whole impression was that of a lady in widow's weeds. 
 There was no cap on the head, but a general effect 
 of blackness suggested a bonnet, with long veil or 
 a hood." 
 
 Somewhat later Miss Morton says, for her narrative 
 is altogether too long to quote in full : 
 
 "After the first, I followed the figure several times 
 downstairs into the drawing-room, where she remained 
 a variable time, generally standing to the right-hand 
 side of the bow-window. From the drawing-room she 
 went along the passage toward the garden door, where 
 she always disappeared. 
 
 "The first time I spoke to her was on January 29, 
 1884. I opened the drawing-room door softly and went 
 in, standing just by it. She came in past me and 
 walked to the sofa and stood still there ; so I went up 
 to her and asked her if I could help her. She moved, 
 and I thought she was going to speak, but she only 
 gave a slight gasp and moved toward the door. Just 
 by the door I spoke to her again, but she seemed as 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 195 
 
 if she were quite unable to speak. She walked into 
 the hall, and then by the side door she seemed to disap- 
 pear as before." 
 
 Miss Morton then proceeds to relate a large num- 
 ber of instances when the apparition was seen, by many 
 different people, on one occasion by as many as four 
 people in one evening. 
 
 The apparition continued to be seen at intervals 
 during the next three years. 
 
 "At Mr. Myers' suggestion, I kept a photographic 
 camera constantly ready to try to photograph the fig- 
 ure, but on the few occasions I was able to do so, I got 
 no result ; at night, usually only by candlelight, a long 
 exposure would be necessary for so dark a figure, and 
 this I could not obtain." 
 
 The narrative thruout is a very remarkable one. 
 Miss Morton, as Dr. Funk notes, was a "capital wit- 
 ness, not being in the least nervous." Frequently, she 
 says, she "tried to communicate with the figure, con- 
 stantly speaking to it, and asking it to make signs, if 
 not able to speak, but with no result. I also tried 
 especially to touch her, but did not succeed. On cor- 
 nering her, as I did once or twice, she disappeared." 
 
 Myers says that Miss Morton had "scientific training, 
 and was at the time her account was written (April, 
 1892) preparing to be a physician." 
 
 Here are the "proofs of immateriality" of the appa- 
 rition, with which Miss Morton sums up her account: 
 
 1. "I have several times fastened fine strings across 
 the stairs, at various heights, before going to bed, but 
 after all others have gone up to their rooms. ... I 
 made small pellets of marine glue, into which I in- 
 serted the ends of the cord, then stuck one pellet lightly 
 
196 ARE THE BEAD ALIVE? 
 
 against the wall and the other to the banister, the string 
 being thus stretched across the stairs. They were 
 knocked down by a very slight touch, and yet would 
 not be felt by any one passing up or down the stairs, 
 and by candlelight could not be seen from below. They 
 were put at various heights from the ground, from six 
 inches to the height of the banister, about three feet. 
 I have twice at least seen the figure pass through the 
 cords, leaving them intact. 
 
 2. "The sudden and complete disappearance of the 
 figure while still in view. 
 
 3. "The impossibility of touching the figure. I have 
 repeatedly followed it into a corner, when it disap- 
 peared, and have tried to suddenly pounce upon it, 
 but have never succeeded in touching it or getting my 
 hand up to it, the figure eluding my touch. 
 
 4. "It has appeared in a room with the doors shut. 
 On the other hand, the figure was not called up by a 
 desire to see it, for on every occasion when we had 
 made special arrangements to watch for it we never 
 saw it. . . ." 
 
 1 We must remember, too, that the figure was seen 
 "by about twenty people, many of them not having 
 previously heard of the apparition." Tho its identity 
 — and this question of identity becomes of importance 
 a little later — was never proved, Miss Morton be- 
 lieves, for the following reasons, that it was the second 
 Mrs. S.: 
 
 "1. The complete history of the house is known, and 
 if we are to connect the figure with any of the previous 
 occupants, she is the only person who in any way re- 
 sembled the figure ; and the figure is undoubtedly con- 
 nected with the house, none of the percipients having 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 197 
 
 seen it anywhere else, nor had any other hallucina- 
 tion. 
 
 "2. The widow's garb excludes the first Mrs. S. 
 
 "3. Altho none of us had ever seen the second Mrs. 
 S., several people who had known her identified her 
 from our description. On being shown a photo-album 
 containing a number of portraits, I picked out one 
 of her sister as being most like that of the figure, and 
 was afterward told that the sisters were much alike. 
 
 "4. Her stepdaughter and others told us that she 
 especially used the front drawing-room, in which she 
 continually appeared, and that her habitual seat was 
 on a couch placed in a similar position to ours. . . Z' 1 
 
 1 See the S. P. R. Proceedings, v. 8, pp. 311-32; also, Funk: 
 The Widow's Mite, pp. 396-400; Myers: Human Personality, 
 v. 2, pp. 389-96. 
 
"SURVIVAL IS IMPROBABLE" 
 
 Survival is a hypothesis which people who do not stop 
 to reflect accept complacently. But the philosopher is a 
 little more reserved. 
 
 Life is painful enough not to give us any very brilliant idea 
 of what is to follow, and it is with something akin to terror 
 that I figure the possibility that I, my ego, my consciousness, 
 can have no end, and will live eternally. Who knows, in that 
 case, what is reserved for me? We are all, all such deplor- 
 able cowards, so ridiculously feeble in the face of the im- 
 mensity of the universe, that we have everything to fear from 
 the colossal forces, perhaps unjust, perhaps absurd, which will 
 have the power, perhaps eternally, to submit us to tortures 
 and to misery. 
 
 Happily this survival is improbable. A lamp goes out when 
 the oil is finished. The consciousness will become extinguished 
 when it lacks carbon and oxygen. Then it will be night, sleep, 
 repose; night without dawn, sleep with no awakening, repose 
 with no return to activity. 
 
 It is true that there are some who believe they have given 
 scientific proofs of survival. But these proofs are very fragile. 
 Who knows, nevertheless, but that one day new proofs will be 
 discovered? Our ignorance is so profound that everything is 
 possible. Metaphysics is making such progress that the proofs, 
 either negative or positive, may perhaps be forthcoming. 
 
 In any case, we may be assured of one thing— that this will 
 only be demonstrated by the most painstaking and laborious 
 scientific research. This, and this only, will shed light on 
 the future of our "me," our ego, our being. 
 
 We keep track rather badly of the march of ideas. Every- 
 thing around us changes — costumes, machinery, language, even 
 — and these changes, which are gradual, pass unperceived. 
 Once a progression has been effected it enters so rapidly into 
 our manners that we have trouble to realize that it has not 
 always existed. Young people to-day do not imagine that 
 thirty years ago the telephone, the phonograph, bicycles, auto- 
 198 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 199 
 
 mobiles, sleeping-cars, antiseptics, X-rays, and even the theory 
 of microbes, did not exist. It appears to-day as though these 
 things had always existed, and that one could not live without 
 them. Nevertheless, you only need to call up the recollections 
 of a man of my generation, and he will tell you that not only 
 these things were unknown, but that no one dreamed that they 
 would one day exist. 
 
 We change, then, and we change very rapidly, but by little 
 transitions, imperceptibly. 
 
 Now in psychical science everything is so profoundly modi- 
 fied that to get any idea of this it is necessary to look back 
 about thirty years. Thirty years ago neither animal mag- 
 netism, nor hypnotism, nor any of the phenomena called occult, 
 were accepted. Nor did any one give himself the trouble to 
 study them. All such investigations were treated with a smile 
 of incredulity and disdain. The most simple thing was to 
 deny everything. In the encyclopedia of 1875 the definition 
 given for animal magnetism is thus summed up: "Animal 
 magnetism does not exist." 
 
 The doctrines of psychical phenomena were flouted equally 
 by the sages and the vulgar. It was not even admitted that 
 an honest man could occupy himself seriously with such "non- 
 sense," to try to discover whether the manifestations were 
 true or false. 
 
 This is one of the reasons why I have such a profound 
 admiration for that great savant, Sir William Crookes. It is 
 not alone that he discovered new metals, invented admirable 
 instruments with which to work, by which fertile discoveries 
 have been made, and imagined audacious theories the profound 
 penetration of which each day confirms. But it is for another 
 thing that I admire him most — for his scientific courage! The 
 professional courage of the savant is equal any day to that of 
 the soldier who rushes with fixed bayonet into the thick of 
 battle. Sir William Crookes was one of the first of the scien- 
 tific men to dare to publish his investigations in spiritualistic 
 phenomena. And this opened up the road to hundreds more 
 timid. 
 
 To-day young students talk, as a matter of course, of animal 
 magnetism, hypnotic suggestion, and other phenomena of a 
 
200 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 similar order. They cannot imagine the discredit such ideas 
 brought down upon the head of the young aspirant of three 
 decades ago. I remember yet when I told my father, 
 by whose counsel and high intelligence I was always guided, 
 I wanted to publish my investigations on somnambulism. 
 He cried: "But, my boy, do you want to ruin your career?" 
 
 Happily, one is never quite lost when one defends what 
 one believes to be true. So I am convinced that in the near 
 future, after new facts have been demonstrated, after able 
 experimenters, aided by powerful mediums, shall have thrown 
 new light on certain phenomena which are as yet rather shad- 
 owy, we shall be brought to modify profoundly all of our 
 conceptions on metaphysics and metaphysical manifestations. 
 We will have other hypotheses than that of angels and spirits, 
 or of human emanations, for the explanation of the tipping of 
 tables and of materialized bodies. There is a force which 
 exists, an unknown force, as truly as the law of natural 
 selection existed long before Darwin so named it, and as 
 the theory of electricity was true long before Ampere, Faraday 
 or Franklin made their discoveries in regard to it. 
 
 Up to the present time the phenomena which we have been 
 able to examine have been only fragmentary. The tie which 
 binds them escapes us. But it will not always be so. The day 
 will come when an explanation will be given, an explanation 
 quite different to all those which our ignorance has constructed. 
 The discovery is perhaps quite simple. Let us, then, have 
 confidence in a science which will open up to us a limitless 
 horizon. 
 
 Do we not know already that science has diminished by 
 one-half the miseries and ills of humanity, miseries into 
 which we have fallen through ignorance? Well, what medical 
 and physical science has done for the human body may we not 
 hope metaphysical science in turn may accomplish for the 
 spiritual self when the question of survival will become no 
 longer a theory, a problem, but an established fact? 
 
 Then let us work, study, employ sure methods, and not 
 abandon ourselves to hollow phrases and uncertain hopes. 
 Science alone, and a severe science, will have the right to 
 solve the Grand Problem. —Charles Richet. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 WHAT ARE GHOSTS?— "MATERIALIZA- 
 TIONS" 
 
 It is, of course, useless to give stories of ghostly 
 appearances with any great hope that the reality of 
 the apparitions will be accepted by the reader, no mat- 
 ter how circumstantial the accounts may be, unless 
 we can at least suggest what the "ghost" may be, and 
 what laws govern its appearances. 
 
 Now, however easy it may be to "tell ghost stories" 
 when we attempt in simple language to give any ade- 
 quate scientific explanation of the phenomena we very 
 quickly find ourselves in deep water. 
 
 "Whatever else, indeed, a ghost may be," says My- 
 ers, "it is probably one of the most complex phenomena 
 in nature. It is a function of two unknown variables 
 — the incarnate spirit's sensitivity and the discarnate 
 spirit's capacity of self-manifestation. . . J' 1 
 
 First, in the light of the researches of the Society 
 for Psychical Research, what is a ghost? 
 
 "The popular view regards a ghost as a deceased 
 person permitted by Providence to hold communion 
 with survivors. And this short definition contains, I 
 think," says Myers, "at least three unwarrantable as- 
 sumptions. 
 
 'Myers: Human Personality, p. 229. 
 201 
 
202 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 "In the first place, such words as permission and 
 Providence are simply neither more nor less appli- 
 cable to this phenomenon than to any other. We con- 
 ceive that all phenomena alike take place in accordance 
 with the laws of the universe, and consequently by 
 permission of the Supreme Power in the universe. Un- 
 doubtedly, the phenomena with which we are dealing 
 are in this sense permitted to occur. . . . But if we 
 attempt to find in these phenomena any poetical jus- 
 tice, or manifest adaptation to human cravings, we shall 
 be just as much disappointed as if we endeavored to 
 find a similar satisfaction in the ordinary course of 
 terrene history. 
 
 "In the second place, we have no warrant for the 
 assumption that the phantom seen, even though it be 
 somehow caused by a deceased person, is the deceased 
 person, in any ordinary sense of the word. Instead 
 of appealing to the crude analogy of the living friend, 
 who, when he has walked into the room, is in the room, 
 we shall find for the ghost a much closer parallel in 
 those hallucinatory figures or phantasms which living 
 persons can sometimes project at a distance. 
 
 "But experience shows that . . . there is a tendency, 
 so to say, to anthropomorphose the apparition ; to sup- 
 pose that, as the deceased person is not provably any- 
 where else, he is probably here ; and that the apparition 
 is bound to behave accordingly. All such assumptions 
 must be dismissed, and the phantom must be taken 
 on its merits, as indicating merely a connection with 
 the deceased." 1 . . . "And in the third place, just as we 
 must cease to say that the phantom is the deceased, so 
 
 ^he italics are mine. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 203 
 
 also must we cease to ascribe to the phantom the mo- 
 tives by which we imagine that the deceased might be 
 swayed. We must, therefore, exclude from our defini- 
 tion of a ghost any words which assume its intention 
 to communicate with the living. It may bear such a 
 relation to the deceased that it can reflect or repre- 
 sent his presumed wish to communicate, or it may not. 
 If, for instance, its relation to his post-mortem life be 
 like the relation of my dreams to my earthly life, it 
 may represent little that is truly his, save such vague 
 memories and instincts as give a dim individuality to 
 each man's trivial dreams." 1 
 
 No one could state more clearly than does Myers 
 the things which a "ghost" is generally suposed to be, 
 but which science says it is not. Now, what is it? 
 
 "Let us attempt, then," continues Mr. Myers, "a 
 truer definition. Instead of describing a ghost as a 
 dead person permitted to communicate with the living, 
 let us define it as a manifestation of persistent personal 
 energy, or as an indication that some kind of force is 
 being exercised. after death which is in some way con- 
 nected with a person previously known on earth. . . ." 2 
 
 This is far from being as definite as the sensationalist 
 might desire ; but the very carefulness of its generality 
 renders it more capable of scientific acceptation and 
 further investigation. 
 
 Furthermore, as Myers goes on to state, the "spirit" 
 of the person, so far from causing the "ghost" of him- 
 self to be seen, may not even know that his "ghost" 
 exists, or is being seen. Nay, more than that, there 
 
 ^yers : Human Personality, Vol. II., p. 3. *Ibid., p. 4. 
 
204) ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 is considerable evidence in support of an even more 
 striking thesis, namely, that a ghost may be simply an 
 impression of some kind on the ether or atmosphere 
 not requiring any action on the part of the deceased 
 person, voluntary or involuntary ! It "may be (in oth- 
 er words) some residue of the force or energy which 
 he generated while yet alive," which remains hanging 
 around the place where he was accustomed to be. 
 
 Edmund Gurney suggests this theory of veridical 
 after-images, as he calls them, in his comment upon 
 the "recurring figure of an old woman — seen on the 
 bed where she was murdered," stating that she may be 
 only "the survival of a mere image, impressed, we can- 
 not guess how, or we cannot guess what, and percep- 
 tible at times to those endowed with some cognate form 
 of sensitiveness." 1 
 
 Now, this latter theory, if correct, means, of course, 
 that we may have true "ghosts," that is, sensible appa- 
 ritions of persons that have died, without this proving 
 that those persons have any continued existence after 
 death at all. They may have died, and died utterly 
 "for good and all," and still leave behind these sort 
 of lifeless, unsubstantial "husks" of themselves to float 
 around their habitual haunts for weeks or years after- 
 ward. 
 
 There are, indeed, several facts that seem to support 
 the theory that this may be all that simple "haunting" 
 is. This, for instance, accounts for the clothes of the 
 ghost, a difficulty which in other cases has been often 
 urged, "and never," says Mr. Myers, "satisfactorily 
 answered." It is supported by the fact that these 
 
 *S. P. R. Proceedings, v. 4, p. 417. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 205 
 
 "haunts" appear in the places frequented by the de- 
 ceased, and never elsewhere ; and are frequently "laid," 
 according to the popular idea, when repairs or altera- 
 tions are made of the place where they occur. Such 
 an apparition as Miss Morton's may be accounted for 
 wholly by this hypothesis. 
 
 But tho I believe this theory possible, and, indeed, 
 probable in some cases, it is very difficult to explain 
 all "ghosts" in this way. There are many cases, and 
 several reasons, that point to the probability of the 
 continued existence after death of the person whose 
 ghost appears. 
 
 Ghosts occasionally speak (we are considering now 
 only of those certified by the records of the Society for 
 Psychical Research). They appear in places where 
 they, in their human existence, never were, and to 
 persons whom they never knew. And there is incon- 
 testable evidence that the thought and emotion of liv- 
 ing persons has affected the movements or other ac- 
 tions of the apparition ; a thing that could not happen 
 were the "ghost" merely a lifeless, unsubstantial husk. 
 
 Not All "Ghosts" Are Subjective 
 
 Before closing we must face courageously the diffi- 
 culty — and this is the first and strongest argument 
 brought up by the anti-spiritualist — that these appari- 
 tions, tho possibly believed genuine by those who see 
 them, are entirely subjective; that is, they are hallu- 
 cinations, that exist only in the mind of the person 
 seeing them. 
 
 "There remain three, and I think only three, condi- 
 tions," says Mr. Edmund Gurney, "which might es- 
 tablish a presumption that an apparition or other imme- 
 
206 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 diate manifestation of a dead person is something more 
 than a mere subjective hallucination of the percipient's 
 senses. Either (i) more persons than one might be 
 independently affected by the phenomenon; or (2) the 
 phantasm might convey information, afterward dis- 
 covered to be true, of something which the percipient 
 had never known; or (3) the appearance might be 
 that of a person whom the percipient himself had never 
 seen, and of whose aspect he was ignorant, and yet 
 his description of it might be sufficiently definite for 
 identification. . . ." x 
 
 For the encouragement of the would-be believer in 
 spiritualistic phenomena, the materialist must admit 
 that every one of these conditions has been met over 
 and over again. Miss Morton's case is one among 
 many where a "ghost" has been seen simultaneously by 
 several observers. (And the anti-spiritualist's answer 
 to this — namely, that one of these persons has an hal- 
 lucination, and the others present telepathically receive 
 from him, and have the same hallucination, simulta- 
 neously — does, I confess, seem to me a trifle far- 
 fetched.) The ghost, in very many cases, gives infor- 
 mation unknown to the percipients. For instance, the 
 officer in the Transvaal, and the young man mentioned 
 by Dr. Sayles, gave information about their own deaths 
 absolutely unknown to those who saw their appari- 
 tions. 
 
 Miss Morton's case, also, is an example of the third 
 requirement, the identification of the ghost of a stran- 
 ger; tho, in fairness to the spiritualist, it should be 
 added that there are many much stranger instances. 
 
 'Quoted in Hyslop : Enigmas of Psychical Research, p. 240. 
 
iARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 207 
 
 To overturn the hallucination theory we have, also, 
 however, two strong positive arguments. 
 
 The first was noted in our account of the Census of 
 Hallucinations, namely, that seemingly conclusive body 
 of proof connecting ghosts directly with the decease of 
 their owner. Mr. Gurney puts the case very neatly : I 
 
 "According to the doctrines of probabilities, an hal- 
 lucination representing a known person would not, by 
 chance, present a definite time relation to a special cog- 
 nate event — viz., the death of that person — in more than 
 a certain percentage of the whole number of similar 
 hallucinations that occur; and if that percentage is 
 decidedly exceeded, there is reason to surmise that, 
 some other cause than chance — in other words, some, 
 objective origin for the phantasm — is present." 1 
 
 Do Animals See Apparitions? 
 
 But there is another very striking collection of facts 
 pointing to the objective reality of apparitions, facts 
 which have not, it seems to me, been treated with the 
 importance they deserve. I speak of the effect which 
 these apparitions have had upon animals. People, you 
 may argue, have hallucinations ; do animals ? And do 
 they also "receive them telepathically" and simultane- 
 ously from humans? 
 
 Alfred Russell Wallace has collected a number of 
 these instances. . . . 
 
 "I have already mentioned the case of the female 
 figure in white, seen by three persons, floating over a 
 hedge ten feet above the ground, when the horse they 
 were driving 'suddenly stopped and shook with fright.' 
 In the remarks upon this case in Phantasms of the Liv- 
 
 ] See the S. P. R. Proceedings, Vol. V., pp. 403-408. 
 
208 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 ing, no reference is made to this fact, yet it is surely 
 the crucial one, since we can hardly suppose that a 
 wholly subjective apparition, seen by human beings, 
 would also be seen by a horse. During the tremen- 
 dous knocking recorded by Mr. Garling ... it is stat- 
 ed that there was a large dog in a kennel near the front 
 entrance, especially to warn off intruders, and a little 
 terrier inside that barked at everybody ; yet, when the 
 noise occurred that awakened the servants, sixty feet 
 away, 'the dogs gave no tongue whatever ; the terrier, 
 contrary to its nature, slunk shivering under the sofa, 
 and would not stop even at the door, and nothing could 
 induce him to go into the darkness.' 
 
 "In the remarkable account of a haunted house dur- 
 ing an occupation of twelve months by a well-known 
 English church dignitary, the very different behavior 
 of dogs in the presence of real and phantasmal dis- 
 turbances is pointed out. When an attempt was made 
 to rob the vicarage, the dogs gave prompt alarm, and 
 the clergyman was aroused by their fierce barking. 
 During the mysterious noises, however, tho these were 
 much louder and more disturbing, they never barked 
 at all, but were always 'found cowering in a state of 
 pitiable terror.' They are said to have been more . . . 
 perturbed than any other members of the establish- 
 ment, and 'if not shut up below, would make their way 
 to our bedroom door and lie there, crouching and 
 whining, as long as we would allow them.' 1 
 
 "In the account of haunting in a house at Ham- 
 mersmith, near London, which went on for five years, 
 where steps and noises were heard, and a phantom 
 
 'S. P. R. Proceedings, Vol. VI., p. 151. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 209 
 
 woman seen, 'the dog whined incessantly' during the 
 disturbances, and 'the dog was evidently still afraid 
 of the room when the morning came. I called to him 
 to go into it with me, and he crouched down, with his 
 tail between his legs, and seemed to fear entering it.' 1 
 
 "On the occasion of a 'wailing cry,' heard before a 
 death in a rectory in Staffordshire, a house standing 
 quite alone in open country, 'we found a favorite bull- 
 dog, a very courageous animal, trembling with terror, 
 with his nose thrust into some billets of firewood which 
 were kept under the stairs.' On another occasion, 'an 
 awful howling, followed by shriek upon shriek,' with 
 a sound like that caused by a strong wind, was heard, 
 altho everything out of doors was quite still, and it is 
 stated, 'We had three dogs sleeping in my sisters' and 
 my bedrooms, and they were all cowering down with 
 affright, their bristles standing straight up; one — a 
 bulldog — was under the bed, and refused to come out, 
 and when removed was found to be trembling all over.' 
 The remark of Mrs. Sidgwick on these and other cases 
 of warning sounds is, that 'if not real, natural sounds, 
 they must have been collective hallucinations.' But it 
 has not been shown that 'real, natural sounds' ever pro- 
 duce such effects upon dogs, and there is no suggestion 
 that 'collective hallucination' can be telepathically trans- 
 ferred to these animals. In one case, however, it is 
 suggested that the dog might have 'been suddenly taken 
 ill.' (!)» 
 
 "In the remarkable account by General Barter, C.B., 
 of a phantasmal pony and rider, with two native 
 
 !S. P. R. Proceedings, Vol. VIIL, p. 116. 
 'Ibid., Vol. XIII., pp. 307-08. 
 
210 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 grooms, seen in India, two dogs, which immediately 
 before were hunting about in the brushwood jungle 
 which covered the hill, came and crouched by the gen- 
 eral's side, giving low, frightened whimpers ; and when 
 he pursued the phantasm the dogs returned home, tho 
 on all other occasions they were his most faithful com- 
 panions. . . . x 
 
 "During the disturbances at the Cemetery of Ahrens- 
 burg, in the island of Oesel, where coffins were over- 
 turned in locked vaults, and the case was investigated 
 by an official commission, the horses of country peo- 
 ple visiting the cemetery were often so alarmed and 
 excited that they became covered with sweat and foam. 
 Sometimes they threw themselves on the ground, where 
 they struggled in apparent agony, and notwithstanding 
 the immediate resort to remedial measures, several died 
 within a day or two. In this case, as in many others, 
 altho the commission made a most rigid investigation, 
 and applied the strictest tests, no natural cause for the 
 disturbances was ever discovered." 2 
 
 "In the wonderful case of haunting in Pennsylvania, 
 given by Mr. Hodgson in The Arena 3 . . . when the 
 apparition of the white lady appeared to the inform- 
 ant's brother, we find it stated: 'The third night he 
 saw the dog crouch and stare, and then act as if driven 
 around the room. Brother saw nothing, but heard a 
 sort of rustle, and the poor dog howled and tried to 
 hide, and never again would the dog go to that room.' " 
 
 Now, these instances, by no means rare, are, as 
 Alfred Russell Wallace himself said . . . ''certainly re- 
 
 1 S. P. R. Proceedings, Vol. XIV, pp. 469-70. 
 2 R. D. Owen : Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World, 
 pp. 186-92. a Arena for September, 1890, p. 419. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 211 
 
 markable, and worthy of deep consideration. The facts 
 are such, as on the theories of telepathy and hallucina- 
 tion ought not to happen, and they are especially trust- 
 worthy facts, because they are, almost invariably, intro- 
 duced into the narrative as if unexpected; while that 
 they were noticed, shows that the observers were in 
 no degree panic-struck with terror. They show unmis- 
 takably that large numbers of phantasms . . . are ob- 
 jective realities ; while the terror displayed by the ani- 
 mals that perceive them, and their behavior, so unlike 
 that in the presence of natural sights and sounds, no 
 less clearly proves that, tho objective, the phenomena 
 are not normal, and are not to be explained as in any 
 way due to trick or to misinterpreted natural sounds." 1 
 
 Whether ghosts exist at all or not, it is now for the 
 reader to judge. Whether they may always exist with- 
 out implying necessarily a future life for the person 
 whom they appear to represent, this also he must de- 
 cide. He may now either answer for himself the ques- 
 tion : Do ghosts help to prove the existence of a future 
 life? Or, like Dr. Hyslop, in a caution uttered a few 
 years ago, he may for a while defer judgment. . . . 
 
 "Nor would I encourage confidence," says the latter, 
 "in the spiritistic explanation of phantasms of the 
 dead, until we have gathered much more material, and 
 perhaps material with better evidence of its supernor- 
 mal character. Apparitions are not likely to be suffi- 
 cient proof of survival after death for the scientific 
 man until better records are made of the facts. . . ." 2 
 
 Apparitions, however, by no means give the final an- 
 swer to the question — are the dead alive ? Ghosts may, 
 
 1 Wallace : Miracles and Modem Spiritualism, pp. 243-4. 
 2 Hyslop : Enigmas of Psychical Research, p. 271. 
 
212 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 or may not, exist — and not decisively effect the solution 
 of the main problem. 
 
 "Materializations ° 
 
 No phenomena in spiritualism would be more as- 
 tounding and inexplicable, if genuine, than those of 
 "materialization." Yet that is the next logical step 
 in the ascending scale which we have been following. 
 If objective apparitions of the dead may appear per- 
 ceptible to the senses of sight and hearing, why not 
 veritable "materializations," perceptible to all the 
 senses, including that of touch ? If we have come so 
 far, we must, logically, at least listen to the evidence 
 for this even more remarkable phenomenon, or else 
 retrace our steps and at some past crossing of the ways 
 take another path. 
 
 "Needless to say, if this fact of materialization and 
 dematerialization be a fact, it is one of the most ex- 
 traordinary, as well as one of the most important, that 
 science has ever discovered, and one of the most diffi- 
 cult of solution that the man of science will ever be 
 called upon to explain or solve." 1 I do not recall at this 
 moment — except a hint given by Mr. Myers — any sug- 
 gested explanation ; and indeed the cases which lay 
 strong claim to authenticity are so rare as to render 
 our data extremely deficient. 
 
 Of fraudulent "materialization" there is, of course, 
 an endless amount, fraud so puerile and transparent 
 that one wonders how any sane man or woman could 
 be for a moment deceived. Wire busts, inflated rub- 
 ber, cork soles, gauze dresses, phosphorescent clothing, 
 false hair, jointed dummies and sticks — these are a few 
 
 Harrington : Physical Phenomena 'of Spiritualism, p. 230. 
 
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ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 213 
 
 of the many "properties" of the professional "material- 
 izing medium." The amazing thing is that with such 
 simple apparatus he can do so much, even with the 
 aid of a superabundant nerve, the darkness of the 
 seance-room, and the half-hysterical credulity of his 
 patrons. It goes without saying, therefore, that the 
 usual "materialization," in the dark, under circum- 
 stances prohibitive of anything like adequate observa- 
 tion, should not, and does not, receive the slightest 
 consideration from the scientist. 
 
 In our resume of the more important phenomena 
 observed with the medium, Eusapia Paladino, we re- 
 counted a large number of instances of partial mate- 
 rialization, instances which in their number and vari- 
 ety, the careful stringency of the tests imposed and the 
 high standing of the observers reporting, form quite 
 our most important and convincing body of evidence 
 in support of the phenomena. 
 
 But there are not a few other instances in the history 
 of spiritualism that cannot be dismissed so easily. 
 Some of the more striking observed by Sir W. Crookes 
 have already been quoted. 1 Occult Science in India 
 contains a number of very remarkable examples. A 
 few years ago, Professor Richet detailed at some length 
 in the Annals of Psychic Science a very striking exam- 
 ple of materialization occurring under careful test con- 
 ditions. Dr. Stanhope Templeman Speer relates a 
 case 2 in which the Rev. W. Stainton Moses was the 
 medium, in which a very life-like hand materialized 
 out of the center of a floating globe of light. 
 
 1 See his Notes. 
 
 J S. P. R. Proceedings, v. 9, pp. 245-53. 
 
214 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 We have already spoken of the Fox sisters, of their 
 confession of fraud, and of their later retraction of 
 this confession. Lest the reader gain an erroneous idea 
 of the importance of the phenomena observed with 
 them, it should be stated that in the mature life of the 
 sisters these were not confined to rappings, but were 
 often very remarkable materializations, seemingly in- 
 explicable by any hypothesis of fraud. 
 
 "Miss Fox's powers were most remarkably shown 
 in the seances at Mr. Livermore's, a well-known New 
 York banker, and an entire sceptic before commencing 
 these experiments. These sittings were more than three 
 hundred in number, extending over five years ... in 
 four different houses . . . and under tests of the most 
 rigid description. The chief phenomenon was the ap- 
 pearance of a tangible, visible, and audible figure of 
 Mr. Livermore's deceased wife . . . often most dis- 
 tinct, and absolutely life-like. It moved various objects 
 about the room. It wrote messages on cards. It was 
 sometimes formed out of a luminous cloud, and again 
 vanished before the eyes of the witnesses. It allowed 
 a portion of its dress to be cut off, which, tho at first 
 of strong and apparently material gauzy texture, yet 
 in a short time melted away and became invisible. 
 Flowers which melted away were also given. . . ."* 
 
 Speaking of "materialized" dresses, I might speak 
 of an incident in the "Katie King" seances, described 
 more fully a little later. On the evening on which 
 Katie King terminated her three years' materialized 
 "life" on earth, she took leave of her medium, Miss 
 Cook, and wrote "letters to some of her friends, signing 
 them 'Annie Owen Morgan,' saying that was her true 
 1 Wallace : Miracles and Modern Spiritualism, pp. 163-4. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 215 
 
 name during her life on earth. She also wrote a letter 
 . . . her medium, and chose for her a rosebud as a 
 good-by gift. Katie then took the scissors, cut off a 
 lock of her hair, and gave some of it to all of us. She 
 then took Mr. Crookes' hand and made the tour of 
 the room, pressing the hand of each of us in turn. She 
 then sat down again, and cut off several pieces of her 
 robe and of her veil, for remembrances. Seeing such 
 holes in her robe (she being seated all this while be- 
 tween Mr. Crookes and Mr. Tapp), some one asked 
 her if she could repair the damage, as she had done on 
 previous occasions. She then held the cut part of the 
 robe in the light, gave one rap upon it, and instantly 
 that part was whole and unblemished as before. Those 
 near her touched and examined the stuff, with her per- 
 mission. They affirmed that there was neither hole 
 nor seam, nor anything added at the very place where, 
 an instant before, they had seen holes several inches 
 in diameter." 1 
 
 The strongest evidence, however, that we have is 
 that of the cases observed by Sir W. Crookes with the 
 medium, D. D. Home. Some of these were quoted 
 in the opening article of the series ; but others deserve 
 further consideration here. 
 
 As an introduction to the materialization proper, Sir 
 W. Crookes speaks of "luminous appearances" mani- 
 festing themselves "under strictly test conditions." 
 "These, being rather faint, generally require the room 
 to be darkened. I need scarcely remind my readers 
 again that, under these circumstances, I have taken 
 proper precautions to avoid being imposed upon by 
 
 x The Spiritualist for May 27, 1874. 
 
216 ARE THE; DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 phosphorized oil or other means. Moreover, many 
 of these lights are such as I have tried to imitate arti- 
 ficially, but cannot." 1 
 
 "Under the strictest test conditions, I have seen a 
 solid, self-luminous body, the size, and nearly the shape, 
 of a turkey's egg, float noiselessly about the room, at 
 one time higher than any one present could reach, 
 standing on tiptoe, and then gently descend to the 
 floor. It was visible for more than ten minutes, and 
 before it faded away it struck the table three times, 
 with a sound like that of a hard, solid body. During 
 this time the medium was lying back, apparently in- 
 sensible, in an easy-chair. . . . Under the strictest test 
 conditions, I have, more than once, had a solid, self- 
 luminous, crystalline body placed in my hand by a 
 hand which did not belong to any person in the room." 2 
 
 Of the "appearance of hands" we have already noted 
 several instances. Here are others noted in the same 
 report: "On another occasion a small hand and arm, 
 like a baby's, appeared, playing about a lady who was 
 sitting next to me. It then passed to me, and patted 
 my arm and pulled my coat several times." 3 
 
 "A hand has repeatedly been seen by myself and 
 others, playing the keys of an accordion, both of the 
 medium's hands being visible at the same time, and 
 sometimes being held by those near him." 
 
 "The hands and fingers do not always appear to me 
 to be solid and life-like. Sometimes, indeed, they pre- 
 sent more the appearance of a nebulous cloud, partly 
 condensed into the form of a hand." It may be noted 
 
 'Crookes: Notes. Quar. Jour, of Set., Jan., 1874, p. 87. 
 'Ibid. 'Ibid., p. 88. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 217 
 
 that this accordion was in a wire cage, the wires being 
 charged electrically and connected with a galvanome- 
 ter as an additional safeguard. 
 
 On still another occasion "a luminous hand came 
 down from the upper part of the room, and after hov- 
 ering near me for a few seconds, took the pencil from 
 my hand, rapidly wrote on a sheet of paper, threw 
 the pencil down, and then rose up over our heads, 
 gradually fading into darkness." 1 
 
 The materialization of something more than hands, 
 that is, of "phantom forms and faces," Sir W. Crookes 
 says, "are the rarest of the phenomena I have witnessed. 
 The conditions requisite for their appearance appear 
 to be so delicate, and such trifles interfere with their 
 production, that only on very few occasions have I wit- 
 nessed them under satisfactory test conditions. . . ." 
 
 In this connection he cites but two cases, of which I 
 will quote only the second. 
 
 "As in the former case, Mr. Home was the medium. 
 A phantom form came from a corner of the room, took 
 an accordion in its hand, and then glided about the 
 room playing the instrument. The form was visible to 
 all present for many minutes, Mr. Home also being 
 seen at the same time. Coming rather close to a lady 
 who was sitting apart from the rest of the company, 
 she gave a slight cry, upon which it vanished." 2 
 
 The Famous "Katie King" Materialization 
 
 The record of the final and most striking case of all 
 that Sir W. Crookes observed, namely, that of the ma- 
 
 1 Crookes: Notes. Quar. Jour, of Set., Jan., 1874, p. 89. 
 Hbid., p. 190. 
 
218 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 terialized spirit of "Katie King," already mentioned, is 
 too long to quote in its entirety here. Those interested 
 will find it reprinted at length in Dr. Funk's Widow's 
 Mite. 
 
 Very briefly, what Sir W. Crookes would have us 
 believe is this : that a Miss Cook, a medium, material- 
 ized at will for several years a spirit from the other 
 world, called "Katie," unknown to him or any one else 
 who saw and conversed with her ; that "Katie" acted 
 as would any human being in the flesh ; was a beautiful 
 young woman, with a most charming personality, but 
 who came and vanished at intervals, and finally for- 
 ever, spontaneously. However much we may dislike 
 to accept such a wholesale "violation ( ?) of the laws 
 of nature," the advocate of the hypothesis of fraud in 
 this case must take into account these facts : 
 
 i. "Katie" was seen by and conversed with a large 
 number of people, including the children of the Crookes 
 family, and this not once or twice, but over a period 
 of nearly three years. 
 
 2. To prevent trickery, the more significant seances 
 were held in Sir W.'s own library, the materializations 
 taking place in a "cabinet" which he had improvised 
 himself. 
 
 3. Miss Cook, the medium, was a schoolgirl of fif- 
 teen. "To imagine," says Sir W., that she "should 
 be able to conceive and then successfully carry out for 
 three years so gigantic an imposture as this, and in 
 that time should submit to any test which might be 
 imposed upon her, should bear the strictest scrutiny, 
 should be willing to be searched at any time, either 
 before or after a seance, and should meet with even 
 better success in my own house than at that of her 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 219 
 
 parents, knowing that she visited me with the express 
 object of submitting to strict scientific tests — to im- 
 agine, I say, the Katie King of the last three years to 
 be the result of imposture does more violence to one's 
 reason and common sense than to believe her to be what 
 she herself affirms." 
 
 4. "Katie" was really "material," spoke and walked ; 
 her heart heat; her lungs "were found to be sounder 
 than her medium's"; she suffered Sir W. to embrace 
 her, as proof of her materiality ; she allowed her pic- 
 ture to be taken; she was a favorite with, and told 
 stories to and played with the Crookes children ; and 
 yet, added to her "humanness" (however much we may 
 say that this latter was mere imagination), she ap- 
 peared to all observers to have a beauty and charm that 
 was hardly earthly ; and she frequently, in a second or 
 two, vanished into thin air. 
 
 5. "Katie" — and this is the favorite "explanation" — 
 was not the medium herself, disguised. If it be not 
 sufficient proof that their hair was not the same in 
 color, that "Katie" was six inches taller than Miss 
 Cook, that Miss Cook's skin bore marks that Katie's 
 lacked, this fact must seem conclusive: that the two 
 were seen and felt side by side, at one and the same 
 time, Miss Cook in the deep trance that accompanied 
 Katie's materialization, Katie standing by Sir W. . . . 
 "Three separate times," says he, "did I carefully ex- 
 amine Miss Cook, crouching before me, to be sure 
 that the hand I held was that of a living woman, and 
 three separate times did I turn the lamp to Katie, and 
 examine her with steadfast scrutiny, until I had no 
 doubt whatever of her objective reality. At last Miss 
 Cook moved slightly, and Katie instantly motioned me 
 
220 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 to go away. I went to another part of the cabinet, 
 and then ceased to see Katie, but did not leave the 
 room till Miss Cook woke up and two of the visitors 
 came in with a light." 
 
 6. No person resembling Katie was ever seen any- 
 where else but in the seance-room, and during such 
 time as Miss Cook was entranced. 
 
 This remarkable case is well worthy of careful read- 
 ing. Strongly substantiated as it appears to be, and oc- 
 curring under such seemingly good test conditions, it is, 
 nevertheless, alone insufficient to warrant our belief in 
 such revolutionary phenomena. Yet, remembering the 
 rank of Sir William Crookes as a scientist, and the 
 wealth of evidence attesting to the mysterious Katie, 
 we may well consider it, if not a link in the chain of 
 scientific evidence for a future life, at least the rough 
 iron out of which a strengthening corroborative chain 
 may be some day forged. 
 
"THE DEAD HAVE NEVER REALLY DIED" 
 
 During the last sixty years evidence has been accumulating 
 in every part of the world which affords demonstration that 
 the so-called dead have never really died at all, but have 
 passed into a new and higher stage of existence. Many of 
 these are able to communicate with us and most of them as- 
 sure us that when they wake from the sleep we call death 
 they find themselves much more alive than ever they were 
 before. And this is only what we may expect; for we all feel 
 that our mental faculties are to some extent clogged and stifled 
 by the garment of flesh, and that only when in the most per- 
 fect health do our higher faculties attain their fullest ex- 
 pression. 
 
 This rapid entrance on a state of spiritual well-being and 
 happiness seems to be very general among those who have 
 led ordinarily good and natural lives, but is by no means uni- 
 versal. Those who have led selfish or sensual lives, or have 
 given way to evil passions of any kind, have a different awak- 
 ening, into a world of darkness or gloom, often of solitude for 
 a longer or shorter period and infinitely varied in the sur- 
 roundings according to their previous lives. But whatever 
 germs of good are in them are ultimately developed through 
 the kind ministrations of spirit-helpers, and thenceforth 
 progress towa-rds a higher and happier state depends mainly 
 on themselves. 
 
 We have all kinds of phenomena which are inexplicable even 
 to the scientific mind, except on a spiritualistic hypothesis. 
 We have the alteration of the weight of bodies, which has 
 often been tested. We have the phenomena of articles of vari- 
 ous kinds being moved without human agency, such as chairs, 
 tables and musical instruments. More curious is the convey- 
 ing of bodies to a distance; flowers and fruits are the most 
 common of these, but also other bodies, such as letters and 
 various small objects, have been conveyed long distances — 
 sometimes several miles. 
 
 221 
 
222 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 Further, we have that curious phenomena which is recorded 
 more or less throughout history, the raising or levitation of 
 human bodies into the air and sometimes conveying them a 
 considerable distance. More remarkable by far than these, be- 
 cause beyond all human power to produce, is the tying of 
 knots on endless cords, the taking of coins out of sealed boxes, 
 and the passage of solid rings over the body far too large for 
 them to pass over by any natural means. All these things 
 have happened in the presence of careful scientists and their 
 assistants; I have frequently myself seen, in good light, sticks 
 and handkerchiefs pass through a curtain. 
 
 We have chemical phenomena. Chief among these is that 
 of protection from the effects of fire. Mr. D. D. Home, de- 
 ceased now some years, and perhaps the most remarkable 
 medium that ever lived, used to take from a grate a brilliant, 
 red-hot mass of coals, carry them about the room in his hands, 
 and by his peculiar power indicate certain persons who were 
 able to have them placed in their hands, and placing them 
 there they would experience no unpleasant results. 
 
 ********* 
 
 In view of the numerous men who have investigated this 
 matter and given their decision, we may entirely throw aside 
 the idea that imposture, only in slight measure, has produced 
 these phenomena. 
 
 Scientific men almost invariably assume that in this inquiry 
 they should be permitted at the very outset to impose condi- 
 tions, and if under such conditions nothing happens, they con- 
 sider it a proof of imposture or delusion. But they well know 
 that in other branches of research, nature, not they, determines 
 the essential conditions without a compliance with which no 
 experiment will succeed. 
 
 The underlying laws of the testimony of evidence are sim- 
 ple. If a man of good judgment, in full possession of his 
 senses and a reputation for honesty, tells us of a certain fact 
 which he witnessed, we are inclined, in the absence of con- 
 tradictory evidence, to believe the fact that he states. If ten 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 223 
 
 men, similarly endowed, say they witnessed the same thing, 
 we feel reasonably certain; whereas the concurrent independ- 
 ent testimony of a thousand sincere, capable men may be said 
 to make assertion a certainty. 
 
 As I have already said, in my introduction to "Miracles and 
 Modern Spiritualism," outside of modern spiritualism I know 
 nothing in recognized science to support the belief in immor- 
 tality. Up to the time when I first became acquainted with 
 the facts of spiritualism I was a confirmed philosophical skep- 
 tic. My curiosity was at first excited by some slight but in- 
 explicable phenomena occurring in a friend's family, and my 
 desire for knowledge and love of truth forced me to continue 
 the inquiry. The facts compelled me to accept them as such 
 long before I could accept the spiritual explanation of them; 
 there was at that time no place in my fabric of thought into 
 which it could be fitted. By slow degrees a place was made; 
 but it was made, not by any preconceived or theoretical opin- 
 ions, but by the continuous action of fact after fact which 
 could not be got rid of in any other way than by accepting 
 the explanation of them which spiritualism presents. 
 
 —Alfred Russell Wallace. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 TELEPATHY 
 
 At the very beginning of the discussion of telepathy 
 I am going to make a bold, and what may seem an 
 unwarranted, statement — Telepathy is now an estab- 
 lished scientific fact. It is quite true that concerning 
 the laws that govern it, we know little, but it is equally 
 true that we have, literally, thousands of well-authen- 
 ticated instances attesting the truth of its existence. 
 
 Sir Oliver Lodge, the noted scientist, says: "What 
 we [the Society for Psychical Research] can challenge 
 the judgment of the world upon is telepathy. Here 
 is the beginning of a wider conception of science. 
 Directly men see and admit, as they must do from 
 the overwhelming evidence, that it is possible to trans- 
 mit ideas direct from brain to brain without the inter- 
 mediaries of speech and hearing, they are looking into 
 and gaining admission to new fields of exploration." 1 
 And Dr. Hyslop, the cautious, here none the less posi- 
 tively asserts : "In some way, the thoughts of one per- 
 son make themselves known to the mind of another. 
 The fact is very rare, and is much more rare than 
 the general public supposes. But it occurs often enough 
 for us to suppose that extra-organic stimuli, of the 
 
 1 Pall Mall Magazine, January, 1904. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 225 
 
 nature of mental states, can produce effects on the 
 minds of others." 1 
 
 Dr. Minot J. Savage finds an analogy in the purely 
 physical world. "We know that when two musical 
 instruments are placed at a certain distance apart," 
 he says, "and keyed so as precisely to correspond with 
 each other, one will sometimes respond when the other 
 is touched. It is possible that there may be such a 
 thing as minds of brain molecules keyed to each other 
 so that, when some great sorrow, or anticipated evil, 
 or stress, touches one of them, there is response in the 
 other, no matter how great the distance that may sepa- 
 rate them." 2 
 
 Frederic Myers, speaking of "ecstasy," meaning by 
 that the ability of the spirit, under certain conditions, 
 to leave the body and transcend time and space, says : 
 "It is hardly a paradox to say that the evidence for 
 ecstasy is stronger than the evidence for any other 
 religious belief. . . . [One reason being that it is a] 
 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 sav- 
 ages 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 differ- 
 ing, are, in psychological essence, the same." 3 
 
 The reason why the great body of scientific men 
 refuse to accept telepathy is that it is the first step 
 into a land whose existence science has hitherto denied ; 
 
 ^yslop: Borderland of Psychical Research, p. 190. 
 2 Savage: Life Beyond Death, p. 266. 
 "Myers : Human Personality, p. 338. 
 
226 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 and it is the first step that counts. If telepathy were 
 the whole story! But, as Myers says, 1 "If we have 
 once got a man's thought operating apart from his 
 body — if my fixation of attention on the two of dia- 
 monds does somehow so modify another man's brain 
 a few yards off that he seems to see the two of dia- 
 monds floating before him — there is no obvious halting 
 place on his side till we come to 'possession' by a de- 
 parted spirit, and there is no obvious halting place on 
 my side till we come to 'traveling clairvoyance,' with 
 a corresponding visibility of my own phantasm to other 
 persons in the scenes which I spiritually visit." 
 
 The evidence proving telepathy is strong, clear, al- 
 most conclusive; but your scientist dares not admit 
 it because of the further admissions to which he will 
 then be bound. Before the scientist "ever looms the 
 bogy of spiritism" ; and as a consequence, telepathy is 
 denied, or explained away without investigation. In 
 the early days of the Society for Psychical Research, 
 special emphasis was laid upon the active investigation 
 of telepathy, and with such success that in two years 
 the Society was able to claim "to have proved the reality 
 of thought transference." But the way of the Society, 
 because of the astounding nature of the conclusions 
 which it so soon reached, was not an easy one. It was 
 hampered by the very richness of the hitherto un- 
 touched field which it was opening up. 
 
 In the introduction to his Human Personality and Its 
 Survival of Bodily Death, Myers says of this forma- 
 tive period in the Society's history: "Our methods, 
 our canons, were all to make. In those early days we 
 
 1 Myers : Human Personality, p. 191. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 227 
 
 were more devoid of precedents, of guidance, even of 
 criticism that went beyond mere expression of con- 
 tempt, than is now readily conceived." 1 
 
 But, as we have already seen, within a few short 
 years the Society felt itself able to establish "the thesis 
 that a communication can take place from mind to 
 mind by some agency not that of the recognized organs 
 of sense. We found that this agency, discernible even 
 on trivial occasions by suitable experiment, seemed to 
 connect itself with an agency more intense, or at any 
 rate more recognizable, which operated at moments of 
 crisis or at the hour of death." 2 
 
 It must not be inferred that that Society stands alone 
 in the conclusions which, after extended experimenta- 
 tion, it has reached. Dr. Hudson arrived at an iden- 
 tical result independently; M. Flammarion and M. 
 Richet, among others, have formed concurrent conclu- 
 sions. 
 
 Fraudulent Telepathic Phenomena 
 
 With telepathy, as with every other phenomena of 
 spiritualism, there is, besides the minute portion that 
 has been accepted by the psychic researcher as genuine, 
 a luxuriant parasitic growth of fraud and trickery. 
 "Mind-reading" is in the repertoire of every prestidigi- 
 tator; and each professional, if he be of any note, has 
 evolved a new method cleverer in some respect than 
 those of his fellow craftsmen. It will be worth while 
 for us to examine one or two instances of this fake 
 telepathy, if only to ascertain wherein it differs from 
 the genuine. 
 
 ^Myers: Human Personality, v. I, p. 7. 
 'Ibid , v. I, p. 8. 
 
228 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 Code question and answer from the assistant in the 
 audience to the "professor" on the stage, is an old 
 device, probably familiar to the reader. This method 
 is too bungling, however, for the modern "business" 
 of magic, and other ways are devised by which the 
 usher assistant conveys secretly the desired informa- 
 tion to the blindfolded reader. 
 
 "The performer passes among the audience, and is 
 shown numbers on bills, dates on coins, etc., which 
 the assistant on the stage immediately names correctly. 
 
 "The secret lies in the fact that the performer has, 
 passed up his legs, and inside the trousers, copper 
 wires, the ends of which connect with metal plates on 
 the soles of his shoes, and so arranged that the circuit 
 may be completed by pressing together two wires, 
 separated by a spring, which is directly under the per- 
 former's waistcoat. He stands on the metal rim of 
 the carpet which runs down the aisle, and to the other 
 ends of which are attached wires, leading either to 
 the assistant directly, or to some third person, who 
 conveys the message to the assistant upon the stage 
 by means of signals. When the performer sees the 
 date on the coin, the number of the banknote, etc., all 
 he has to do is to touch the two wires together a cer- 
 tain number of times, and the signal is interpreted 
 at the other end of the line. A code is always employed 
 to shorten and quicken the process." 1 
 
 There is another large class of "thought-reading" 
 experiments which involves the answering of questions 
 written on a piece of paper seen only by the writer. 
 Here, again, the methods of fraud are legion; the cu- 
 
 ^arrington : Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, p. 297. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 229 
 
 rious will find a large number detailed by Mr. Carring- 
 ton. I can here but give two samples, 
 
 "The medium has written and sent up to him a num- 
 ber of questions on separate slips of paper, and these 
 ate all piled before him on the table. He picks up 
 one of these, puts it to his forehead, and, after more 
 or less hesitation, tells its contents. It is acknowledged 
 as correct by some member of the audience, and the 
 medium immediately opens the paper and verifies the 
 fact that he has given the message correctly. The next 
 pellet is picked up and the contents read in like man- 
 ner, until all the pellets have been read in turn. . . . 
 The secret consists in the fact that the medium has a 
 confederate in the audience, the contents of whose 
 pellet he already knows. This pellet is marked, so that 
 the medium can distinguish it from all the others in 
 the pile. He picks up any pellet in the heap but his 
 confederate's, and holds it against his forehead. After 
 a time he reads aloud the contents of the confederate's 
 slip, which that person acknowledges as correct. As 
 soon as he has done so, the medium opens the pellet, 
 ostensibly to ascertain if he has read its contents cor- 
 rectly, thereby gaining a knowledge of the contents 
 of that pellet, which he reads as the contents of the 
 next one, and so on thruout the entire pile, the medium 
 keeping 'one ahead' all the time and reading each 
 pellet in turn." 1 
 
 Of course the trick is nothing but a very simple 
 legerdemain; but when well performed it is astonish- 
 
 'Carrington: Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, pp. 
 279-80. 
 
230 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 ingly convincing. Here is another, however, which 
 is somewhat more ingenious: 
 
 "A trick-table has a hollow leg, which fits over a 
 hole in the floor of the room, and communicates with 
 the room below. The top of the table is covered with 
 (i) a piece of thin silk, (2) a piece of carbon-paper, 
 the size of the top of the table, placed over the silk, and 
 (3) a very thin oilcloth covering, stretched tightly over 
 the top of the table. To one corner of the silk is at- 
 tached a thread, and this passes down to the room 
 below, thru the hollow leg of the table. 
 
 "When the sitter is seated at the table the medium 
 hands him one sheet of paper and a pencil, with the 
 request that he (the sitter) write a question on the 
 paper, and immediately fold it up and place it in his 
 pocket. Meanwhile the medium leaves the room, 'so 
 that he shall not see what the sitter is writing upon 
 his piece of paper.' The sitter writes the question, 
 as directed, and after folding up the paper places it 
 in his pocket. No sooner has he done so, however, 
 than the medium returns to the room, and astonishes 
 the sitter by informing him of the contents of the paper 
 in his pocket. 
 
 "As may be imagined, the trick is worked by means 
 of the table, and in this way : The sitter, having only 
 one sheet of paper in his hands, and having no solid 
 substance against which to press this, naturally places 
 the paper on the table, and writes his question in that 
 manner. The pressure of the pencil, pressing upon the 
 carbon-sheet, makes a copy of the question on the silk 
 sheet underneath it, and the medium has only to pull 
 it off the table and down into the room below. Then 
 he is enabled to read the question, and on going back 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 231 
 
 to the seance-room he can astonish his sitter by telling 
 him what is on the folded-up paper in his pocket. This 
 is an extremely effective test." 1 
 
 But very early in the history of alleged telepathic 
 phenomena appeared cases that were very evidently not 
 the result of mere trickery. "A large blackboard was 
 placed upon an easel, on the stage, and the performer, 
 after securing a number of persons from the audience 
 to assist him . . . would have himself securely blind- 
 folded by the members of the committee, and then step 
 up to the blackboard, chalk in hand. ... A banknote 
 would now be handed to some other member of the 
 committee, and he, grasping the hand of the mind- 
 reader, would concentrate his mind on the number of 
 the note. The performer would then proceed to trace 
 on the board, very slowly, the number of this note, 
 which the assistant would certify was correct. . . . 
 Each of the above-mentioned performers succeeded in 
 opening a safe, the combination of which they did not 
 know, they merely holding the hand of the person who 
 did know the combination." 2 Here was something 
 which the hypothesis of fraud would not cover. It 
 will be noted that in each case, however, the "reader" 
 was in touch with the person thinking the message, and 
 it was not very long before it was discovered that the 
 explanation of the alleged "telepathy" was "muscle- 
 reading." "The person holding the performer's hand 
 gave him the required information by means of slight, 
 unconscious movements, which the performer inter- 
 preted, also more or less unconsciously." 3 
 
 Harrington : Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, pp. 282-3. 
 2 Ibid., pp. 292-3. Hbid., p. 294. 
 
232 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 So expert did these muscle-readers become, that they 
 were able to do really astonishing feats. One is record- 
 ed, for instance, of driving a cab across the city blind- 
 folded and finding a hidden article. 
 
 But there were other phenomena that even muscle- 
 reading could not explain — cases of apparent thought 
 transference when the "percipient" (the person receiv- 
 ing the message) was at a distance, even miles, from 
 the sender. For these cases the psychicist found him- 
 self forced back to the hypothesis of telepathy. Of 
 professional "exhibitions of mind-reading," however 
 inexplicable they may seem, Mr. Carrington sounds this 
 note of warning : "We know nothing, as yet, however, 
 of the laws that govern . . . telepathy, and cannot 
 command the phenomena to appear at our beck and 
 call, or summon them at will ; and consequently, any 
 one who does so at once stamps himself as an impostor. 
 . . . The only thing we know about telepathy is that — ■ 
 we know nothing about it ! When, therefore, public 
 performers give nightly exhibitions of 'thought-read- 
 ing,' 'clairvoyance,' and so on, it may be taken for 
 granted that these exhibitions are nothing more than 
 clever conjuring performances." 1 
 
 Spontaneous Telepathy 
 
 I shall first cite an early instance of spontaneous 
 telepathy, selecting one which is most typical, re- 
 gardless in this case of the rigidity of the tests sur- 
 rounding it. I do this, not to give proof of telepathy, 
 but to show the kind of material existent which the 
 
 'Carrington : Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, pp. 291-3. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 233 
 
 Society used as a starting point for its own investiga- 
 tions. It is a letter to the English Spectator, signed 
 by the author, Mrs. Caroline Barber : 
 
 "I had one day been spending the morning in shop- 
 ping, and returned by train just in time to sit down 
 with my children to our early family dinner. My 
 youngest child — a sensitive, quick-witted little maiden 
 of two years and six weeks old — was one of the circle. 
 Dinner had just commenced, when I suddenly recol- 
 lected an incident in my morning's experience which 
 I had intended to tell her, and I looked at the child 
 with the full intention of saying, 'Mother saw a big 
 black dog in a shop, with curly hair,' catching her eyes 
 with mine as I paused an instant before speaking. Just 
 then something called off my attention, and the sen- 
 tence was not uttered. What was my amazement, 
 about two minutes afterward, to hear my little lady an- 
 nounce, 'Mother saw a big dog in a shop.' I gasped, 
 'Yes, I did!' I answered, 'but how did you know?' 
 'With funny hair,' she added quite calmly, and ignoring 
 my question. 'What color was it, Evelyn?' said one 
 of her elder brothers. 'Was it black?' She said 'Yes.' 
 
 "Now, it was simply impossible that she should have 
 received any hint of the incident verbally. I had had 
 no friend with me when I had seen the dog. All the 
 children had been at home, in our house in the coun- 
 try, four miles from town; I had returned, as I said, 
 just in time for the children's dinner, and I had not 
 even remembered the circumstance until the moment 
 when I fixed my eyes upon my little daughter's." 1 
 
 It is very difficult, in fact impossible, as the reader 
 
 'Quoted in Hyslop: Enigmas of Psychical Research, p. 113. 
 
234. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 will at once see from the example given, to prove genu- 
 ine reported cases of spontaneous telepathy. They rest 
 entirely on the word of the reporter. Prepared tests, 
 under conditions absolutely excluding fraud or chance, 
 are perhaps no less interesting, and infinitely more con- 
 clusive. 
 
 The method generally used by the Society in its test 
 experiments in telepathy is thus described by Sir Oliver 
 Lodge in his account of Mr. Malcolm Guthrie's Liver- 
 pool sittings: 1 ''The experiments which I have wit- 
 nessed proceed in this sort of way : One person is told 
 to keep in a perfectly passive condition, with a mind 
 as vacant as possible ; and to assist this condition the 
 organs of sense are unexcited, the eyes being bandaged 
 and silence maintained. It might be as well to shut 
 out the ordinary street hum by plugging the ears, but 
 as a matter of fact this was not done. 
 
 "A person thus kept passive is 'the percipient.' In 
 the experiments I witnessed the percipient was a young 
 lady, one or other of two who had been accidentally 
 found to possess the necessary power. Whether it is 
 a common power, or not, I do not know. So far as 
 I am aware, very few persons have been tried. I my- 
 self tried, but failed abjectly. It was easy enough to 
 picture things to oneself, but they did not appear to 
 be impressed on me from without, nor did any of them 
 bear the least resemblance to the object in the agent's 
 mind. For instance, I said a pair of scissors instead 
 of the five of diamonds, and things like that." 
 
 In this connection it might be interesting to quote 
 an experience of the late Dr. Hudson, throwing 
 
 *See the S. P. R. Proceedings, v. I, pt. 6, pp. 190-8. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? £35 
 
 light, as it does, on the very natural question, Is 
 telepathy a faculty dormant in every person, capable 
 of being developt by proper training ? "I determined, 
 if possible, to develop the faculty in my own mind, at 
 least far enough to resolve any lingering doubt that 
 might be unconsciously entertained. Accordingly, I 
 caused myself to be securely blindfolded in the pres- 
 ence of my family and two or three trustworthy friends, 
 and instructed them to draw a card from the pack, 
 place it upon a table, face up, and in full view of all 
 but myself. I enjoined absolute silence, and requested 
 them to gaze steadily upon the card and patiently await 
 results. I determined not to yield to any mere mental 
 impression, but to watch for a vision of the card itself. 
 I endeavored to become as passive as possible and to 
 shut out all objective thoughts. In fact, I tried to go 
 to sleep. I soon found that the moment I approached 
 a state of somnolence I began to see visions of self- 
 illuminated objects floating in the darkness before me. 
 If, however, one seemed to be taking definite shape 
 it would instantly rouse me, and the vision would van- 
 ish. At length I mastered my curiosity sufficiently to 
 enable me to hold the vision long enough to perceive 
 its import. When that was accomplisht, I saw — not 
 a card with its spots clearly defined, but a number of 
 objects arranged in rows, and resembling real dia- 
 monds. I was finally able to count them, and finding 
 that there were ten, I ventured to name the ten of 
 diamonds. The applause which followed told me that 
 I was right, and I removed the bandage and found 
 the ten of diamonds lying on the table. The vision 
 was symbolical merely, but no other possible symbol 
 
236 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 could have conveyed a clearer idea of the fact as it 
 existed." 1 
 
 To return to the account by Sir Oliver Lodge : "An- 
 other person sitting near the percipient, sometimes at 
 first holding her hands, but usually and ordinarily with- 
 out any contact at all but with a distinct intervening 
 distance, was told to think hard of a particular object, 
 either a name, or a scene, or a thing, or of an object 
 or drawing set up in a good light and in a convenient 
 position for staring at. This person is 'the agent,' and 
 has, on the whole, the hardest time of it. It is a most 
 tiring and tiresome thing to stare at a letter, or a tri- 
 angle, or a donkey, or a teaspoon, and to think of noth- 
 ing else for the space of two or three minutes. Wheth- 
 er the term 'thinking' can properly be applied to such 
 barbarous concentration of mind as this I am not sure ; 
 but I can answer for it that if difficulty is an important 
 element in the definition of 'thinking,' then it is difficult 
 enough in all conscience. 
 
 "Very frequently more than one agent is employed, 
 and when two or three people are in the room they 
 are all told to think of the object more or less strenu- 
 ously, the idea being that wandering thoughts in the 
 neighborhood certainly cannot help, and may possi- 
 bly hinder, the clear transfer of impression. As re- 
 gards the question whether, when several agents are 
 thinking, only one is doing the work, or whether all 
 really produce some efifect, I have made a special ex- 
 periment which leads me to conclude that more than 
 one agent can be active at the same time. We con- 
 jecture that several agents are probably more power- 
 
 Hudson : The Evolution of the Soul, p. 188. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 237 
 
 ful than one, but that a confusedness of impression may 
 sometimes be produced by different agents attending 
 to different parts or aspects of the object; this, how- 
 ever, is mere conjecture. 
 
 "Most people seem able to act as agents, tho some 
 appear to do better than others. I can hardly say 
 whether I am much good at it or not. I have not 
 often tried alone, and in the majority of cases when 
 I have tried I have failed; on the other hand, I have 
 once or twice apparently succeeded. We have many 
 times succeeded with agents quite disconnected from 
 the percipient in ordinary life, and sometimes complete 
 strangers to them . . . 
 
 "The object looked at by the agent is placed, usu- 
 ally, on a small, black, opaque wooden screen, between 
 the percipient and agents, but sometimes it is put on 
 a larger screen behind the percipient." 
 The Proof of Telepathy 
 
 The above gives a very clear idea as to how the 
 telepathic experiments were conducted. Obviously, 
 nothing could be simpler or fairer. Now for some 
 examples of the ideas transmitted. First, the transmis- 
 sion of thoughts of objects. In these experiments, re- 
 corded by Sir Oliver Lodge, 1 a Miss R. was the per- 
 cipient, and Mr. Birchall, mentioned above, the agent. 
 
 "Object — a blue square of silk. — (Now, it's going 
 to be a color; ready!) 'Is it green?' (No.) 'It's 
 something between green and blue. . . . Peacock.' 
 (What shape?) She drew a rhombus. . . . 
 
 "Next object — a key on a black ground. — (It's an 
 object.) In a few seconds she said, 'It's bright. ... It 
 
 *S. P. R. Proceedings, Vol. L, Part VI., pp. 190-8. 
 
238 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 looks like a key.' Told to draw it, she drew it just in- 
 verted. 
 
 "Next object — three gold studs in morocco case. — Ts 
 it yellow ? . . . Something gold . . . Something round 
 ... A locket or a watch, perhaps.' (Do you see more 
 than one round?) 'Yes; there seem to be more than 
 one. . . . Are there three rounds? . . . Three rings.' 
 (What do they seem to be set in?) 'Something bright, 
 like beads.' (Evidently not understanding or attend- 
 ing to the question.) Told to unblindfold herself and 
 draw, she drew the three rounds in a row quite cor- 
 rectly, and then sketched around them absently the 
 outline of the case, which seemed, therefore, to have 
 been apparent to her, tho she had not consciously at- 
 tended to it. It was an interesting and striking experi- 
 ment. 
 
 "Next object — a pair of scissors, standing partly 
 open, with their points down. — Ts it a bright object? 
 . . . Something long ways (indicating verticality). 
 ... A pair of scissors standing up. ... A little bit 
 open.' Time, about a minute altogether. She then 
 drew her impression, and it was correct in every par- 
 ticular. The object in this experiment was on a settee 
 behind her, but its position had to be pointed out to 
 her when, after the experiment, she wanted to see it. 
 
 "Next object — a drawing of a right-angle triangle 
 on its side. — (It's a drawing.) She drew an isosceles 
 triangle on its side. 
 
 "Next — a circle with a cord across it. — She drew 
 two detached ovals, one with a cutting line across it. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 239 
 
 "Next — a drawing of a Union Jack pattern. — As 
 usual in drawing experiments, Miss R. remained silent 
 
 m 
 
 ORIGINAL 
 
 REPRODUCTION 
 
 for perhaps a minute, then she said, 'Now I am ready.' 
 I hid the object; she took off the handkerchief, and 
 proceeded to draw on paper placed ready in front of 
 her. She this time drew all the lines of the figure 
 except the horizontal middle one. She was obviously 
 much tempted to draw this, and, indeed, began it two 
 or three times faintly, but ultimately said, 'No, I'm not 
 sure,' and stopped." 
 
 Here are two interesting "Experiments at a Sitting 
 in the room of Dr. Herdman, Professor of Zoology at 
 University College." 
 
 "Object — a drawing of the outline of a Hag. — Miss 
 R., as percipient, in contact with Miss E. as agent. 
 
 ORIGINAL 
 
 REPRODUCTION 
 
 Very quickly Miss R. said, 'It's a little flag' ; and when 
 asked to draw, she drew it fairly well, but perverted. 
 
240 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 I showed her the flag (as usual after a success), and 
 then took it away to the drawing-place to fetch some- 
 thing else. I made another drawing, but instead of 
 bringing it I brought the flag back again, and set it 
 up in the same place as before, but inverted. There 
 was no contact this time. Miss R — d and Miss E. were 
 acting as agents. 
 
 "Object — same Hag, inverted. — After some time 
 Miss R. said : 'No, I can't see anything this time. I 
 still see that flag. . . . The flag keeps bothering me. 
 ... I shan't do it this time.' Presently I said, Well, 
 draw what you saw, anyway.' She said, 'I only saw 
 the same flag, but perhaps it had a cross on it.' So she 
 drew a flag in the same position as before, but added 
 a cross to it. Questioned as to aspect, she said, 'Yes, 
 it was just the same as before.' " 
 
 Mr. Guthrie also conducted a very remarkable se- 
 ries of twelve drawings, some rather complicated, by 
 thought transference. The results obtained were de- 
 cidedly in support of the telepathic theory, even the 
 partial failures, as is often the case, being corrobora- 
 tive, and very interesting. These drawings are re- 
 produced by Dr. Funk in The Widow's Mite. 
 
 An interesting variation was made in one case: one 
 agent thought of one drawing and simultaneously an- 
 other agent thought of another drawing, the percipient 
 not knowing that anything unusual was being tried. 
 "A mixed and curiously double impression was thus 
 produced and described by the percipient, and both 
 the objects were correctly drawn." The account says : 
 "Miss R — d and Miss E. happened to be sitting near- 
 
I. The table at rest 
 
 A Typical Table Levitation with Eusapia Paladino 
 
 The man on the right is Flammarion, on the left Lombroso 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 241 
 
 ly facing one another. . . . The drawing was a square 
 on one side of the paper, a cross on the other. Miss 
 
 X 
 
 ORIGINALS 
 
 R — d looked at the side with the square on it. Miss 
 E. looked at the side with the cross. Neither knew 
 what the other was looking at. . . . Mr. Birchall was 
 silently asked to take off his attention, and he got up 
 and looked out of the window before the drawings 
 were brought in, and during the experiment. There 
 was no contact. Very soon Miss R. said, 'I see things 
 moving about. ... I seem to see two things. ... I 
 see first one up there and then one down there. ... I 
 don't know which to draw. ... I can't see either dis- 
 tinctly.' (Well, anyhow draw what you have seen.) 
 She took off the bandage and drew, first, a square, and 
 then said, 'Then there was the other thing as well . . . 
 
 H 
 
 REPRODUCTION 
 
 afterward they seemed to go into one,' and she drew 
 a cross inside the square, from corner to corner, add- 
 
242 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 ing afterward, 'I don't know what made me put it in- 
 side.' M1 
 
 Another decidedly encouraging series of experi- 
 ments was conducted by Edmund Gurney and Fred- 
 eric Myers, the transference this time being, not 
 of thoughts of objects, but of tastes. "The agent was 
 Mr. G. A. Smith, and the 'subject' a very intelligent 
 young cabinetmaker, named Conway, who had been 
 thrown into a light hypnotic trance. For the first set 
 Mr. Smith was in light contact with Conway, behind 
 whom he stood. No hint was given to Conway as to 
 whether his answers were right or wrong; he was 
 simply asked by Dr. Myers or myself what he felt. 
 Mr. Smith kept perfect silence thruout. 2 
 
 I now gave Mr. Smith 
 
 in succession — Conway said : 
 
 Sugar "Sweeter ; not so bad as before." 
 
 Citric acid "Bitter ; something worse — a lit- 
 tle reminds me of cayenne — 
 sweety." 
 
 r A raspberry drop "A sweetish taste — like sugar." 
 
 Salt "I told you I liked sweet things, 
 
 not salt — such a mixture !" 
 
 Cloves "Don't like it; hot — little bit of 
 
 honey mixed with it." 
 
 Salt "Something acid, salty — first one 
 
 thing, then another — like 
 brine." 
 
 1 See Nature for June 12, 1884. 
 
 a See S. P. R. Proceedings, Vol. II., Part VI., pp. 205-6. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 248 
 
 Powdered ginger "Hot; dries your mouth up. 
 
 Don't like it — reminds me of 
 mustard." 
 
 Sugar "A little better — a sweetish 
 
 taste." 
 
 Powdered alum "You call that sweet, do you? 
 
 Brackish and bitter this — 
 enough to skin your mouth out 
 —bitter." 
 
 Cayenne pepper. "It's hot, and there is some sugar 
 
 in it, just to soften it over a 
 bit. It is hot — you would feel 
 hot, I can tell you." 
 
 Cloves. "Not so very much better, but 
 
 it's sweeter; it's sugar, only 
 something else with it." 
 
 Vinegar Conway had sunk into a deeper 
 
 hypnotic sleep, and made no 
 remark." 
 These examples, remember, are not isolated cases, 
 but typical ones selected from a vast accumulation of 
 telepathic data. The curious, and perhaps incredulous, 
 reader, is strongly urged to examine the Proceedings 
 and other publications of the Society for Psychical 
 Research. 
 
 Mathematical proof is generally most convincing of 
 any, and fortunately is here not lacking. If we can 
 demonstrate that the number of correct answers given 
 by a percipient is many times greater than the laws of 
 mere chance would allow, we have strong evidence of 
 the reality of telepathy. Professor and Mrs. Sidgwick, 
 
244 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 among others, made extensive experiments along this 
 line. Playing-cards or numbers were generally select- 
 ed for the thought transmission, as it was with them 
 easier to calculate the mathematical chances. 
 
 The principle involved is simple. If a person is told 
 that some number between I and ioo is to be thought 
 of, the chances are ioo to I that he will guess the cor- 
 rect number. In other words, the chances are that out 
 of every hundred guesses he will get one right. If 
 we find that instead of one out of a hundred, the per- 
 cipient gets thirty or forty or sixty "guesses" right, we 
 say, quite reasonably, that there must be something 
 more here than guessing. 
 
 Similarly, with a pack of cards ; the chances that a 
 person will guess correctly the suit of any card chosen 
 at random are 4 to 1 ; the chances that he will guess 
 the number of a card correctly are 13 to 1 ; the chances 
 that he will name correctly both suit and number — that 
 is, tell the exact card out of the whole pack — are 52 
 to 1. If, therefore, the percipient manages forty times 
 out of fifty to tell you correctly the exact card you 
 are thinking about, you say at once there must be 
 thought transference here. 
 
 The actual percentages of Professor Sidgwick's ex- 
 periments are not quite as high as in our supposititious 
 case ; but they are many times greater than pure chance 
 would indicate. "The results were : Twenty-three tri- 
 als, with six answers right the first time and six the 
 second guess. Counting only the correct answers for 
 the first guess, the percentage was one in three and 
 three-fourths, or twenty-six per cent., against one 
 chance in fifty-two, or about two per cent., as cards 
 were used. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 245 
 
 "Professor Balfour Stewart reports a table much 
 better than this. He experimented with numbers be- 
 tween ten and one hundred; with objects, and names, 
 as well as cards. 
 
 Things No. of No. right on If first guess rhancps 
 
 chosen trials ist. guess 2d. guess only counted 
 
 Cards 36 10 91 right in 3% 1 in 52 
 Nos. from 
 
 10 to 100 20 5 3 1 " " 4 1 " 90 
 
 Objects 21 6 1 1 " " 3 " 1 "40 
 
 Names 8 4 3 1 " " 2 Indefinite 
 
 "To remove the objections which might be based 
 very naturally upon fraud and suggestion in certain 
 conditions, the committee made experiments in which 
 the selected objects were known only to one or more 
 of the committee itself, and the results were summar- 
 ized in the following statistics, the things chosen being, 
 variously, cards, numbers and words. There were 497 
 trials made. Of these, ninety-five were correct on the 
 first guess . . . forty-five on the second . . . five on 
 the third. . . . The chances for success were estimated 
 as one in forty-three, while the actual success was one 
 in 5i> or two per cent, for the chances and nineteen 
 per cent, for the successes." 1 
 
 Telepathic Hypnosis and Suggestion 
 Soon after telepathy began to be studied, and proofs 
 of its existence began to accumulate, the question was 
 asked: If thoughts (impressions) can be thus trans- 
 mitted at a distance, why cannot motor suggestions 
 (expressions) ? In other words, if I can make you, 
 
 ^yslop: Enigmas of Psychical Research, pp. 122-3. 
 
246 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 perhaps miles away, think of the picture of which I 
 am thinking, why cannot I make you, still miles away, 
 move your arm as I suggest to you telepathically ? 
 
 The best answer, of course, was to try and see ; and 
 we have one or two striking examples of this telepathic 
 suggestion. We have already mentioned the case of 
 Conway, receiving telepathically the tastes of things 
 which another man was eating. Of hypnosis exerted 
 telepathically, Myers gives one remarkable instance : 
 
 "The subject of these experiments . . . was Profes- 
 sor Pierre Janet's well-known subject, Madame B. 
 The experiments were carried out with her at Havre, 
 by Professor Janet and Dr. Gibert, a leading physi- 
 cian there. . . . 
 
 "In the evening (226) we all dined at M. Gibert's, 
 and in the evening M. Gibert made another attempt to 
 put her to sleep at a distance from his house in the 
 Rue Sery — she being at the Pavilion, Rue de la Ferme 
 — and to bring her to his house by an effort of will. 
 At 8.55 he retired to his study, and MM. Ochorowicz, 
 Marillier, Janet, and A. T. Myers, went to the Pavil- 
 ion, and waited outside in the street, out of sight of the 
 house. At 9.22 Dr. Myers observed Madame B. com- 
 ing half way out of the garden gate, and again re- 
 treating. Those who saw her more closely observed 
 that she was plainly in the somnambulic state, and was 
 wandering about and muttering. At 9.25 she came out 
 (with eyes persistently closed, so far as could be seen), 
 walked quickly past MM. Janet and Marillier without 
 noticing them, and made for M. Gibert's house, tho 
 not by the usual or shortest route. ( It appeared after- 
 ward that the bonne had seen her go into the salon at 
 8.45, and issue thence, asleep, at 9.15; had not looked 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 247 
 
 in between those times) . She avoided lamp-posts, ve- 
 hicles, etc., but crossed and recrossed the street re- 
 peatedly. No one went in front of her or spoke to 
 her. After eight or ten minutes she grew much more 
 uncertain in gait, and paused as tho she would fall. 
 Dr. Myers noted the moment in the Rue Faure ; it was 
 9.35. At about 9.40 she grew bolder, and at 9.45 
 reached the street in front of M. Gibert's house. There 
 she met him, but did not notice him, and walked into 
 his house, where she rushed hurriedly from room to 
 room on the ground-floor. M. Gibert had to take 
 her hand before she recognized him. She then grew 
 calm. 
 
 "M. Gibert said that from 8.55 to 9.20 he thought 
 intently about her, from 9.20 to 9.35 he thought more 
 feebly ; at 9.35 he gave the experiment up, and began 
 to play billiards; but in a few minutes began to will 
 her again. It appeared that his visit to the billiard- 
 room had coincided with her hesitation and stumbling 
 in the street. But this coincidence may, of course, -have 
 been accidental. . . Z' 1 
 
 Another example of a similar power is noted by Dr. 
 Hyslop in his discussion of telepathic experiments, the 
 object of which was to induce unconsciousness in some 
 portion of another person's body by merely thinking it. 
 
 "There were 107 trials at the production of anesthe- 
 sia by telepathy in a selected finger, the finger selected 
 varying as required. There was, of course, one chance 
 out of ten each time that the finger would be guessed, 
 if it were a mere question of telepathy or getting what 
 
 1 See the Bulletins de la Societe de Psychologie Physiologique, 
 tome 1, p. 24, and Revue Philosophique, August, 1886. See 
 also Myers: Human Personality, pp. 382-3. 
 
248 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 the agent was thinking about. But here the additional 
 circumstance that anesthesia was to be produced makes 
 the matter more difficult and interesting. But of the 
 107 trials, sixty-three, or nearly fifty-nine per cent., 
 were successes ; and forty, or more than forty-six per 
 cent., of the instances were failures. The chances 
 against success were enormous when the whole num- 
 ber is taken into account." 1 
 
 The field that these and similar experiments open 
 up for a possible enlargement of our normal human 
 powers is, obviously, so wonderful as to be little short 
 of miraculous. If I can, by merely thinking, paralyze 
 a man's finger on the opposite side of the room, there 
 is no reason in the nature of the phenomena why I 
 cannot spontaneously, by merely thinking, paralyze a 
 man's whole body on the opposite side of the world. 
 If I can, by thinking, make a man near me imagine 
 he is tasting salt, there is no reason in the nature of 
 the phenomena why I cannot, by merely thinking, cause 
 my friend in Greenland to taste and imagine he is eat- 
 ing a square meal. (This genuinely Barmecide feast 
 would probably give him very slender nourishment, 
 however!) Do the Arabian Nights or Baron Mun- 
 chausen present any wilder dreams of the imagination 
 than these wonders that sober scientists and psycholo- 
 gists assert are veritable actual facts? 
 
 What Is Telepathy? 
 
 Regarding the nature or cause of this telepathic abil- 
 ity, questions are easy to ask, but difficult to answer. 
 Myers believed, and his opinion is concurred in by 
 other investigators, that telepathy is one of the powers 
 of the "subliminal self," that great submerged portion 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 249 
 
 of our personalty of which I have already spoken. 
 When we wish to exert telepathic powers, the first 
 thing we do is to put in abeyance the supraliminal (or 
 ordinary) self. That is, as the percipient shuts out her 
 ordinary consciousness, stops up the senses of sight 
 and hearing, so much the more clearly does the sub- 
 liminal self do its telepathic work. If the condition 
 is carried a step further, and the percipient is lightly 
 hypnotized (that is, remember, the body is put un- 
 der the control of the subliminal self), the ability to re- 
 ceive telepathic messages is correspondingly again in- 
 creased. 
 
 It is as if a man in his normal consciousness saw 
 with his normal eyes, heard with his material ears, 
 thought with a brain of cell and tissue. But let a por- 
 tion of the subliminal consciousness be put in control 
 of his body — even tho it be involuntary, and for a sec- 
 ond's flash of time — and the man finds he exerts the 
 same abilities of sight and hearing and thinking, but 
 abilities marvelously magnified many times. 
 
 How this happens, we, as yet, simply don't know; 
 but that it does happen, a very large number of very 
 eminent scientists sincerely believe. 
 
"WE ONLY DEAL WITH PRESUMPTION AND 
 PREJUDICES" 
 
 The question, "Are the Dead Alive?" means, I suppose, "Does 
 consciousness survive the death of the body?" It is at present 
 impossible — setting aside faith and religion — for any mortal to 
 answer this question on grounds of actual experimental knowl- 
 edge. We only deal with presumption and prejudices. Since 
 man was man, it has been sufficiently obvious that normal in- 
 telligence — "the mind" — develops and decays as the fleshly 
 body develops and decays. The mind flourishes and is at its 
 best, as a rule, between the ages of eighteen and twenty- 
 eight, in my private opinion, but every one can fix the age of 
 intellectual vigor in accordance with his own observation, 
 knowledge and experience. It is admitted, universally, that 
 the mind, like the body, has its periods of growth, maturity, 
 decadence and decay. Consequently, it is a natural inference 
 that when the bodily life of the individual is extinct, the life 
 of the mind vanishes like the flame of a burned-out candle. It 
 is no less clear, and has been clear to mankind from the 
 first, that the normal consciousness can be extinguished, tem- 
 porarily, by a sufficient knock on the head; and that in dream- 
 less sleep it gives no signs (to its owner's normal conscious- 
 ness) of its existence. The inference that death is a sleep 
 which knows no waking is no ancient commonplace. When 
 modern science minutely examines the nervous and cerebral 
 mechanisms, and knows that each mental action has a cerebral 
 concomitant, the conclusion that consciousness, that mental 
 existence, is a bodily function, like digestion, seems quite 
 natural. 
 
 Yet we have only presumptions. On the other side, since 
 man was man, other phenomena have been observed which 
 have led to the opposite conclusion. Among human faculties 
 those of clairvoyance, or "Vue a distance," and telepathy — 
 communication between mind and mind through no known 
 250 
 
[ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 251 
 
 channel of the senses; of precognition and retrocognition — 
 the inexplicable knowledge of things past and things future — 
 have always been recognized in belief, and have, by many, 
 been accepted as facts of experience. If they are facts — and 
 I am persuaded that they are — and if the system which we 
 call materialism can only ignore them and deny them without 
 examining the evidence, then there is no limit to the range 
 and possibilities. Consciousness so independent of a known 
 material base for such exploits may be capable of a separate 
 existence, for all that we can tell. But till science pays more 
 serious attention to the alleged phenomena, every one will 
 form an opinion, or go without an opinion, in accordance with 
 his own temperament, bias and information. As the Greek 
 poet says, "Soon shall we know better than prophets." 
 
 — Andrew Lang. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 PREMONITIONS 
 
 I have set by themselves a large and important group 
 of telepathic phenomena that we call premonitions. I 
 say "telepathic"; but we shall note several examples 
 where the information received could apparently come 
 from no mortal mind. 
 
 A premonition is advance information of a coming 
 event, imparted to our consciousness inexplicably, and 
 often instantaneously. We say that we have "premoni- 
 tions" of impending disaster. What do we mean? 
 
 Examples will probably occur to every reader; the 
 literature of spiritualism is full of them. "A . . . Mr. 
 Skirving . . . was irresistibly compelled to leave his 
 work and go home — why, he knew not — at the moment 
 when his wife was, in fact, calling for him in the dis- 
 tress of a serious accident." 1 
 
 "A Mr. Garrison, . . . left a religious meeting in 
 the evening, and walked eighteen miles under the 
 strong impulse to see his mother, and found her dead." 2 
 
 "Mrs. Mary A. Livermore, famous for her devoted 
 services during the war, and one of the greatest 
 woman speakers that the world has ever known, told 
 
 1 See Myers : Phantasms of the Living, v. i, p. 285. 
 2 S. P. R. Journal, v. 8, p. 125. 
 252 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 253 
 
 me how her life was saved during her travels in the 
 West, on a certain occasion, by her hearing and in- 
 stantly obeying a voice. She did not know where it 
 came from, but she leaped as the voice ordered her to, 
 from one side of a car to the other, and instantly the 
 side where she had been sitting was crushed in and 
 utterly demolished." 1 
 
 "A bricklayer has a sudden impulse to run home, 
 and arrives just in time to save the life of his little boy, 
 who had set himself on fire." 2 
 
 "A Boston dentist had been working at a set of 
 teeth, and was bending over the bench on which was 
 the copper containing the rubber, when* he heard a 
 voice calling, in a quick and imperative manner, these 
 words : 'Run to the window, quick ! Run to the win- 
 dow, quick!' twice repeated. Without thinking from 
 whom the voice could have come, he at once ran to 
 the window and looked out to the street below, when 
 suddenly he heard a tremendous report in his work- 
 room, and looking around, he saw the copper vessel 
 had exploded, and had been blown up thru the plaster- 
 ing of the room." 3 
 
 "Major Kobbe . . . was prompted to visit a distant 
 cemetery, without any conscious reason, an'd there 
 found his father, who had, in fact, for certain unex- 
 pected reasons, sent to his son, Major Kobbe, a request 
 (accidentally not received) to meet him at that place 
 and hour." 4 
 
 lavage: Life Beyond Death, p. 284. 
 2 Myers : Phantasms of the Living, v. 2, p. 377. 
 "Hyslop: Enigmas of Psychical Research, pp. 310-H. 
 "Myers : Phantasms of the Living, v. 1, p. 288. 
 
254 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 All these are typical cases 1 out of a great number. 
 What does it mean? Whence come these mysterious 
 warning voices that stand us in such good stead? 
 
 To take an even more striking example : "Mr. Wm. 
 H. Wyman writes to the editor of the Arena as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 "'Dunkirk, N. Y., June 26, 1891. 
 
 " 'Some years ago my brother was employed, and 
 had charge as conductor and engineer of a working 
 train, on the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Rail- 
 way, running between Buffalo and Erie, which passes 
 thru this city. ... I often went with him to the Grave 
 Bank, where he has his headquarters, and returned on 
 his train with him. On one occasion I was with him, 
 and after the train of cars was loaded we went to- 
 gether to the telegraph office to see if there were any 
 orders, and to find out if the trains were on time, as 
 he had to keep out of the way of all regular trains. 
 After looking over the train reports, and finding them 
 all on time, we started for Buffalo. As we approached 
 near Westfield Station, running about twelve miles per 
 hour, and when within about one mile of a long curve 
 in the line, my brother all of a sudden shutt off the 
 steam, and quickly stepping over to the fireman's side 
 of the engine, he looked out of the cab window, and 
 then to the rear of his train, to see if there was any- 
 thing the matter with either. Not discovering any- 
 thing wrong, he stopped and put on steam, but almost 
 immediately again shut it off and gave the signal for 
 brakes, and stopped. After inspecting the engine and 
 
 Several others are mentioned in Myers: Human Person- 
 ality, p. 372, 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 255 
 
 train, and finding nothing wrong, he seemed very much 
 excited, and for a short time he acted as if he did not 
 know where he was or what to do. I asked what was 
 the matter. He replied that he did not know, when, 
 after looking at his watch, and others, he said that he 
 felt that there was some trouble on the line of the 
 road. I suggested that he had better run his train to 
 the station and find out. He then ordered his flagman 
 with his flag to go ahead around the curve, which was 
 just ahead of us, and he would follow with the train. 
 The flagman started, and had just time to flag an extra 
 express, with the general superintendent and others 
 on board, coming full 40 (forty) miles per hour. The 
 superintendent inquired what he was doing there, and 
 if he did not receive orders to keep out of the way 
 of the extra. My brother told him that he had not re- 
 ceived orders, and did not know of any extra train 
 coming; that we had both examined the train reports 
 before leaving the station. The train then backed to 
 the station, where it was found that no orders had 
 been given. The train despatcher was at once dis- 
 charged from the road ; and from that time to this both 
 my brother and myself are unable to account for his 
 stopping the train as he did." 1 
 
 These, especially the last, are evidently anticipations 
 of future events; and in an earlier chapter we had two 
 very striking cases of actual precognition, or prophecy. 
 
 What Is the Explanation of Premonition? 
 
 There are apparently three, and only three, possible 
 explanations of premonition. 
 
 Reported in S. P. R. Proceedings, v. 9, p. 416. 
 
256 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 i. Telepathy: that is, that the information received, 
 sometimes in the flash of a second, was known (that 
 is, was in the mind) of some other human being some- 
 where, and was communicated instantaneously to the 
 percipient's mind. This theory does not explain, how- 
 ever, why the percipient, almost invariably busy with 
 other matters, should be in a proper state of sensitive- 
 ness to receive a telepathic message; it does not ex- 
 plain why this warning should come, as it often does, 
 in the very "nick of time," as we say ; it does not ex- 
 plain those cases — like that of the Boston dentist, or 
 Mrs. Livermore in the railroad accident — in which it 
 is impossible to conceive how the warning knowledge 
 could be in any other mind. 
 
 2. The second explanation is what Frederic Myers 
 calls hyperesthesia; that is, temporary abnormal acute- 
 ness of the senses; a hearing or seeing power of the 
 subliminal self greater than the supraliminal self (the 
 ordinary consciousness) could ever exert. But altho, 
 in some way that seems to us just as miraculous, the 
 engineer might have heard unconsciously the approach 
 of that express, many miles away, tho the dentist 
 might have seen, subconsciously, some danger signal 
 in his laboratory vessel which he automatically obeyed, 
 it is difficult to see how this could explain Professor 
 Thoulet's telegram, not written till ten days after he 
 sazv it, or the sight of the suicide of Mr. Espie, which 
 did not occur until a week later. 
 
 3. The third explanation is that the premonition is 
 given by spirits. This is, of course, if we accept the 
 spiritualistic hypothesis at all, the easy solution of 
 nearly all premonitions. They are messages whispered 
 by the spirits of the departed to our subconscious self, 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 257 
 
 warning us, whom they love, of the approaching dan- 
 ger which they are able to foresee. Certainly this 
 hypothesis accounts for the instantaneous timeliness 
 of many of these premonitions as neither of the other 
 hypotheses do. 
 
 I am familiar with no other explanation of premoni- 
 tion than those given. To the theories of hyperes- 
 thesia and telepathy there are certainly grave objec- 
 tions; but many will think the theory of spiritual 
 help, from a scientific standpoint, even more objec- 
 tionable. 
 
"WE ARE AT THE DAWN OF A NEW RELIGION" 
 
 We have a soul which is making and perfecting its own 
 body. This life is not the first we have lived, nor will it be 
 the last. The material body is passing on from one evolution 
 to another, and the soul from one reincarnation to another. 
 This is my belief, but that has not been in any radical way 
 influenced by my researches in metaphysical science. 
 
 The words in the Bible declaring that there is nothing new 
 under the sun are still good. To-day we only differ as re- 
 gards our belief in the problem of haunted houses, tipping 
 tables and materialized spirits. And, most of all, our method 
 of studying them has progressed. Psychic phenomena existed 
 in the days of the ancient Romans. The trials and punish- 
 ments of sorcerers and witches exist upon the statute books 
 of the European courts of the fifteenth century. In early times 
 the truth of sorcery, witchcraft, evil spirits and of visions 
 was never questioned. If I am not mistaken, a few witches 
 were burned even in America, at Salem, Massachusetts. 
 
 To-day — and it is only to-day — scientific men, professors, 
 chemical experts, doctors — most of all those interested in 
 nervous and neurotic cases— have taken up seriously the study 
 of a certain class of facts which have come inevitably under 
 their observation. 
 
 I am not blind to the fact that my testimony, unaided, 
 would be of very little importance. I have made my experi- 
 ments in my own way, for my own enlightenment, without 
 any thought of convincing some one else against his will as 
 to the truth of my observations. But the results of my labors, 
 added to those of such men as Richet, Myers, Lombroso, 
 Hodgson, Flammarion, Lodge and others, make a tangible be- 
 ginning on the threshold of a science which, if not altogether 
 new, is still almost wholly unexplored. Perhaps — I say per- 
 haps — out of this will come the unraveling of the mystery 
 of the "au-dela"<— the future life. I feel sometimes as if I 
 
& 
 
 Dr. V. Maxwell 
 
 A French lawyer and physician, who, taking up the subject at first 
 as a hobby, has become one of the most careful and enthusiastic of all 
 the investigators of psychical phenomena. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 259 
 
 were on the dawn of a new religion, one in which all humanity 
 will he united; one without a ritual, one where no propa- 
 ganda will be necessary. 
 
 The revival of interest in metapsychical phenomena in the 
 present century dates practically from the advent of the Fox 
 sisters, of Rochester, New York. Thus we may say that the 
 present reaction against materialism comes in a great wave 
 out of the West. It has permeated every civilized land, pene- 
 trated into every station of life, and is sweeping the material- 
 ism of the German school, for instance, off its feet and into 
 oblivion. It would be manifestly impossible here for me 
 to go into any details as to my experiments and observations. 
 I will, therefore, only outline a few facts. 
 
 I have demonstrated to my entire satisfaction that there 
 exists in nature a force capable of moving objects at a dis- 
 tance without contact. 
 
 This force is often manifested by raps or other noises, 
 and the nature of it remains as yet hidden or unexplained. 
 On occasions it seems to be a conscious or intelligent force 
 or forces, and there are abundant examples to indicate that 
 it might be the spirits of the dead. The preponderance of 
 evidence, however, goes to prove that it is an exteriorized 
 force emanating from the medium and from the sitters in a 
 seance. And here we come in contact with a fact which we 
 cannot explain. That is, that only certain persons are gifted 
 with the mediumistic force. To find a good medium, or 
 psychic, is one of the greatest stumbling blocks in the path- 
 way of the investigator. In my own experience, the most 
 powerful natural mediums I have found have been persons 
 in private life, people of position not easily accessible to the 
 demands of the operator, who under no circumstance would 
 permit their names to be used in connection with a published 
 report. Mediums, like singers, are born; and, like singers, it 
 takes time, patience and much work to make their manifesta- 
 tions of practical or scientific value. 
 
 The analysis of intellectual phenomena raises difficulties 
 which are much more complicated than the simple observa- 
 tion of a physical fact. 
 
 For this reason I have given my attention principally to 
 
260 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 the study of physical phenomena. In this I have to defend 
 myself only against two enemies — the fraud of others and 
 my own illusions. Now, I feel certain of never having been 
 the victim of either. When, for example, as has happened in 
 my experience many times, I have seen in the refreshment- 
 room of a railway station, in a restaurant or in a tea-shop, 
 in broad daylight, a piece of furniture change place of its 
 own accord, I have a right to think I am not in the presence 
 of furniture especially arranged to produce such effects. When 
 I make sure of the absence of contact between the experi- 
 menters and the article which is displaced, I have sufficient 
 reason to exclude the hypothesis of fraud. When I measure 
 the distance between the objects before and after displacement, 
 I have sufficient reasons for excluding the hypothesis of the 
 illusion of my senses. If this right be refused me, I should 
 like to know how any fact whatever can be observed. I have 
 but one answer for those who may distrust my qualifications 
 as an observer: Let them take the trouble of experimenting 
 for themselves. 
 
 I have no decided opinion as to the nature and origin of 
 this force. 
 
 It may be kindred to the energy which circulates in our 
 nerves, and causes our muscles to draw up. I have always 
 thought there was nothing supernatural in these phenomena. 
 My conclusions have not changed. I can only certify to their 
 existence as a fact. 
 
 I observed once a medium whose perspiration was luminous. 
 When coming from the daylight into a dark room, his head, 
 collar and hair were phosphorescent. That is not a meta- 
 physical phenomenon, only a physiological one, due to the 
 presence of calcium sulphide on the perspiration. But with 
 the same medium, and with two other ones, I have witnessed 
 on many occasions the phenomenon called by spiritualists 
 "spirit lights." These lights are bright sometimes, and at 
 other times very weak. They do not last long, but disappear 
 in a few seconds. My observations are not sufficient in num- 
 ber to allow me to have an opinion on their cause. But 
 their reality seems probable to me. They seemed to obey the 
 same laws as the movements and raps. y. Maxwell. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 MEDIUMSHIP 
 
 So far we have been considering this psychic prob- 
 lem entirely from one end — your and my -end, the earth- 
 world end. Supposing for a moment that we may see 
 more clearly the setting of the stage for the final act 
 in this drama of spiritism, let us view the problem 
 from an imaginary other end. Let us suppose we are 
 "spirits," whatever that means, in a future existence, 
 wherever that may be, and try to imagine what we 
 would do. 
 
 In the first place, we assume that we would want 
 to communicate, if possible, with those we left behind 
 on earth. 
 
 But how should we communicate ? On earth we re- 
 ceive communications thru one of two senses — sight 
 or hearing. Why should "spirits" be thought to com- 
 municate otherwise ? But how can they ? arises the im- 
 mediate question, for speaking necessitates material 
 organs of speech ; writing involves a bodily hand to 
 grasp a pencil. The spirit is immaterial ; has no body ; 
 needs none to communicate in its own world. 
 
 Immediately comes the answer : the spirit may tem- 
 porarily use some living person's body ! Exactly : and 
 that is just what it seems to do. Really, when you 
 think about it, is not that the natural and simple thing 
 261 
 
262 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 for a disembodied spirit to do? Myers says he con- 
 siders the main objection usually raised to mediumistic 
 communications really a confirmatory point. He says : 
 "I should have expected knowledge of a future world 
 to come, if at all, thru some use made by disembodied 
 spirits of living organisms/' 1 And to those who can- 
 not see why there need to be mediums, Dr. Minot J. 
 Savage asks a question which impresses me as at the 
 same time an excellent answer : "People ask me again 
 and again — and I am answering these questions as tho 
 I believed — if the people in the other world, my friends 
 in the other world, can communicate with anybody, 
 why don't they come directly to me ? Why must they 
 go to a psychic, a stranger, somebody about whom I 
 know nothing? 
 
 "In the first place, I tell you frankly I do not know 
 anything about it. But I have a theory which seems 
 to me a very reasonable one. Let me ask a counter 
 question. If electricity will run along a wire — I am 
 using the old theory that electricity is a fluid, but I 
 do not know what it is, and do not know of any 
 one who does — if electricity can convey a message 
 from Chicago to New York over a wire, why cannot 
 it convey it over a board fence ? I do not know ; and 
 there is nobody in the world who does know." 
 
 We even have examples of cases where discarnate 
 spirits have tried hard to write or speak directly, with- 
 out making use of some human body as a medium, but 
 have failed. Sir W. Crookes gives a very striking 
 case of this : "My second instance [of direct writing] 
 may be considered the record of a failure. 'A good 
 
 J Myers in the National Review for 1898, p. 232. 
 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 263 
 
 failure often teaches more than the most successful 
 experiment.' It took place in the light, in my own 
 room, with only a few private friends and Mr. Home 
 present. Several circumstances, to which I need not 
 further allude, had shown that the power that evening 
 was strong. I therefore expressed a wish to witness 
 the actual production of a written message such as 
 I had heard described a short time before by a friend. 
 Immediately an alphabetic communication was made as 
 follows: 'We will try.' A pencil and some sheets of 
 paper had been lying on the center of the table ; pres- 
 ently the pencil rose up on its point, and after advan- 
 cing by hesitating jerks to the paper, fell down. It 
 then rose, and again fell. A third time it tried, but 
 with no better result. After three unsuccessful at- 
 tempts a small wooden lath, which was lying near, upon 
 the table, slid toward the pencil and rose a few inches 
 from the table; the pencil rose again, and propping 
 itself against the lath, the two together made an effort 
 to mark the paper. It fell, and then a joint effort was 
 again made. After a third trial the lath gave it up 
 and moved back to its place, the pencil lay as it fell 
 across the paper, and an alphabetic message told us, 
 'We have tried to do as you asked, but our power is 
 exhausted.' " 1 
 
 But having assumed that the spirits will communi- 
 cate thru some human body, what determines whose 
 they shall use? Why do they use some "medium's"? 
 Why not yours or mine, if you or I are the ones they 
 wish to communicate with? 
 
 And here, again, the spiritualist's answer is simple, 
 
 'Crookes : Notes. Quar. Jour, of Sci., Jan., 1874., pp. 89-90. 
 
264 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 and sounds plausible. The supplanting of a person's 
 own spirit by the exterior spirit of a deceased person 
 is, he says, a very delicate operation ; but few persons 
 are psychically able to allow the use of their body to 
 these spiritual "controls." Certain conditions, certain 
 abilities, a certain training, are prerequisite ; and these 
 you and I may not happen to possess. 
 
 And we have some clue, too, as to what these pre- 
 requisites are. We have already seen that one part 
 of our personality, the subliminal part, seems able to 
 practice certain powers of telepathy and clairvoyance 
 quite exceeding our normal human experience. These 
 are powers, too, which racial tradition and popular be- 
 lief have attributed to beings of a higher order of ex- 
 istence, and particularly to the "spirits" of the dead. 
 
 These unusual powers of the subliminal self are de- 
 veloped in comparatively few persons, and these chosen 
 apparently at random from the great mass of human 
 beings. In other words — and this is the gist of all 
 "mediumship" — but a few persons are able to meet 
 the deceased "spirits" on a common ground, on a com- 
 mon basis of subliminal ability; only a few, that is, 
 are "sensitive" to communications from the other 
 world. But is it not an assumption, you may ask, to 
 assert that there is any connection between telepathy 
 and sensitiveness to spirit communications ? It is ; but 
 there are several facts that seem to support it. Tel- 
 epathy, for instance, seems to occur only in a momen- 
 tary or partial trance, or at least when the subliminal 
 self is wholly or partly in control of the body. Just 
 so spirit messages are received (except very rarely) 
 when the body is in a whole or partial state of trance. 
 
 When we say, therefore, that the subliminal self is 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 265 
 
 in very close connection, or working harmony, with 
 the discarnate spirit, we shall probably be not far 
 wrong. Myers goes so far as to say, "Considering . . . 
 the evidence which shows that that portion of the per- 
 sonality which exercises these powers during our earth- 
 ly existence does actually continue to exercise them 
 after our bodily decay, we shall recognise a relation — 
 obscure but indisputable — between the subliminal and 
 the surviving self." 1 
 
 But do not ask me why -the spirit is not able to write 
 without using a bodily instrument. I do not know; 
 no man on earth knows. As Mr. Myers well says, it is 
 our duty not to argue or complain why mediums can, 
 or why you and I cannot, do it, but to "search for and 
 train such other favored individuals as already show 
 this form of capacity . . . always latent, perhaps, and 
 now gradually emergent in the human race." You 
 have no more right to ask why a discarnate spirit must 
 transmit its message thru a medium than to ask why 
 3'ou or I do not happen to be able' to practice telepathy 
 or see clairvoyantly. 
 
 We may premise at the very beginning, then, that 
 the task of our discarnate spirits from the other world, 
 even if they were desirous of communicating, would 
 not be an easy one. We find that we would have to 
 express ourselves thru some human body, or not at all ; 
 and, alas ! we would find, too, that there are in all the 
 world apparently few persons who have the power to 
 enter into communication with us. So we would 
 search till our discarnate spirit, as Frederic Myers 
 says in a very striking passage, "seeking . . . for some 
 
 2 Myers : Human Personality, p. 168. 
 
266 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 open avenue, discerns something which corresponds 
 ... to a light — a glimmer of translucency in the con- 
 fused 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." 1 
 
 "But all this amounts to nothing," you may inter- 
 rupt impatiently; "it is all, as you yourself have con- 
 fessed, pure assumption. I can just as well assume 
 something entirely different; and can you then find 
 flaws in my assumption ?" 
 
 Yes; you will have no shadow of proof to support 
 an assumption utterly and thruout different from mine. 
 I have made a series of related assumptions; a little 
 later we shall see how remarkably closely the facts 
 seem — mind you, I say seem — to bear them out. 
 
 The Phenomena of "Automatism " 
 We soon find, however, that tho an overwhelming 
 proportion of alleged messages from the spirit world 
 are transmitted thru mediums, they come in various 
 ways, with some of which the medium may seem to 
 have little to do. 
 
 In the second article of the series we discussed at 
 some length the "physical phenomena" of mediumship. 
 We saw that rappings, table-tipping, etc., are claimed 
 by the spiritualist to be evidence of the existence of 
 
 1 Myers : Human Personality, p. 335. 
 
s£&s<sC^<n^^<¥si^^ji^^ o^j^iX* ^"y<2yU^, *^/£Z<^ 
 
 <a^»-o ^f£^-i^^OL-^C 
 
 I. A Typical Example of "Spirit Writing" 
 
 This is the medium's normal handwriting. (Compare this with the plates 
 facing pages 276 and 286). 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 267 
 
 spirits; and we stated hi:, reason — or one of his rea- 
 sons — for making that claim, namely, that the phenom- 
 ena seemed to him to be too remarkable to admit of 
 any "natural" explanation. And I have shown, too, 
 that this claim is considered by many of those scientists 
 who have really investigated the phenomena to be 
 unwarranted. They admit the occurrence of genuine 
 rappings and table-tippings, but assert, nevertheless, 
 that these phenomena are explicable without any 
 "spirit" intervention. The subliminal self, they say, 
 may be able and probably does in rare instances exert 
 genuine powers of telepathy, telekinesis and clairvoy- 
 ance. "Yes, we admit now your wonderful phenom- 
 ena," they continue, "but we can explain them all with- 
 out any spiritual help; you must bring forward some 
 better reason than that to make your 'spirit' hypothesis 
 scientifically tenable." 
 
 And the spiritualist thereupon brings forward his 
 second reason, a reason that we have hardly heretofore 
 mentioned, the fact that table-tipping, rapping, and, in 
 fact, all the physical phenomena of spiritualism, are 
 occasionally a means of transmitting messages; and 
 the further fact that these messages are of such a na- 
 ture that they could come only from another world. 
 
 This, as you can readily see, is a very important 
 fact. It is surprising enough for a table to float up 
 into the air of its own accord ; but it is more surprising 
 if, by some code arranged with it, it raps out an intel- 
 ligent sentence ; and it is even more astonishing if this 
 sentence is a bit of information, afterward found to 
 be entirely true, but at the moment of its delivery un- 
 known and unsuspected by any person in the room. 
 
268 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 This, we must admit, is a very strong argument for 
 spiritualism. Is any other hypothesis possible now? 
 
 I have purposely, heretofore, omitted any discussion 
 of the message-transmitting phase of all these phe- 
 nomena. The alleged spiritualist message is occasion- 
 ally transmitted by tappings, by table-tippings, by 
 slate-writing, by flashes of light, etc., but it is seen in its 
 fullest development, is most often given, and has been 
 for years most carefully studied, thru automatisms; 
 that is, thru direct writing and speaking by a medium. 
 Now, the arguments for and against the spiritualistic 
 origin of these messages are identical, whether they 
 come thru a table controlled by a medium, or thru her 
 own hand. If we work out the problem in one case 
 we do it in all. If we can prove one is due to spirits, 
 we have proved the others are. It has, therefore, 
 seemed wise to postpone this final problem, the authen- 
 ticity of spirit messages, until we have described au- 
 tomatisms, the most typical and perfectly developed of 
 all spiritual phenomena. I have, therefore, described 
 and discussed all the previous phenomena only in their 
 independent aspects ; but the reader will now under- 
 stand that everything said in the future regarding mes- 
 sages received by direct writing applies equally well 
 to those received by table-tipping, etc. 
 
 Various Phases of Motor Automatism 
 
 In the light trance which is the typical condition for 
 communication the medium may either speak or write 
 the messages which come to her. In the more com- 
 mon examples she merely repeats messages given her 
 by persons "on the other side." In its most developt 
 form, however — that is, motor automatism (as in Mrs. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 269 
 
 Piper's case) — the spirit claims to take entire control 
 of the medium's body (in other words, to be an exam- 
 ple of "possession," like the "Watseka Wonder" al- 
 ready noticed). The medium then speaks, not in her 
 own voice, but in the voice — so far as she can do so — ■ 
 of the alleged spirit ; her handwriting is not her own, 
 but changes with that of each spirit who uses her body ; 
 her gestures are not her normal ones, but may be 
 characteristic of the discarnate spirit who claims to 
 be present. In other words, the medium speaks and 
 acts in every way as the spirit who claims to be in 
 control of her body would do. "The influence of the 
 subject's mind," says Dr. Hyslop, "conscious and un- 
 conscious, is completely suppressed, and the nervous 
 system becomes a delicate machine for the intromission 
 of messages from without, affecting it as an automatic 
 piece of machinery." 1 
 
 Sometimes the personalities claiming to have con- 
 trol are of very different kinds of people. Mile. Smith, 
 the famous medium observed by Professor Flournoy, 
 and described at length in his From India to the Planet 
 Mars, not content with having among her numerous 
 "controls" Cagliostro, the magician of the sixteenth 
 century, and an Indian princess, imported, in later 
 phases of her mediumship, spirits from Mars ! In his 
 very interesting book, Professor Flournoy has many 
 samples of the Martian writing and sketches of Mar- 
 tian landscapes drawn by these Martian spirits, who 
 claimed to be using Mile. Smith's fingers. 
 
 Frederic Myers defines most clearly this phenomena 
 
 hyslop: Enigmas of Psychical Research, p. 344. 
 
270 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 of possession, or motor automatism. "In possession 
 the automatist's [the medium's] own personality does 
 for the time altogether disappear, while there is a 
 more or less complete substitution of personality ; writ- 
 ing or speech being given by a spirit thru the entranced 
 organism. . . .These phenomena of possession are now 
 the most amply attested, as well as intrinsically the 
 most advanced, in our whole repertory. 1 
 
 "The claim, then, is that the automatist, in the first 
 place, falls into a trance, during which his spirit par- 
 tially '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. . . . 
 
 "The controlling spirit proves his identity mainly 
 by reproducing, in speech or writing, facts which be- 
 long to his memory and not to the automatist's mem- 
 ory. He may also give evidence of supernormal per- 
 ception of other kinds. 
 
 "His manifestation may differ very considerably 
 from the automatist's normal personality . . . 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, in- 
 deed, produce facts and names unknown to the autom- 
 
 l Italics are mine. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 271 
 
 atist; 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, math- 
 ematical formulse or Chinese sentences, if the autom- 
 atist is ignorant of mathematics or of Chinese." 1 
 
 Sometimes two spirits, as Myers suggests, struggle 
 for control of the medium's body; sometimes two or 
 more control different parts of the medium's body at 
 the same time; sometimes a second one comes and 
 pushes the first one out, and the first one slinks hur- 
 riedly away — or at least these are the impressions given 
 to those present. Questions are asked the spirit and 
 answered directly in speech or writing. When she 
 awakes from the trance she generally, but not always, 
 remembers absolutely nothing of all that has taken 
 place. "After a time," says Mr. Myers, "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 ut- 
 terance as a rule, or at least no prolonged utterance, 
 by the automatist's own spirit, nor subsequent mem- 
 ory ; but there is writing or utterance during the trance 
 by controlling spirits." 4 
 
 This, then, is the phenomena of automatism as de- 
 scribed by a spiritualist ; let us examine for ourselves. 
 
 ^yers : Human Personality, Vol. II., pp. 190-91. 
 2 Ibid., p. 191. 
 
272 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 Rules for Conducting Mediumistic Experiments 
 Dr. Hyslop lays down the most important rules for 
 the conduct of mediumistic experiments, rules which 
 he says must be observed before we have the slightest 
 right to consider the possibility of a supernormal 
 source for the communications: 
 
 (i) "In various ways the extent of the medium's 
 honesty must be attested. This is not because any 
 scientific results should depend upon honesty > but be- 
 cause the belief or proof of it will remove the first 
 objection of the skeptic. 
 
 (2) "The statements, testimony, beliefs and opinions 
 of the medium will count for nothing in scientific proof 
 of the supernormal. 
 
 (3) "The medium should not know the sitter or 
 person coming at first to experiment. This precaution 
 shuts out a certain type of fraud as impossible. . . . 
 
 (4) "Adequate allowance, whether in or out of the 
 trance, must be made for 'suggestion,' or conscious or 
 unconscious hints from the sitter, in which informa- 
 tion may be conveyed to the medium. 
 
 (5) "As perfect a record as possible should be made 
 and kept of all that is said and done by the medium 
 and experimenter. 
 
 (6) "The quality of the facts or evidence in favor 
 of the supernormal must be such as excludes explana- 
 tion by chance coincidences, guessing, suggestion, sec- 
 ondary personality, and fraud of all kinds; that is, 
 they should take the nature of tests. . . . 
 
 (7) "In applying the spiritualistic hypothesis to the 
 phenomena we must be careful to observe that the facts 
 have a definite bearing upon the question of the per- 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 273 
 
 sonal identity of deceased persons not known to the 
 medium." [That is, those "spirits" who claim to be 
 communicating, themselves unknown to the medium, 
 must, be able to prove by their communications that 
 they are whom they- claim to be. This proving of per- 
 sonal identity, of which more, will be said later, is a 
 thing upon which the spiritualist rightly lays- great 
 stress.] 
 
 (8) If the medium remains normally conscious; 
 that is, does not go into a trance state, "proper allow- 
 ance must be made" for the possible influence of the 
 medium's own. mental and physical condition. 
 
 (9) "When a trance is secured we have to exclude 
 all phenomena that can be explained by 'secondary 
 personality/ or unconscious mental action. Not all 
 that occurs in a trance, if any of it, is attributable to 
 supernormal sources. We must be able to distinguish 
 between what comes from without the subject and. 
 what is consciously and unconsciously produced." 
 
 Here is the crux of the whole spiritistic problem: 
 if part of the phenomena occurring in the trance state 
 can be ascribed to the subliminal self (the "secondary 
 personality," of Dr. Hyslop), can it not all be so ac- 
 counted for, thus dropping altogether the hypothesis 
 of spirits? This problem must be considered at more 
 detail later. 
 
 Typical Mediumistic Phenomena 
 
 I am first going to quote a mediumistic experience 
 of Dr. Funk, because in subject matter and a con- 
 fusing combination of defmiteness and indefiniteness 
 it is typical. 
 
n 4 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 "Shortly after this experience of mine with Miss 
 B. (the medium) there was visiting in my home in 
 Brooklyn a niece of my wife's, whose home was in 
 Toledo, Ohio. She was a total stranger in New York. 
 I will here call her Miss M. Miss M. had had some 
 experience in Ohio in investigating psychic phe- 
 nomena. ... As she was a stranger in the city, I 
 thought it well to have her make a test visit to Miss 
 B., which she did in. November, 1903. . . . 
 
 "Miss M. is a rapid stenographer, and made notes 
 on the back of the envelopes of what the medium said 
 about each. In her report to me she said that 
 
 " 'Miss B. did not at any time 'fish' for information, 
 as is usual with many mediums, and I gave her not the 
 slightest clew about myself, my own name, home, or 
 history, or about the contents of any of the envelopes ; 
 nor did she ask a single question about any until after 
 she had given what information she could.' 
 
 "Miss M. took with her a number of sealed envel- 
 opes. Among these were three prepared by myself. 
 These I got ready in my library, without the slightest 
 intimation being given to Miss M. or to any one else 
 as to their contents. 
 
 "Envelope one contained a medical thesis written 
 by the father of Miss M., who was a physician. It 
 was nearly forty years old. The paper was written, in 
 the opinion of Miss M., when her father was attending 
 medical lectures at Willoughby College in Ohio. The 
 medium, after touching the envelope, said : 
 
 " 'I hear the. word "Toledo." I get the letters "F" 
 and "W." I do not know what these letters mean. 
 I also get the name "Ella." This Ella is your oldest 
 sister. There are three of you.. I see two brothers- 
 
ARE. THE DEAD. ALIVE? 275 
 
 in-law. You are not married. Your oldest sister has 
 six children. You are not living with her, but you 
 have been together during the summer. Your oldest 
 sister does not live in Toledo, but toward Cincinnati. 
 Your father says, 'Tell Ella she has not heart trouble ; 
 it is only nervousness." I hear "Tom." Your sister 
 has a son by that name." ' 
 
 "Miss M. tells me that This reading by the medium 
 was correct in every point. She did not fumble, half 
 utter a name and then change it. Each name was 
 given correctly at first. The letters "F" and "W" were 
 correct, if F referred to the surname of my father, 
 and W if it referred to the name of the college for 
 which this thesis was prepared.' The medium also 
 gave an accurate detailed description of the cemetery 
 ,and grave where Miss M.'s father and mother are bur- 
 ied. She said: 
 
 " 'Your father says you need not worry so much 
 about the condition of the grave; that that does not 
 signify. Your father also says, "I knew at 11.30 on 
 Thursday night that I could not get well." ' 
 
 "Miss M. informs me that she has a hired man to 
 take care of the graves, and that she has been con- 
 cerned because the burial plot has been permitted to 
 run down. Her sister Ella had expressed concern 
 about her heart; naturally so, because both her father 
 and her mother had died of heart trouble. Miss M. 
 also says, 'My father died on March 7, 1890; the night 
 before his death he had a very bad turn, and we felt 
 that he had given up all expectation of getting well. 
 He died about two hours afterward.' After getting 
 this report from Miss M., I looked in a perpetual cal- 
 endar, and found that March 7 fell on Friday. Miss 
 
276 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 M. informs me that her father died at 1.30 a.m. Hence 
 the Thursday night in the message is correct." 1 
 
 The second example of automatism is interesting be- 
 cause it shows how incongruous some of the com- 
 municators are with the medium and those present with 
 her. The receipt of the communication taken from 
 the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 
 is thus described, "Miss A.," the medium, writing au- 
 tomatically while entranced: "On June 27, 1891, Miss 
 A. took pencil in hand. - The following notes were 
 made directly after the sitting, and the automatic script 
 is in my hands (Mr. F. W. H. Myers). 2 The hand- 
 writing of the soi-disant Jack Creasy is barely legible 
 and of an uneducated type. 
 
 ["Much scribbling. At last, very illegibly, and many 
 times, was written] 'Jack.' 
 
 ('Jack who?) (Miss A. said, 'I dare say Jack the 
 Ripper, or some one of that kind.') 
 
 Jack Creasy. 
 
 (What do you want?) 
 
 Help pore Mary. 
 
 (Where did you live?) 
 
 [Very illegible.] Fillers [or] Tillers Buildings. 
 
 (Where?) 
 
 Greenwich. 
 
 "(Are you in the flesh?) 
 
 1 Funk: The Widozv's Mite, pp. 227-9. 
 
 2 As generally in descriptions of mediumistic communica- 
 tions, the matter here given in parentheses ( ) is the questions 
 of those interrogating the medium; that outside the parenthe- 
 ses is the automatic writing of the medium. Various explana- 
 tory notes are put in brackets C ]. 
 
luA: \\ 
 
 II. A Typical Example of "Spirit Writing" 
 
 Automatic communication, purporting to come from Dr. Hyslop's 
 father, written by the medium, Mrs. Smead, in successive trances. 
 (Reproduced from Hyslop's "Preliminary Report on the Trance Phe- 
 nomena of Mrs. Smead.") Compare this with the plates facing pages 
 266 and 286. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 277 
 
 No — flesh all burnt. [Then a rude drawing, not rec- 
 ognizable.] 
 
 (Were you burnt?) 
 
 Yes — piche kitl. 
 
 (In Fillers Buildings?) 
 
 In Blackwell Road. 
 
 (When?) 
 
 Long — perhaps twenty month. 
 
 (Was it an accident?) 
 
 Awful. Mister Lennard put us to shift the mixter ; 
 Bob Heal put the light for me the pitch vat cort. 
 
 "(What works?) 
 
 Tar. 
 
 (At Greenwich?) 
 
 Yes, Blackwell Rode. 
 
 (What kind of works?) 
 
 Abot. 
 
 (Do you mean Abbot's works?)' 
 
 Abots — yes — yes — Blackwell. 
 
 (Were many killed?) 
 
 I know nothin'. 
 
 (What help do you want for Mary?) 
 
 Don't know nothin' — find her — and help her — ask 
 after pore Jack Creasy's Mary. 
 
 (Is she at Greenwich? Can you give her address?) 
 
 Can't tell — can't see — she was there. 
 
 (Where?) 
 
 Fullur (or Fillers) Buildings. Bless you. 
 
 [No further writing occurred."] 
 
 It is, perhaps, needless to say that none of those pres- 
 ent knew of any "Jack Creasy," or had ever heard of 
 such an accident as the one described. "Investigation 
 proved, however, that a Jack Creasy had been burnt 
 
278 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 by an explosion of a pitch vat, and died from the effects 
 of it. The accident took place in the tar-distilling 
 works of Forbes, Abbot & Lennard, at Greenwich. 
 The works were bounded on one side by Blackwell 
 Lane. Apparently the name Fuller or Fillers is a 
 mistake for Forbes, though we have no evidence of 
 this. No such person as Bob Heal could be found, 
 and the wife of Jack Creasy was not named Mary. 
 The death of Jack Creasy occurred two years previous- 
 ly, and was mentioned with the accident in the local 
 papers, which it is probable that Miss A. never saw. 
 Dr. Hyslop, in quoting the case, remarks that it is 
 mainly "interesting for the apparent mental confusion 
 in the 'communication.' "* 
 
 A unique case, showing how, as often, the communi- 
 cating spirit claims to have, and apparently does have, 
 a knowledge above the normal, is that of Dr. "X," 
 who was in frequent consultation with the "spirit" of a 
 Dr. "Z" on the "other side." 
 
 "Under other circumstances I have myself consulted 
 Dr. Z. as to patients under my professional care. On 
 each occasion he has given a precise diagnosis and has 
 indicated a treatment, consisting mainly of dosimetric 
 granules, sometimes associated with other treatment. 
 These facts have been repeated many times, and I owe 
 a great gratitude to Dr. Z. for the advice which he 
 has given me. His prescriptions were always rational ; 
 and when I showed fear as to certain doses which ap- 
 peared to me too large, he took pains to reassure me, 
 but stuck to his prescriptions. I have never had to 
 repent following the advice of my eminent colleague 
 
 1 Quoted in Hyslop : Enigmas of Psychical Research, p. 366. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 279 
 
 in the other world ; and I am bound to state that every 
 time that a medical question has been submitted to him 
 the replies and advice of Dr. Z. have been of astonish- 
 ing clearness and precision." 1 
 
 Apparently Supernormal Knowledge Displayed in Medium- 
 istic Communications 
 
 Here is a partial report of a seance held by Dr. 
 Hyslop with a medium, Miss X., not a professional, 
 "who took no pay for what she did, sat only for a few 
 friends occasionally . . . and had no theories of her 
 powers." 
 
 Dr. Hyslop, who had had communications from what 
 he had reason to believe to be the spirit of his father, 
 had arranged with the latter a test sentence (in a for- 
 eign language) known only to himself and Dr. Hodg- 
 son, by which at future sittings with other mediums 
 the elder Hyslop might at once prove his identity. 
 Dr. Hyslop was unknown to the medium, and was in- 
 troduced to her by those arranging the sitting as "Rob- 
 ert Brown, of Nebraska." 
 
 "Miss X. . . . did not go into a trance. The first 
 words written were, 'Why, James.' Astonished at the 
 promptness with which this correct hit at my name oc- 
 curred, I asked, 'Who says that ?' and received the two 
 Christian names and initial of the surname of my wife, 
 who had died eight months before, the middle Chris- 
 tian name being very unusual. This was given with a 
 little difficulty and confusion. ... [A little later] 
 followed this passage: 
 
 " 'Your name is not Robert. It is James. Isn't it 
 
 1 Quoted in Hyslop : Enigmas of Psychical Research, p. 358. 
 
280 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 James ? Well, wait a little. We don't want too much 
 flutter here.' 
 
 " '(You know why I want full details.) Ah, but you 
 have had these, now let me talk. Don't ask for more 
 proof. (I have not had them from you.) I doubt 
 if I can give you the one thing you most desire this 
 moment. (What do I desire this moment?) [I was 
 not conscious of any particular desire at the time. I 
 was certainly not thinking of what was referred to in 
 the reply.] The sign, well, not exactly password, but 
 the test. If you will keep motionless I can be able to 
 give even that.' 
 
 "Here Miss X. remarked that she felt as if she were 
 going to sleep, and that she was afraid she might go 
 into some state which she did not like. She went to 
 the window to throw off the tendency, and resumed 
 the writing on her return. . . . The reference to the 
 'sign, well, not exactly password, but the test,' is sur- 
 prisingly accurate. It is not a password, but a pass- 
 sentence, and hence a 'sign' or 'test.' The apparent 
 tendency of Miss X. here to go into a trance in this 
 connection is a most suggestive incident, as that is the 
 condition in which I would most naturally expect the 
 pass-sentence to be given. . . . Miss X. ... of course 
 knew nothing of my expectation of a pass-sentence." 1 
 Yet the skeptic will probably answer that after all the 
 test sentence was not given. 
 
 Reserving till a little later the logical history of the 
 Piper case, I shall give one example of a seance held 
 by Dr. Minot Savage with Mrs. Piper before she was 
 studied by the Society for Psychical Research. 
 
 l Hyslop: Science and the Future Life, pp. 236-8. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 281 
 
 "I had sittings with Mrs. Piper years ago," he says, 
 "before the society was organized, or her name was 
 publicly known. On the occasion of my first visit to 
 her she was, I think, in a little house on Pinckney 
 Street, in Boston. At this time she went into a trance, 
 but talked instead of writing. The first person who 
 claimed to be present was my father. He had died in 
 Maine at the age of ninety. He had never lived in 
 Boston, nor, indeed, had he visited there for a great 
 many years, so that there was no possibility that Mrs. 
 Piper should ever have seen him, and no likelihood of 
 her having known anything about him. She described 
 him at once with accuracy, pointing out certain pe- 
 culiarities which the ordinary observer, even if he had 
 ever seen him, would not have been likely to notice. 
 Without any question on my part she told me that it 
 was my father, and added, 'He calls you Judson.' This, 
 tho a little fact, is striking enough to call for notice. 
 Judson is my middle name. ... In all my boyhood all 
 the members of the family, except my father and my 
 half-brother, soon to be referred to, had always called 
 me Minot. Father had called me Judson thru my 
 boyhood, as I always supposed, out of a tender feeling 
 for the daughter who had given me the name. For 
 fifteen or twenty years, however, before his death he 
 had fallen into the family way, and had also called me 
 Minot. It struck me, then, as peculiar and worthy of 
 note that Mrs. Piper should actually describe him, and, 
 among other personal peculiarities which she men- 
 tioned, should have called up this tiny fact from the 
 oblivion of the past. 
 
 "She went on to say: 'Here is somebody else be- 
 sides your father. It is your brother — no, your half- 
 
282 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 brother, and he says his name is John.' This John 
 was my mother's boy. Then Mrs. Piper went on to 
 describe, with somewhat painful accuracy, partly in 
 pantomime and partly by speech, the method of his 
 death; and she added: 'When he was dying, how he 
 did want to see his mother!' Now this half-brother 
 John had also been in the habit of calling me Judson 
 in the years long past. It had been a good many years 
 since I had seen him. He had never lived in Boston, 
 and there is no conceivable way by which Mrs. Piper 
 could have known anything about him. He was not 
 consciously in my mind, and I was not expecting to 
 hear from him. He had died a year or two before 
 this in Michigan, in precisely the way in which the 
 medium had described the facts. As to his exclamation 
 about his mother, it came to me as peculiarly personal 
 and appropriate, because he was one of those who 
 would be spoken of as a 'mother-boy.' He was pas- 
 sionately devoted to her." 1 
 
 The Mediumship of William Stainton Moses 
 No history of mediumship could profess complete- 
 ness without some consideration of the life of the 
 Rev. William Stainton Moses, of whom mention has 
 already been made. He was in no sense a professional 
 medium. A man of deeply religious and high moral 
 character, he considered the communications, which 
 he sincerely believed he received from the other world, 
 solely in their ethical and spiritual significance. Tho 
 on occasion exhibiting physical phenomena as remark- 
 able as that of Home, he refused to attach any impor- 
 tance to them, and being naturally retiring, gave lit- 
 
 ^uoted in Funk: The Widow's Mite, p. 252. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 283 
 
 tie opportunity for outside investigation. "He himself 
 regarded them as a mere means to an end, in accord- 
 ance with the view urged on him by his 'control' — that 
 they were intended as proofs of the power and au- 
 thority of these latter, while the real message lay in the 
 religious teaching imparted to him." 1 Frederic Myers 
 has summarized excellently Mr. Moses' peculiar place 
 in the history of mediumship. 2 "Here was a man of 
 university education, of manifest sanity and probity, 
 who vouched to us for a series of phenomena — occur- 
 ring to himself, and with no doubtful or venal aid — 
 which seemed at least to prove, in confusedly inter- 
 mingled form, . . . theses unknown to science. 
 ... He spoke frankly and fully ; he showed his note- 
 books ; he referred us to his friends ; he inspired a be- 
 lief which was at once sufficient, and which is still suffi- 
 cient, to prompt to action. 
 
 "My original impressions as regards Mr. Moses were 
 strengthened," says Myers, "by the opportunity which 
 I had of examining his unpublished MSS. after his 
 death, on September 5, 1892. These consist of thirty- 
 one notebooks — twenty-four of automatic script, four 
 of records of physical phenomena, and three of retro- 
 spect and summary. . . . 
 
 "With the even tenor of this straightforward and 
 reputable life was interwoven a chain of mysteries 
 which, as I think, in what way soever they be explained, 
 make it one of the most extraordinary which our cen- 
 tury has seen. For its true history lies in that series 
 of physical manifestations which began in 1872 and 
 
 'Myers: Human Personality, p. 321. 
 'Ibid., pp. 321-4. 
 
284 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 lasted 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. . . . Mr. Moses was 
 sometimes, but not always, entranced while these phys- 
 ical phenomena were occurring. Sometimes he was en- 
 tranced, and the trance utterance purported to be that 
 of a discarnate spirit. At other times, especially when 
 alone, he wrote automatically, retaining his own ordi- 
 nary 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 them- 
 selves by raps, etc., at Mr. Moses' sittings with his 
 friends, and also wrote thru his hand when he was 
 alone. . . . When 'direct writing' was given at the 
 seances, 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 per- 
 sons recently deceased, and sometimes manifesting 
 themselves at the seances before their decease was 
 known thru any ordinary channel to any of the per- 
 sons present. These spirits, in many instances, give 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 285 
 
 tests of identity, mentioning facts connected with their 
 earth lives which are afterward 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 Eras- 
 mus, 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 ad- 
 mitted knowledge of any of the sitters could supply. 
 In such cases, however, the difficulty of proving iden- 
 tity 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. . . . 
 
 "These automatic messages were almost wholly writ- 
 ten by Mr. Moses' own hand, while he was in a normal 
 working state. The exceptions are of two kinds: (i) 
 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 sev- 
 eral times described in the notes of seances where other 
 persons were present. 
 
 "Putting these exceptional instances aside, we find 
 
286 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 that the writings generally take the form of a dialog, 
 Mr. Moses proposing a question in his ordinary, thick, 
 black handwriting. An answer is then generally, tho 
 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. . . . 
 
 "A prolonged study of the MS. books has revealed 
 nothing inconsistent with this description. I have my- 
 self, 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, more- 
 over, that the various entries were made at or about 
 the dates to which they are ascribed. They contain 
 constant references to the seances which went on con- 
 currently, and whose dates are independently known; 
 and in the later books, records of some of these seances 
 are interspersed in their due places among 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 thruout would doubt the originally pri- 
 vate and intimate character of many of them. The 
 tone of the spirits toward Mr. Moses himself is ha- 
 bitually courteous and respectful. But occasionally 
 they have some criticism which pierces to the quick, 
 and which goes far to explain to me Mr. Moses' un- 
 willingness to have the books fully inspected during 
 his lifetime. He did, no doubt, contemplate their be- 
 ing 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 mes- 
 

 
 X "V 
 
 ^ 
 
 ~^ 
 
 *»•**« 
 
 (st\**~^Jr*^ 
 
 III. A Typical Example of "Spirit Writing" 
 
 Automatic communication, purporting to come from Dr. Hyslop's 
 father, written by the medium, Mrs. Smead, in successive trances. 
 (Reproduced from Hyslop's "Preliminary Report on the Trance Phe- 
 nomena of Mrs. Smead.") Compare this with the plates facing pages 
 a66 and 276. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 287 
 
 sages of an intimate character were sometimes con- 
 signed. . . . 
 
 "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." 
 
"NO EXPERIMENTAL PROOF OF SURVIVAL AFTER 
 DEATH WILL EVER REACH AN ABSOLUTELY CON- 
 CLUSIVE SCIENTIFIC DEMONSTRATION" 
 
 I take it that by the above question, addressed to me, is 
 meant, "Have we any trustworthy evidence outside of the 
 events recorded in the New Testament — evidence that will 
 stand strict scientific scrutiny — that human personality sur- 
 vives the death of the body?" In my opinion we have such evi- 
 dence, and it is slowly but surely accumulating. At present I 
 cannot say that there exists much psychical evidence of scien- 
 tific value for the identity of the discarnate human spirit many 
 months or years after death. The evidence begins to grow in 
 abundance and weight as we approach a limited period after 
 death; and when we come to within a few days, still more, 
 within a few hours of death, the evidence becomes large in 
 volume and conclusive in character. It may be that a decay 
 or dissolution of the spirit, as of the body, takes place more 
 or less slowly after death, possibly to be followed, as the Chris- 
 tian religion gives us reason to hope, by, in many cases, a 
 reintegration of the spirit and a transition to a larger and 
 fuller life, the new and vivid environment of which would 
 probably cause a more or less complete lapse of all earthly 
 memories. 
 
 Though in my opinion the weight of evidence will eventu- 
 ally lead to a very general acceptance of the fact that human 
 intelligence and self-consciousness can exist without a material 
 brain and body, yet it seems to me highly probable that no 
 single experimental proof of the survival of human personality 
 after death will ever reach an absolutely CONCLUSIVE scien- 
 tific demonstration. This particular field of psychical inquiry 
 belongs to an order other than that with which science deals, 
 and this being so, it cannot be adequately investigated with 
 the limited faculties we now possess. On the other hand, those 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 289 
 
 who have devoted long years to a searching investigation of 
 the evidence of survival after death, and who have approached 
 the subject in a scientific and judicial spirit, have found the 
 cumulative value of the evidence to be so strong that it was 
 impossible to withhold belief in the fact of that survival. In 
 support of this it is only necessary to refer to that shrewd 
 and able investigator, and at first complete agnostic, the late 
 Dr. Hodgson. Both he and the late Frederic Myers were 
 slowly but irresistibly driven to believe from recent evidence 
 that human personality transcends the shock of death. Emi- 
 nent scientific men, such as Sir Oliver Lodge, Sir William 
 Crookes, Dr. A. R. Wallace, and others, have also been driven 
 to the same opinion, and so was that acute thinker, the late 
 Professor De Morgan, father of the now well-known novelist. 
 
 It is sometimes urged that the manifestations of life in the 
 unseen are so paltry as to excite contempt. But is anything 
 paltry that manifests life? In the dumb agony which seizes 
 the soul when some loved one is taken from us, and the awful 
 sense of separation comes over and paralyzes us as we gaze 
 on the lifeless form, should we deem the lifting of a finger or 
 the movement of the lips, or any action of the dead, a paltry 
 thing, if it assured us that death had not ended a loved life, 
 and still more, that death will not end all, but that life and 
 personality remain though the clothing of the body be gone? 
 
 Another line of evidence is afforded by the records of appa- 
 ritions at the moment of death. The cautiously expressed but 
 decisive conclusion was arrived at after prolonged investigation 
 by Professor and Mrs. Sidgwick and others, that between 
 deaths, and apparitions of the dying or deceased person, a 
 connection exists not due to chance alone. A recent case of 
 a veridical, or truth-telling phantasm, appearing for some time 
 after death, which I have carefully investigated, and know 
 the percipient, is so impressive and convincing I will briefly 
 narrate the facts. 
 
 A gentleman of some note shot himself in London, in the 
 spring of 1907. There can be little doubt that his mind was 
 unhinged at the time by the receipt that morning of a letter 
 from a young lady that blighted his hopes. Before taking 
 his life he scribbled a memorandum leaving an annuity to a 
 
290 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 young lady who was his godchild, and to whom he was much 
 attached. Three days afterward (on the day of his funeral) 
 he appeared to this godchild, who was being educated in a 
 convent school on the Continent, informing her of the fact of 
 his sudden death, of its manner, and of the cause which had 
 led him to take his life, and asking her to pray for him. The 
 mother, anxious to conceal from her daughter the distressing 
 circumstances of her godfather's death, waited to write until 
 a few days AFTER the funeral, and then only stated that her 
 uncle (as he was called) had died suddenly. Subsequently, 
 upon meeting her daughter, on her return from the Continent, 
 the mother was amazed to hear not only of the apparition, 
 but that it had communicated to her daughter all the cir- 
 cumstances which she had never intended her daughter to 
 know. Careful inquiry shows that it was impossible for the 
 information to have reached her daughter through normal 
 means, for the percipient was not only secluded in a convent, 
 but the regulations were so strict that no newspaper or other 
 sources of news were allowed into the convent, even had the 
 facts been published at the time, which was not the case. 
 Even letters to the pupils are restricted and supervised. 
 
 —Professor William Barrett, F.R.S. 
 
¥ 
 
 
 Leor 
 
 Pipe 
 
 Arlington, Mass. 
 
 Most^famous of all spirit-writing mediums, and never detected 
 fraud. She has been the means of converting to spiritualism many 
 the most prominent English and American investigators. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 THE PIPER CASE 
 
 The case of Mrs. Leonora F. Piper, of Arlington, 
 Mass., is as preeminent in the field of psychical me- 
 diumship as that of D. D. Home in physical medium- 
 ship, and for the same reason — she has never once been 
 detected in or suspected of fraud. 
 
 It is not that the phenomena observed with Mrs. 
 Piper are of a particularly striking nature; a seance 
 with her compared with one with Home, for example, 
 would probably seem distinctly "slow." But for a 
 quarter of a century Mrs. Piper has been under the 
 continuous and strict surveillance of the Society for 
 Psychical Research ; she has been subject to the closest 
 scientific observation ; the data secured with her is 
 more voluminous and evidential than with any other 
 medium; and she, more than any other, has been the 
 means of converting to the spiritualistic hypothesis 
 nearly all the prominent investigators of psychic phe- 
 nomena. 
 
 Of the genuineness of Mrs. Piper's messages, as dis- 
 tinguished from their authenticity, there can be no 
 doubt. That is, she herself is honest in her belief in 
 their supernormal origin; whatever may be the truth 
 of that contention. Every one who has made anything 
 more than the most superficial investigation of her me- 
 291 
 
292 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 diumistic powers is convinced at least of the entire 
 absence of fraud. Dr. Hyslop, Sir Oliver Lodge, Sir 
 William Crookes, all assert their strong faith in the 
 genuineness of the phenomena exhibited. Dr. Hodg- 
 son, ever strongly skeptical, who was sent to this coun- 
 try by the English Society for Psychical Research for 
 the avowed purpose of revealing whatever duplicity 
 there was, came, saw, but, unlike Caesar, was con- 
 quered, and converted to spiritualism. Professor 
 James, as early as 1885, wrote he was "persuaded of 
 the medium's honesty and of the genuineness of her 
 trance, and altho at first disposed to think that the 'hits' 
 she made were either lucky coincidences, or the result 
 of knowledge on her part of who the sitter was, and of 
 his or her family affairs, I now believe her to be in 
 possession of a power as yet unexplained." 1 Some- 
 what later, "Professor Charles Eliot Norton, of Har- 
 vard University, had two sittings. He could not re- 
 port anything indubitably supernormal. But he said 
 that 'there was no question as to Mrs. Piper's good 
 faith.' " 2 
 
 Frederic Myers writes in a similar manner. "On 
 the whole, I believe that all observers, both in America 
 and in England, who have seen enough of Mrs. Piper 
 in both states to be able to form a judgment, will agree 
 in affirming (1) that many of the facts given could 
 not have been learned even by a skilled detective; (2) 
 that to learn others of them, altho possible, would have 
 needed an expenditure of money as well as of time, 
 which it seems impossible to suppose that Mrs. Piper 
 
 Quoted in Bruce : Riddle of Personality, pp. 127- 
 2 Hyslop : Science and the Future Life, p. 210. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 293 
 
 could have met; and (3) that her conduct has never 
 given any ground whatever for supposing her capable 
 of fraud or trickery. Few persons have been so long 
 and so carefully observed ; and she has left on all ob- 
 servers the impression of thoro uprightness, candor 
 and honesty." 1 
 
 The reality of the trance state has been determined 
 conclusively, so far as experimental test can do so. 
 "Mrs. Piper goes into a 'trance' whose nature we do 
 not know," says Dr. Hyslop, "except that it involves 
 the suspension of her normal consciousness, and in 
 this condition the alleged messages from discarnate 
 spirits are written visibly by her own hand. Her head 
 lies upon a pillow placed upon a table, and is turned 
 away from the writing. The tests for anesthesia, or 
 her unconscious state, were exceptionally severe, and 
 such as are never employed by physicians to ascertain 
 a similar condition. The writing does not present any 
 special mystery to the scientific mind, as it is familiar 
 with automatic work of this kind where there is no pre- 
 tense or evidence of. discarnate intervention. It is the 
 contents of the 'messages' that suggest some extraordi- 
 nary origin, at least simulative of spiritistic communi- 
 cations." 2 
 
 As Dr. Hyslop notes in his analysis of the Piper 
 case, the alleged fraud may take many forms. Infor- 
 mation may be given unconsciously by the sitters in 
 answer to clever "fishing" by the medium; or even 
 mere intonations of the voice. Detectives may be em- 
 ployed to gather advance information regarding sit- 
 
 1 S. P. R. Proceedings, v. 6, pp. 436-42. 
 'Hyslop : Science and the Future Life, p. 131. 
 
294? ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 ters. Sleight-of-hand tricks of various kinds may ac- 
 count for much "supernatural" knowledge, and shrewd 
 guessing and a keen study of human nature for more. 
 
 Yet not only those scientists already quoted, but also 
 Mrs. Sidgwick, 1 Mr. Frank Podmore, 2 Mr. Andrew 
 Lang, 3 Professor Richet, and practically every investi- 
 gator present at one of Mrs. Piper's sittings, refuses 
 to consider fraud a sufficient explanation of the re- 
 markable results obtained. 
 
 Dr. Hyslop goes so far as to say: "In the phe- 
 nomena, however, which I have summarized in this 
 book, and in the cases concerned, I do not propose to 
 discuss the hypothesis of fraud. I consider that it has 
 been excluded from consideration as long ago as 1889, 
 and I think that every intelligent person who examines 
 the facts carefully, and in their details, will not be 
 willing to accept the responsibility which his theory of 
 fraud will impose upon him for its assertion." 4 And 
 Mr. Carrington adds : 5 "The more we study the case, 
 the more are we convinced that there cannot possibly 
 be any system of fraud that would account for it. Were 
 all the mediums in the United States to combine their 
 information for the exclusive use of Mrs. Piper, and 
 were she to conduct an elaborate system of private 
 and paid inquiry herself, that would not begin to ac- 
 count for many of the incidents that have transpired 
 at the Piper seances, or for the case as a whole." 
 
 I shall now run over as briefly as I may the psychic 
 
 *S. P. R. Proceedings, v. 15, pp. 16-38. 
 
 2 Ibid., v. 14, pp. 50-78. Hbid., v. 15, pp. 39-52. 
 
 4 Hyslop: Science and the Future Life, p. 247. 
 
 "Carrington : Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, p. 413. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 295 
 
 history of this remarkable medium, illustrating the ac- 
 count with typical bits of the recorded phenomena. 
 
 The Early Phases of the Piper Case 
 
 Perhaps the first scientist to give serious considera- 
 tion to Mrs. Piper was William James, Professor of 
 Psychology at Harvard University. He thus relates 
 the impression created by his first sittings with her, and 
 the messages given him therein : "The most convin- 
 cing things said about my own immediate household 
 were either very intimate or very trivial. Unfortu- 
 nately, the former things cannot well be published. Of 
 the trivial things, I have forgotten the greater num- 
 ber, but the following rarce nantes may serve as sam- 
 ples of their class. She said that we had lost recently 
 a rug and I a waistcoat. (She wrongly accused a per- 
 son of stealing the rug, which was afterward found in 
 the house.) She told of my killing a gray-and- white 
 cat with ether, and described how it had 'spun round 
 and round' before dying. She told how my New York 
 aunt had written a letter to my wife warning her 
 against ail mediums, and then went on a most amusing 
 criticism, full of traits vifs, of the excellent woman's 
 character. (Of course, no one but my wife and I 
 knew of the existence of the letter in question.) She 
 was strong on the events in our nursery, and gave 
 striking advice during our first visit to her about the 
 way to deal with certain 'tantrums' of our second child, 
 'little Billy-boy,' as she called him, reproducing his nur- 
 sery name. She told how the crib creaked at night, 
 how a certain rocking-chair creaked mysteriously, how 
 my wife had heard footsteps on the stairs, etc. Insig- 
 nificant as these things sound when read, the accumu- 
 
296 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 lation of a large number of them has an irresistible 
 effect" 1 
 
 At another time he says : "I was told by Mrs. Piper 
 that the spirit of a boy named Robert F. was the com- 
 panion of my lost infant. The F.'s were cousins of 
 my wife, living in a distant city. On my return home 
 I mentioned the incident to my wife, saying, 'Your 
 cousin did lose a baby, didn't she? But Mrs. Piper 
 was wrong about its sex, name and age.' I then 
 learned that Mrs. Piper had been quite right in all 
 those particulars, and that mine was the wrong im- 
 pression." 2 
 
 Such a report as this, coming from a scientist as emi- 
 nent as Professor James, excited, of course, much com- 
 ment and interest among the members of the Society 
 for Psychical Research, and finally Dr. Hodgson, who 
 had already won a name for himself in the detection 
 of "psychic" fraud, was commissioned to investigate 
 Mrs. Piper. 
 
 We have already noted the result. Detectives em- 
 ployed by him to shadow the medium and her family 
 gave negative results ; and his own efforts to discover 
 fraud were unavailing. 
 
 "My . . . knowledge of Mrs. Piper," says Dr. 
 Hodgson in his own account of the first investiga- 
 tion, "began in May, 1887, about a fortnight after my 
 arrival in Boston, and my first appointment for a sit- 
 ting was made by Professor William James. 
 
 "I had several sittings myself with Mrs. Piper, at 
 which much intimate knowledge, some of it personal, 
 
 Quoted in Funk : The Widow's Mite, p. 102. 
 2 Ibid., p. 245. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 29T 
 
 was shown of deceased friends or relatives of mine; 
 and I made appointments for sittings for at least fifty 
 persons whom I believed to be strangers to Mrs. Piper, 
 taking the utmost precautions to prevent her obtaining 
 any information beforehand as to who the sitters were 
 to be. The general result was the same as in my own 
 case. Most of these persons were told facts thru the 
 trance utterance which they felt sure could not have 
 become known to Mrs. Piper by ordinary means. . . . 
 My own conclusion was that — after allowing the wid- 
 est possible margin for information obtainable under 
 the circumstances by ordinary means, for chance coin- 
 cidence and remarkable guessing, aided by clues given 
 consciously and unconsciously by the sitters, and 
 helped out by supposed hyperesthesia on the part of 
 Mrs. Piper — there remained a large residuum of 
 knowledge displayed in her trance state which could 
 not be accounted for except on the hypothesis that she 
 had some supernormal power ; and this conviction has 
 been strengthened by later investigations." 1 
 
 Mrs. Piper's chief "control" at this period was the 
 spirit of a French physician named "Phinuit" (pro- 
 nounced Finn-wee). His whole name, he said, was 
 "Dr. Jean Phinuit Scliville," but "they always called 
 me 'Dr. Phinuit.' " 
 
 "He was unable to tell the year of his birth or the 
 year of his death," says Dr. Hodgson, "but by putting 
 together several of his statements, it would appear that 
 he was born about 1790, and died about i860. He was 
 born in Marseilles, went to school and studied medi- 
 cine at a college called 'Merciana' (?) College, where 
 
 1 Quoted in Hyslop: Science and the Future Life, pp. 116-18. 
 
298 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 he took his degree when he was between twenty-five 
 and twenty-eight years old. He also studied medicine 
 at 'Metz, in Germany.' At the age of thirty-five he 
 married Marie Latimer, who had a sister named Jose- 
 phine. Marie was thirty years of age when he married 
 her, and died when she was about fifty. He had no 
 children. 
 
 "He mentioned the 'Hospital of God,' or 'Hospital 
 de Dieu' (Hotel Dieu)," adds Dr. Hyslop, "and re- 
 ferred to Dupuytren and Bovier, the former of whom 
 is known to have been a distinguished French physi- 
 cian and surgeon, who was born in 1777 and died in 
 1835. But there were contradictions in Phinuit's story 
 of himself, and in addition to this, inquiries as to the 
 existence of any such person in France did not con- 
 firm the story in a single detail. The consequence was 
 that he has always been treated, and must be treated, 
 in the discussion of these phenomena, as a secondary 
 personality of Mrs. Piper. But on any theory, he is 
 the central psychological phenomenon of the case for 
 the apparent management of it in its early history." 1 
 
 Commenting on this Phinuit "control," Professor 
 James said: 
 
 "The most remarkable thing about the Phinuit per- 
 sonality seems to me the extraordinary tenacity and 
 minuteness of his memory. The medium has been vis- 
 ited by many hundreds of sitters, half of them, per- 
 haps, being strangers, who have come but once. To 
 each, Phinuit gives an hour full of disconnected frag- 
 ments of talk about persons living, dead, or imaginary, 
 and events past, future, or unreal. What normal wak- 
 
 ^yslop: Science and the Future Life, pp. 124-5. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 299 
 
 ing memory could keep this chaotic mass of stuff to- 
 gether ? Yet Phinuit does so ; for the chances seem to 
 be that if a sitter should go back after years of inter- 
 val, the medium, when once entranced, would recall 
 the minutest incidents of the earlier interview, and be- 
 gin by recapitulating much of what had then been said. 
 So far as I can discover, Mrs. Piper's waking mem- 
 ory is not remarkable, and the whole constitution of 
 her trance memory is something which I am at a loss 
 to understand." 1 
 
 Mrs. Piper is Investigated in England 
 
 After an exhaustive investigation, Dr. Hodgson an- 
 nounced himself, if not convinced, at least extremely 
 puzzled, and recommended that Mrs. Piper allow fur- 
 ther study of her case directly by the Society for Psy- 
 chical Research. She agreed, and went to England; 
 elaborate precautions being taken by Sir Oliver Lodge 
 and others who had her in charge to prevent her gain- 
 ing any information regarding prospective sitters. 
 Here are some of his statements regarding what was 
 done to obviate fraud: 
 
 "Mrs. Piper's correspondence was small, something 
 like three letters a week, even when the children were 
 away from her. The outsides of her letters nearly al- 
 ways passed through my hands, and often the insides, 
 too, by her permission. 
 
 "The servants were all, as it happened, new. . . . 
 Consequently, they were entirely ignorant of family 
 connections, and could have told nothing, however 
 largely they had been paid. 
 
 'Quoted in Funk: The Widoixfs Mite, p. 244. 
 
300 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 "The ingenious suggestion has been made that they 
 were her spies. Knowing the facts, I will content my- 
 self with asserting that they had absolutely no connec- 
 tion with her of any sort. . . . 
 
 "In order to give better evidence, I obtained per- 
 mission, and immediately thereafter personally over- 
 hauled the whole of her luggage. Directories, biogra- 
 phies, 'Men of Our Time,' and such-like books, were 
 entirely absent. In fact, there were scarcely any books 
 at all. 
 
 "The eldest child at home was aged nine, and the 
 utmost of information at his disposal was fairly well 
 known to us. My wife was skeptically inclined, and 
 was guarded in her utterances, and tho a few slips 
 could hardly be avoided — and one or two of these 
 were rather unlucky ones — they were noted and re- 
 corded. 
 
 "Strange sitters frequently arrived at n A.M., and 
 I admitted them myself straight into the room where 
 we were going to sit ; they were shortly afterward in- 
 troduced to Mrs. Piper under some assumed name. 
 
 "The whole attitude of Mrs. Piper was natural, un- 
 inquisitive, ladylike, and straightforward. . . . 
 
 "Her whole demeanor struck every one who became 
 intimate with her as utterly beyond and above sus- 
 picion." 1 
 
 "These statements illustrate the kind of precautions 
 generally taken during the history of the Piper ex- 
 periments. . . . The whole burden of proof now rests 
 upon the man who persists in irresponsible talk and 
 
 a Quoted by Hyslop in Science and the Future Life, pp. 119* 
 121. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 301 
 
 suspicion of fraud. I say boldly that no intelligent 
 man, whether scientific or otherwise, would any longer 
 advance such an hypothesis without giving specific evi- 
 dence that it is a fact rather than an imaginary possi- 
 bility." 1 
 
 Seances, often two a day, were held for several 
 weeks; and tho some were almost complete failures, 
 others were marked with conspicuous success. "True 
 incidents were often given in such a mass of error as 
 to make it necessary to discount their value. Some 
 sittings . . . have all the appearance of the ordinary 
 medium's talk and associational reproductions. Names 
 were often given in a manner to suggest guessing and 
 'fishing,' and even tho they were strikingly right, their 
 significance had to be skeptically received or wholly 
 rejected." 2 
 
 Myers speaks in almost the same terms : " Thinuit' 
 — to use his own appellation, for brevity's sake — is by 
 no means above 'fishing.' . . . There were some inter- 
 views thruout which Phinuit hardly asked any ques- 
 tions, and hardly stated anything which was not true. 
 There were others thruout which his utterances showed 
 not one glimpse of real knowledge, but consisted wholly 
 of fishing questions and random assertions." 3 
 
 One of the most complete failures was the sitting 
 with Professor Macalister. "He spoke of the failure 
 in strong and uncomplimentary language. He thought 
 it a case of hystero-epilepsy, and that Mrs. Piper was 
 wide enough awake to profit by suggestion." 4 
 
 ^yslop : Science and the Future Life, p. 121. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 163. 
 
 'Quoted in Funk : The Widow's Mite, p. 250. 
 
 4 See Hyslop : Science and the Future Life, pp. 163-4. 
 
302 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 But on the other hand, thousands of items were 
 given which by no possible explanation could have 
 been known to the medium ; her successes were as fre- 
 quent and more striking than her failures. For ex- 
 ample, in one of the first sittings Mrs. Lodge asked 
 Phinuit to tell her something of her father, who died 
 when she was but two weeks old. Several highly in- 
 teresting but not conclusive remarks were made ; then 
 Phinuit gave this very remarkable "message" : " 'He 
 had an illness and passed out with it. He tried to 
 speak to Mary, his wife, and stretched out his hand 
 to her, but couldn't reach, and fell, and passed away. 
 That's the last thing he remembers in this mortal body.' 
 He added a statement about taking some medicine, the 
 last he took, and then that something had happened to 
 his right leg and it was caused by a fall, affecting the 
 leg below the knee. It was also stated that it gave him 
 pain at times. 
 
 "The facts were that Mrs. Lodge's father had his 
 health broken by tropical travel and yellow fever, and 
 his heart was weak. A severe illness of his wife was 
 a great strain on him. As she was recuperating he 
 entered her room one day, quite faint, half dressed, 
 and holding a handkerchief to his mouth, which was 
 full of blood. 'He stretched out his hand to her, re- 
 moved the handkerchief and tried to speak, but only 
 gasped and fell on the floor. Very soon he died.' He 
 had broken his leg below the knee once by falling 
 down the hold, and in certain states of the weather it 
 afterward pained him. 
 
 "Phinuit made the further statement that he had had 
 trouble with his teeth ; that he wore a sort of uniform 
 with 'big, bright buttons'; that he traveled a good 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 303 
 
 deal. ... A little later it was intimated that he was 
 a captain. The facts were that during his married 
 life he had been troubled much with toothache; his 
 position was that of captain in the merchant service ; he 
 traveled a great deal as a consequence, though his 
 travel was mentioned before the statement was made 
 that he was a captain." 1 
 
 Another sitting, held later, with Miss Goodrich- 
 Freer, author of Essays in Psychical Research, was 
 especially successful. "You see flowers sometimes?" 
 asks Phinuit. "(What is my favorite flower? There 
 is a spirit who would know.) Tansies. No, delicate 
 pink roses. You have them about you, spiritually as 
 well as physically.' Miss X. has, on a certain day every 
 month, a present of delicate pink roses. She frequently 
 has hallucinatory visions of flowers. 2 
 
 " 'There is an old lady in the spirit,' continues 
 Phinuit, 'wearing a cap, who is fond of you — your 
 grandmother. She is*the mother of the clergyman's 
 wife's mother. (Not correct.) She wears a lace col- 
 lar and a big brooch ; bluish-gray eyes, dark hair turned 
 grayish, with a black ribbon running thru it; rather 
 prominent nose and peaked chin ; named Anne.' This 
 is a correct description of a friend of Miss X., whom 
 she was in the habit of calling 'Granny.' " 3 
 
 Unable to discover fraud, but equally certain that 
 the evidence for out-and-out spiritualism afforded by 
 Mrs. Piper was still inconclusive, the Society for Psy- 
 chical Research reserved final decision, in the meantime 
 delegating Dr. Hodgson to continue his investigation 
 
 ^yslop : Science and the Future Life, pp. 140-2. 
 Hbid., pp. 159-61. Hbid., p. 161. 
 
304. ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 of her in this country. Mrs. Piper's sittings with Dr. 
 Hodgson, both the first and second series, were among 
 the most remarkable held, being very rich in evidential 
 data. 
 
 In considering the first series, "it should be remem- 
 bered that he was a native of Australia, graduated at 
 the University of Melbourne, and afterward came to 
 England, where he had been Lecturer at Cambridge 
 University before he was sent to India to investigate 
 Madame Blavatsky. He had come to this country for 
 the first time about a fortnight before his first sitting 
 with Mrs. Piper." 
 
 The Appearance of the Pelham "Control" 
 Shortly after Mrs. Piper's English visit there oc- 
 curred a most extraordinary change in her "control." 
 Dr. Hodgson had had a friend, a young man, unmar- 
 ried, and known in the records of the Society, out of 
 consideration of the feelings of his surviving relatives, 
 as "George Pelham." A lawyer and author, a native 
 of Boston, but for several years resident in New York, 
 he had joined the Society for Psychical Research. "His 
 interest . . . was explicable rather by an intellectual 
 openness and fearlessness characteristic of him, than 
 by any tendency to believe in supernormal phenomena. 
 . . . We had several long talks together on philosophic 
 subjects," says Dr. Hodgson, "and one very long dis- 
 cussion, probably at least two years before his death, 
 on the possibility of a 'future life/ In this he main- 
 tained that in accordance with a fundamental philo- 
 sophic theory which we both accepted, a 'future life' 
 was not only incredible, but inconceivable. At the con- 
 
Dr. Richard Hodgson 
 
 He was one of the most enthusiastic investigators in psychical 
 research. This photograph, reproduced from Mr. Carrington's "Physi- 
 cal Phenomena of Spiritualism," Dr. Hodgson had taken to show that 
 a face may be made to appear over jewelry, as the result of fraudulent 
 manipulation of the plates, a thing which spiritualists have frequently 
 asserted impossible, 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 305 
 
 elusion of the discussion he admitted that a future life 
 was conceivable, but he did not accept its credibility, 
 and vowed that if he should die before I did, and found 
 himself 'still existing,' he would 'make things lively' 
 in the effort to reveal the fact of his continued exist- 
 ence." 1 
 
 In the early part of 1892 "George Pelham" was 
 killed accidentally and very suddenly. About a month 
 afterward Dr. Hodgson was present at a sitting, with 
 another friend of George Pelham's, when Phinuit 
 spoke the latter's full name, and said that he was pres- 
 ent and desired to communicate. 
 
 At this and succeeding seances, George Pelham gave 
 numerous proofs of his identity, recalling incidents un- 
 known to any of his hearers, but afterward verified; 
 in short, gave what Phinuit himself had never been 
 able to give, seemingly conclusive evidence that he was 
 indeed the spirit he pretended to be. 
 
 Pelham at once began to assume the functions of 
 a "control," Phinuit being gradually pushed into the 
 background. Unlike Phinuit, whose messages had al- 
 ways been spoken, Pelham transmitted his in writing, 
 which made possible, of course, a much more perfect 
 record. At times both "controls" communicated at 
 once, Mrs. Piper speaking Phinuit's message and writ- 
 ing Pelham's simultaneously. With Pelham's advent, 
 Mrs. Piper's mediumship took on a newer and im- 
 proved stage. Phinuit was always a bit of a rascal, 
 and something of a faker ; but now the communica- 
 tions became in every way more definite and correct. 
 
 With Pelham Dr. Hodgson made interesting ex- 
 
 'Quoted in Hyslop: Science and the Future Life, p. 127. 
 
306 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 periments of various kinds, some of which seem re- 
 markably conclusive ; for example, sending Pelham "in 
 the spirit" somewhere to see what a designated person 
 was doing, and later verifying the information thus 
 obtained. 
 
 For example: "George Pelham was asked to go 
 away and watch the Howards, and report. Before the 
 sitting ended George Pelham returned, and thru Phin- 
 uit said: 'She's writing, and taken some violets and 
 put them in a book. And it looks as if she's writing 
 that to my mother. Who's Tyson . . . Davis ? I saw 
 her sitting before a little desk or table. Took little 
 book, opened it, wrote letter he thinks to his mother. 
 Saw her take a little bag and put some things in it 
 belonging to him; placed the photograph beside her 
 on the desk. That's hers. Sent a letter to Tyson. 
 She hunted a little while for her picture, sketching. 
 He's certain that the letter is to his mother. She took 
 one of George's books and turned it over and said: 
 "George, are you here ? Do you see that ?" These were 
 the very words. Then she turned and went up a short 
 flight of stairs. Took some things from a drawer, 
 came back, sat down to the desk, and then finished 
 the letter/ Davis was the name of Mrs. Tyson's 
 father. 
 
 "Of this set of 'communications,' Dr. Hodgson says : 
 'The statements made as to what Mrs. Howard was 
 doing at the time were not one of them correct as re- 
 gards the particular time, tho they seem to indi- 
 cate a knowledge of Mrs. Howard's actions during 
 the previous day and a half, as appears from the fol- 
 lowing statements made in a letter to Dr. Hodgson 
 by Mrs. Howard: 
 
'ARE THE DEAD SLIVE? 307 
 
 " ' 'I did none of those things to-day, but all of them 
 yesterday afternoon and the evening before. 
 
 " 'Yesterday afternoon I wrote a note to Mrs. Tyson 
 declining an invitation to lunch; this I did at a little 
 table. Later I wrote to his mother at a desk, and see- 
 ing George's violets by me, in their envelope, gave 
 them to my daughter to put in my drawer, not "into a 
 book." This is the only inaccuracy of detail. The day 
 before I also wrote to his mother, putting his photo- 
 graph before me on the table while I was writing. Did 
 "hunt for my picture," my painting of him. What he 
 says about the book is also true, tho I can't tell at 
 precisely what time I did it, as I was alone at the time. 
 In all other matters my memory is corroborated by 
 my daughter, who took the note to Mrs. T.'s, and saw 
 me put photo before me on the desk. 
 
 " 'While writing to his mother I did "go and take 
 things from a drawer, came back again, sat down to 
 the desk, and then finished the letter." This was the 
 letter finished at the desk, not the one written at a 
 table.' 
 
 "The extraordinarily interesting feature of this ex- 
 periment is the disparity in time between the facts ex- 
 pected and the facts obtained, the past and not the 
 present seeming to have been cognized." 1 
 
 Pelham is Displaced by the Imperator "Controls " 
 
 In 1898 Dr. Hodgson published a second report on 
 the Piper case. In the six years that had elapsed since 
 the first he had made long and careful experimenta- 
 tion. Almost simultaneous with his first report had 
 
 l Quoted in Hyslop : Science and the Future Life, pp. 197-9. 
 
308 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 occurred the first significant change of "controls." 
 Shortly previous to the second occurred a second 
 change. A new group of "controls" appeared, no 
 other than W. Stainton Moses, the English medium, 
 and a little later the "Rector," "Imperator," and "Doc- 
 tor" group that we have already noticed as being his 
 most important "controls." Phinuit had for some time 
 ceased to appear ; now Pelham was displaced as chief 
 control, and "Imperator" took full charge of the 
 "spirit" side of the case. Dr. Hodgson consulted with 
 him as he might with any other associate regarding 
 the various details of the seances held and experiments 
 tried. " 'Imperator' claimed that the indiscriminate ex- 
 perimenting with Mrs. Piper's organism should stop, 
 that it was a 'battered and worn' machine, and needed 
 much repairing; that 'he,' with his 'assistants,' 'Doctor,' 
 etc., would repair it as far as possible, and that in the 
 meantime other persons must be kept away. I then 
 for the first time," says Dr. Hodgson, "explained to 
 the normal Mrs. Piper about W..S. Moses and his al- 
 leged relation to 'Imperator/ and she was willing to 
 follow my advice and try this new experiment." 1 His 
 advice was followed, and the wisdom of this course 
 appeared to be justified by an again increased excel- 
 lence of the messages received, in clearness, accuracy 
 and literary quality. "Those who had sittings in pre- 
 vious years, and who have been present since the 
 change which I have described, were all struck by the 
 improvement in the clearness and coherence of the 
 communications." 2 
 
 Quoted in Hyslop: Science and the Future Life, p. 129. 
 'Ibid., p. 130. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 309 
 
 In fact, by 1898, so strong- was the evidence for the 
 future life by this time collected, that Dr. Hodgson, 
 in his second report, felt compelled to come out defi- 
 nitely a believer in spirits. 
 
 At about this time a new investigator became inter- 
 ested in Mrs. Piper, Dr. Hyslop, then Professor of 
 Philosophy at Columbia University. Cooperating with 
 Dr. Hodgson, he held numerous sittings during the 
 following two years. At the beginning of his inquiry 
 every effort was made to conceal his real identity from 
 the medium. "Driving to her residence in a closed 
 carriage, he donned a mask before entering her pres- 
 ence, was introduced to her as 'Mr. Smith,' and while 
 she was in her normal state maintained complete si- 
 lence. From the outset he obtained messages that 
 left him in a state of bewilderment, relating as they 
 did to occurrences transpiring years earlier, in connec- 
 tion with the careers of dead relatives and friends." 1 
 A number of instances of these messages will be given 
 in the succeeding article. Sufficient here to state that 
 in the end Dr. Hyslop, like Dr. Hodgson, became con- 
 vinced of their genuinely spiritual origin. 
 
 I have given one or two examples of prophecy 
 among those quoted. The record has many more, how- 
 ever, some much more complex and remarkable. Here 
 is another simple instance, quoted by Dr. Hyslop: 
 "Miss W. says: Tn the spring of 1888, an acquaint- 
 ance, S., was suffering torturing disease. There was 
 no hope of relief, and only distant prospect of release. 
 A consultation of physicians predicted continued phys- 
 
 *See Bruce: The Riddle of Personality, p. 133. 
 
310 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 ical suffering and probably mental decay, continuing 
 perhaps thru a series of years. S.'s daughter, worn 
 with anxiety and care, was in danger of breaking in 
 health. "How can I get her away for a little rest?" I 
 asked Dr. Phinuit, May 24, 1888. "She will not leave 
 her father," was the reply, "but his suffering is not for 
 long. The doctors are wrong about that. There will 
 be a change soon, and he will pass out of the body be- 
 fore the summer is over." His death occurred in 
 June, 1888.' "* 
 
 Phinuit and the other controls were oftentimes asked 
 for information unknown to the questioner, as, for 
 example, the location of lost articles. Sometimes he 
 was able to tell ; sometimes he was not. Certain of 
 these failures are as interesting from a psychical stand- 
 point as successes would have been. 
 
 "March 2, 1887, I was asked by my mother to in- 
 quire the whereabouts of two silver cups, heirlooms, 
 which she had misplaced. Said Dr. Phinuit, 'They are 
 in your house, in a room higher up than your sleeping- 
 room, in what looks to me the back part of the house, 
 but very likely I am turned around. You'll find there 
 a large chest filled with clothing, and at the very bot- 
 tom of the chest are the cups. Annie (my mother's 
 name) placed them there, and will remember it.' Re- 
 turning home, I went to the room on the third floor, at 
 the front of the house, but remotest from the stairway, 
 found the chest (of which I knew) and the contents 
 (of which I was ignorant) both as described, but no 
 silver. Reporting the message to my mother, I learned 
 
 Quoted in Hyslop: Science and the Future Life, p. 172. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 311 
 
 that she had at one time kept the cups in that chest, 
 but more recently had removed them." 1 
 
 But one more fact is needed to bring the history of 
 the Piper case down to date. Shortly after Dr. Hys- 
 lop's connection with the case, psychical research 
 seemed to have lost one of its most valued and enthusi- 
 astic workers by the death of Dr. Hodgson. But with- 
 in a few months, behold the "spirit" of Dr. Hodgson 
 himself appearing as a "control" of Mrs. Piper. And 
 as a fact, he seems now to have ousted both "Pelham" 
 and the "Imperator" group ; and directs the spirit side 
 of this unique system of communication in quite as 
 masterly a manner as he directed our side when in 
 the body. Knowing exactly the kind of proof of his 
 spiritual existence desired by his old associates, he 
 has done his best to supply it, and with such success 
 that Dr. Hyslop now seems absolutely certain of spirit 
 communication, and the other scientific men who are 
 studying the case are either genuinely puzzled or on 
 the verge of conviction. 
 
 Such is Mrs. Piper's psychic history as a conserva- 
 tive spiritualist might relate it, a life story certainly 
 unique in human experience. Is it true? That is the 
 great question. We have messages, that is certain ; but 
 where do they come from? We have facts; that is 
 unquestioned; but what is the explanation of them? 
 If "spirits" do not control Mrs. Piper, who or what 
 does? Let us see. 
 
 Quoted in Hyslop : Science and the Future Life, p. 168. 
 
"PSYCHICAL RESEARCH HAS BRIDGED THE CHASM" 
 
 "No part of the unclassified residuum [of human knowledge] 
 has usually been treated with a more contemptuous scientific 
 disregard than the mass of phenomena generally called mysti- 
 cal. Physiology will have nothing to do with them. Orthodox 
 psychology turns its back upon them. Medicine sweeps them 
 out, or at most, when in an anecdotal vein, records a few of 
 them as "effects of the imagination," a phrase of mere dis- 
 missal, whose meaning, in this connection, it is impossible to 
 make precise. All the while, however, the phenomena are 
 there, lying broadcast over the surface of history. No matter 
 where you open its pages, you find things recorded under the 
 name of divinations, inspirations, demoniacal possessions, ap- 
 paritions, trances, ecstasies, miraculous healings and produc- 
 tions of disease, and occult powers possessed by peculiar indi- 
 viduals over persons and things in their neighborhood. We 
 suppose that "mediumship" originated in Rochester, N. Y., 
 and animal magnetism with Mesmer; but once look behind 
 the pages of official history, in personal memoirs, legal docu- 
 ments, and popular narratives and books of anecdotes, and 
 you will find that there was never a time when these things 
 were not reported just as abundantly as now. . . . 
 
 "I have myself . . . collected hundreds of cases of hallu- 
 cination in healthy persons. The result is to make me feel 
 that we all have potentially a "subliminal" self, which may 
 make at any time irruption into our ordinary lives. At its 
 lowest, it is only the depository of our forgotten memories; at 
 its highest, we do not know what it is at all. Take, for in- 
 stance, a series of cases. During sleep, many persons have 
 something in them which measures the flight of time better 
 than the waking self does. It wakes them at a pre-appointed 
 hour; it acquaints them with the moment when they first 
 313 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 313 
 
 awake. It may produce an hallucination, as in a lady who 
 informs me that at the instant of waking she has a vision of 
 a watch-face with the hands pointing (as she has often veri- 
 fied) to the exact time. It may be a feeling that some physio- 
 logical period has elapsed; but, whatever it is, it is sub- 
 conscious. 
 
 "A subconscious something may also preserve experiences to 
 which we do not openly attend. A lady taking her lunch in 
 town finds herself without her purse. Instantly a sense comes 
 over her of rising from the breakfast-table and hearing her 
 purse drop upon the floor. On reaching home she finds noth- 
 ing under the table, but summons the servant to say where 
 she has put the purse. The servant produces it, saying: 
 "How did you know where it was? You rose and left the 
 room as though you didn't know you had dropped it." 
 
 "The same subconscious something may recollect what we 
 have forgotten. A lady accustomed to taking salicylate of 
 soda for muscular rheumatism wakes one early winter morn- 
 ing with an aching neck. In the twilight she takes what she 
 supposes is her customary powder from a drawer, dissolves it 
 in a glass of water, and is about to drink it down, when she 
 feels a sharp slap on her shoulder and hears a voice in her 
 ear saying: "Taste it!" On examination she finds she has got 
 a morphine powder by mistake. The natural interpretation 
 is that a sleeping memory of the morphine powders awoke in 
 this quasi-explosive way. 
 
 "A like explanation offers itself as most plausible for the 
 following case. A lady with a little time to catch the train, 
 and the expressman about to call, is excitedly looking for the 
 lost key of a packed trunk. Hurrying upstairs with a bunch of 
 keys, proved useless, in her hand, she hears an "objective" 
 voice say distinctly, "Try the key of the cake-box." Being 
 tried, it fits. This also may well have been a case of for- 
 gotten experience. 
 
 "Now the effect is doubtless due to the same hallucinatory 
 mechanism; but the source is less easily assigned as we ascend 
 the scale of cases. A lady, for instance, goes after breakfast 
 to see about one of her servants who has become ill over 
 night. She is startled at distinctly reading over the bedroom 
 
314 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 door in gilt letters the word "smallpox." The doctor is sent 
 for, and ere long pronounces smallpox to be the disease, al- 
 though the lady says, "The thought of the girl having small- 
 pox never entered my mind till I saw the apparent inscrip- 
 tion." Then come other cases of warning, for example, that 
 of a youth sitting in a wagon under a shed, who suddenly 
 hears his dead mother's voice say, "Stephen, get away from 
 here quick!" and jumps out just in time to see the shed roof 
 fall. . . . 
 
 "It is the intolerance of science for such phenomena, her 
 peremptory denial either of their existence or of their sig- 
 nificance (except as proofs of man's absolute innate folly), that 
 has set science so far apart from the common sympathies of the 
 race. I confess that it is on this, its humanizing mission, that 
 the society's (the S. P. R.) best claim to the gratitude of our 
 generation seems to depend. It has restored continuity to 
 history. It has shown some reasonable basis for the super- 
 stitious aberrations of the foretime. It has bridged the chasm, 
 healed the hideous rift that science, taken in a certain narrow 
 way, has shot into the human world." 
 
 — Professor William James. 
 
 —[From "The Will to Believe."] 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 TELEPATHY vs. SPIRITUALISM 
 
 I have outlined the most famous case in the history 
 of spiritualism. Now, what of it? What does it 
 amount to? 
 
 What tests shall we impose upon alleged spirit mes- 
 sages which shall seem to afford proof of their authen- 
 ticity ? Here is the medium, lying in a trance, with her 
 hand nervously traveling across a sheet of paper and 
 inscribing thereon statements that claim to come from 
 intelligences in another world. They write coherently ; 
 answer questions; apparently make every effort, so 
 far as they can in writing, to have us believe the 
 writing is what they say it is. How are we to know ? 
 
 We have two very strong, if not conclusive tests : 
 
 1. The writing must give us information which ap- 
 parently could not be obtained thru any but a super- 
 normal source. 
 
 2. The facts given must in some way prove the 
 personal identity of the sender. 
 
 Let me be more specific. To take up the first ques- 
 tion, what information will prove for these "messages" 
 a supernormal origin? At first blush we might say: 
 "Let the spirit tell us something about itself, about 
 what death is, about what 'heaven' is like, the condi- 
 tions existing there in the realm where it is. That is 
 315 
 
316 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 surely something no one on earth would know." Yes, 
 very true. 
 
 But even supposing, as will be explained later, that 
 the spirit could tell us these things, don't you see no 
 one on earth would know, either, whether it was tell- 
 ing us the truth or not? The medium herself might 
 be making it up, as we say, "out of whole cloth" ; and 
 we could not say it was true or false. In other words, 
 we must be able to verify the facts obtained. 
 
 I will give an example of what I mean. If the spirit 
 gives us a statement about something done by him on 
 earth, and surely known to no one else on earth but 
 him, and on investigation we find that his statement 
 is correct, that seems strong evidence of a supernormal 
 origin of the writing, doesn't it? 
 
 There are many such cases in the history of medium- 
 ship, carefully attested, and some very striking. 
 
 A man, for instance — and this was a test experiment 
 — wrote a short letter, sealing it, and showing it to no 
 other living soul. Some months after his death his 
 mother received an alleged message from him — this 
 time, as it happened, by table-tipping — which spelled 
 out the entire contents of this test letter. The letter 
 was then unsealed, and its contents found to be exactly 
 what the spirit said they were. 
 
 This is but one example out of many, where facts 
 were given by the spirits which were known neither 
 to the medium, to those present, nor, in fact, to any 
 living person ; yet on investigation the facts were found 
 to be correct. This would seem rather a stumbling- 
 block to the opponent of the spirit theory; we shall 
 see later what he has to say. 
 
 In the second place, we said that these spirits must 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 317 
 
 prove their identity. The man in the above case proved 
 his, in a way, by telling the contents of that letter that 
 he had himself written. Yet the problem of proving 
 identity by writing is not as easy as you might at first 
 think. Here is one of the older examples of this proof, 
 reported by William Stainton Moses : 
 
 "A spirit, who claimed to be an old American sol- 
 dier, communicated to him (Mr. Moses himself was 
 the medium) at Isle of Wight, England. The spirit 
 said that his name was Abraham Florentine, and that 
 he fought on the American side in the War of 1812, 
 and that he had lately died in Brooklyn, U. S. A., his 
 home. He gave his age and his time of service in the 
 war. Rev. Stainton Moses declared that he had never 
 heard of the existence of such a man, but was so im- 
 pressed by the truthfulness of the spirit that he com- 
 municated the facts to an English paper, and requested 
 American papers to copy. The case was taken up by 
 Epes Sargent in America, and hunted down, and it 
 was found that all that this spirit said about himself 
 was truth." 1 
 
 This seems rather conclusive, doesn't it? But there 
 are faults in it, nevertheless, some of which I shall 
 point out later. Dr. Hyslop says "the task of proving 
 identity ... is a gigantic one," and surely he should 
 know. Let us imagine for a moment that you are 
 writing to a friend — on a typewriter, let us say, so 
 that the question of handwriting does not enter — and 
 you wish to prove to him that it is you, John Jones, 
 who are writing to him. How shall you do it? You 
 would not write about philosophy and death and 
 
 *Funk: The Widow's Mite, p. 446. 
 
318 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 heaven ; if you did, he would say, "That doesn't prove 
 to me you are John Jones ; any one could write that." 
 But supposing, instead of philosophy, you wrote, "I'll 
 show you that I am John Jones : do you remember last 
 week, Wednesday, as I was walking in the country 
 with you, I reached over and brushed a caterpillar off 
 your coat?" "There," your friend will say, "there's 
 proof that this is John Jones that is writing. No living 
 soul knows about that little incident except the two 
 of us — and the caterpillar." 
 
 Now from this you can understand, I think, why we 
 find that the surest proof of personal identity is found 
 in little, trivial, seemingly unimportant facts. The 
 medium might have found out that your father died 
 of apoplexy ; but she probably would not know that ten 
 years before, in a different city, one afternoon, on the 
 front porch, he broke an apple in two for you and 
 Johnnie. In other words, this fact, tho trivial, is 
 stronger proof than the other that the spirit writer is 
 your father. 
 
 We have strong statements of belief like that of 
 William T. Stead. "I feel it impossible to resist the 
 conclusion that these communications are what they 
 profess to be — real letters from the real Julia, who is 
 not dead, but gone before. I know, after five years' 
 almost daily intercourse with her thru my automatic 
 hand, that I am conversing with an intelligence at 
 least as keen as my own, a personality as distinctly 
 defined, and a friend as true and tender, as I have ever 
 known. From those who scout the possibility of such 
 a phenomenon I would merely ask the admission that 
 in this case their favorite theory of intentional fraud, 
 at least on the part of the medium, is excluded by the 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 319 
 
 fact that these messages were written by my own hand, 
 no other visible person being present." 
 
 But we have the even stronger evidence of "identity" 
 in thousands of trivial incidents like those I have men- 
 tioned. Dr. Hyslop says: "In one of my own sit- 
 tings the communicator twice exclaimed (so to speak, 
 as the message came in automatic writing), 'Give me 
 my hat !' just as he left off communicating. This lan- 
 guage had no connection with the rest of the com- 
 munication, but, strange enough, my inquiries brought 
 out accidentally that the communicator, in life, was 
 accustomed to use this very expression in situations 
 like this, when suddenly called to go outdoors." 1 
 
 Dr. Hyslop also mentions another example occurring 
 in a sitting in which an uncle of his claimed to be the 
 communicator. "He began with an announcement of 
 his name. He said, 'I am James McClellan, and you 
 are my namesake.' I was the namesake of this uncle. 
 He added, 'I always despised the name of Jim.' This 
 I did not know, but I felt the statement was quite prob- 
 able, as we always called him 'Uncle Mack.' On in- 
 quiry of his two living daughters, one of them did not 
 know whether this was true or not. But the other re- 
 called it distinctly, and mentioned several instances 
 in which her father and mother had endeavored to cor- 
 rect the habit of the neighbors of calling him Jim." 2 
 
 Here is an example observed by "Miss W." at an- 
 other Piper sitting. "T. was a Western man, and the 
 localism of using like as a conjunction clung to him, 
 despite my frequent corrections, all his life. At my 
 
 Warper's Magazine, March, 1901. 
 'Ibid., June, 1900. 
 
&20 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 sitting on December 16, 1886, he remarked, 'If you 
 could see it like I do.' Forgetful, for the instant, of 
 the changed conditions, I promptly repeated, 'As I do.' 
 'Ah,' came the response, 'that sounds natural. That 
 sounds like old times.' "* 
 
 The "Telepathic Hypothesis" 
 
 We have already hinted that in this explanation of 
 the phenomena of mediumship, when we have elimi- 
 nated fraud and chance, we are still far from a solu- 
 tion of the problem. In fact, our difficulties have but 
 just begun. 
 
 But it may well be asked, If these mediumistic mes- 
 sages do not come from "spirits," where can they come 
 from? What possible other explanation is there for 
 them? The spiritualist would certainly seem to have 
 his case pretty well proved. Let us see. 
 
 The disbeliever begins by admitting that the medium 
 does have messages which she believes are genuine; 
 but he denies vigorously that spirits have anything to 
 do with them. He believes that they, one and all, are 
 evolved unconsciously by the medium's own subliminal 
 self. He believes that this subliminal self can also 
 unconsciously imitate every phase of personal identity, 
 and do it so cunningly and completely as to deceive the 
 most expert investigator. He believes that all the al- 
 leged "spirit" messages are telepathic in their origin, 
 and are explicable simply and solely by telepathy. This 
 is why Dr. Hyslop called the task of proving the "per- 
 sonal identity" of the spirits a "gigantic one." No 
 wonder ! 
 
 Here we have, then, plainly, two theories to which 
 
 'Hyslop: Science and the Future Life, pp. 167-8. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 321 
 
 the spiritistic problem has, within the last few years, 
 narrowed down — telepathy vs. spiritism. Which is cor- 
 rect? 
 
 But plainly, a conception of telepathy broad enough 
 to cover mediumistic communications must be some- 
 thing more than the telepathy we have so far consid- 
 ered. We have, so far, spoken of telepathy, you re- 
 member, as the "reading" by some person of what an- 
 other person is thinking at the time. All our experi- 
 mental proof bears out this simple theory. 
 
 There is some evidence, however, in support (i) 
 of a telepathy in which other persons are concerned 
 besides simply a sender and percipient; and (2) a sort 
 of delayed percipience, in which the percipient is aware, 
 not of the thoughts of the agent at that moment, but 
 of the thoughts he had hours, or possibly days, or even 
 years, before. 
 
 Dr. Hudson is the most enthusiastic advocate of this 
 multiple telepathy; that is, telepathy involving more 
 than two people ; and he gives the following case as a 
 typical example: 
 
 "I once hypnotized a lady, and asked her to de- 
 scribe my home, which she knew nothing of. She de- 
 scribed everything correctly, even a huge mastiff lying 
 on a bearskin rug on the library floor. But doubt was 
 thrown upon her lucidity when she described the li- 
 brary desk as being covered with a white cloth, and 
 said that a lady was sitting at the desk, 'doing some- 
 thing' that she could not clearly make out. As my 
 desk is covered with a black cloth, and as ladies sel- 
 dom work at it, I regarded the description as an effort 
 at guessing. But on my return home I learned that 
 my wife had been 'doing something' with pulverized 
 
322 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 sugar, and had covered the table with newspapers. As 
 that was the only time in the long history of my library 
 desk that it had been so covered, or so employed, I can- 
 not ascribe the phenomenon to coincidence." 1 
 
 Now I admit the possibility of multiple telepathy; 
 but I confess I fail to see how this is necessarily an 
 example of it. We do not need to assume that the 
 medium did otherwise than to read directly from Mrs. 
 Hudson's mind by simple telepathy. Or another pos- 
 sible explanation is that the medium saw the room 
 herself, clairvoyantly, telepathy not entering at all. 
 
 In a similar way the "Godfrey case," tho much quot- 
 ed, does not seem a typical case of delayed percipi- 
 ence, for other factors enter in. This was an instance 
 in which a clergyman endeavored, at 10.45 P - M v to pro- 
 ject, telepathically, an apparition of himself to a friend. 
 His experiment succeeds; but the "ghost" is not seen 
 by his friend till 3.30 a.m. This, however, is rather 
 an example of self-projection than telepathy ; and to 
 discuss it would get us off into still deeper waters. 
 
 In spite, however, of this breakdown of the typical 
 examples of each phenomena, most psychic researchers 
 admit that there are cases which clearly point to a 
 delayed percipience. Perhaps the reader does not grasp 
 fully, at first thought, what a wonderful enlargement 
 of the powers of telepathy this implies. It means that 
 we may unknowingly extract a thought from another 
 man's consciousness ; that that man may die ; and then, 
 that hours, days, or even years, afterward, that thought 
 may flash up from our subliminal self, where it has 
 
 ^Myers: Do We Survive 'Death? National Review, Octo- 
 ber, 1898. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 323 
 
 lain so long, appearing then to our every-day con- 
 sciousness as a veritable "message" from the dead ! 
 "For where else could it come from?" you quite natu- 
 rally ask. "He is the only one who knew that fact, 
 and he died without telling a soul." 
 
 Such a wonderful enlargement of the powers of 
 telepathy may seem more incredible to many than even 
 a belief in spirits. Yet even the ardent spiritualist must 
 admit that other observed telepathic phenomena give 
 some ground for the assumption. In any event, the 
 possibility renders indefinite what Myers considered 
 the final and perfect proof of spiritualism: namely, 
 the receipt of a spirit message giving the contents of 
 a sealed letter known only to a person who has died. 
 And the spiritualist has to admit, too, that probably a 
 large portion of alleged spirit messages do have a tel- 
 epathic origin. He admits that facts once known to 
 the medium — but which, now forgotten, she says with 
 perfect honesty she does not know — lie down there in 
 her subliminal memory till some chance working of 
 the trance state brings them as a bona fide "message." 
 
 Or she may never have known the fact, but it may 
 be known to some one present in the company. And 
 here again, unknown to the waking consciousness of 
 the medium, her subliminal self, in some mysterious 
 telepathic way, reaches out and gains that fact from 
 the sitter's mind, and the sitter hears it delivered thru 
 the entranced lips of the medium as a veritable mes- 
 sage from the dead. 
 
 Very wonderful and inexplicable this, you say. and 
 hard to believe. Yes ; but is it as wonderful and inex- 
 plicable and hard to believe as a message from a person 
 in the other world? As a fact> it is to that last ques- 
 
324 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 tion, or a similar one, that a final analysis of the prob- 
 lem finally brings you: which of two things, judging 
 the data at hand, do you think more incredible ? Proof 
 is here but a relative term. The telepathist has not yet 
 succeeded in proving his opponent wrong. Even Frank 
 Podmore, the most noted anti-spiritualist, admits : 
 "Whether the belief in the intercourse with spirits is 
 well founded or not, it is certain that no critic has yet 
 succeeded in demonstrating the inadequacy of the evi- 
 dence upon which the spiritualists rely." 1 And we 
 must always remember that men like Myers and Hys- 
 lop and Hodgson, who have examined the phenomena 
 most closely, and weighed the data most carefully, are 
 strong in their spiritualistic conclusions. 
 
 On the other hand, the spiritualist has not proved 
 that telepathy is not an explanation for all spiritistic 
 phenomena. We may have to stretch our conception 
 of telepathy a lot to make it cover all cases, but the 
 telepathist does not scruple to stretch it. 
 
 Arguments for the Telepathic Hypothesis 
 
 Having seen the possibility of the telepathic explana- 
 tion of mediumship, let us examine specifically some of 
 the reasons advanced in support of it. 
 
 I. The character of the mistakes, confusions and 
 omissions are just such as a telepathic origin would 
 presuppose. Genuine telepathy is a groping for facts, 
 many of which it hits, some of which it does not. An 
 examination of any record of telepathic experiments 
 will show this. Compare, for instance, the ability of 
 the percipient in Dr. Guthrie's experiments to gain 
 
 l Podmore: Modern Spiritualism. 
 
cnacs 1jZ .Comfio-endroi-S -oaotd out? 
 te , Cju 'aujouTd'faiU- a aeT toztfxwfT 
 je. *)lll4 ijorte d'etn d'tme. arande 
 tVdocS m 'QoJtenir- &e ieccucouh 
 
 I. Fragment of handwriting of "Leopold," one of the medium's 
 
 alleged "controls." Automatically written by the medium while in 
 
 spontaneous hemisomnambulism. Compare this with the medium's 
 normal handwriting below. 
 
 
 II. Normal handwriting of Mile. Smith. 
 
 Handwriting of the Medium. Mile. Smith, to Show Difference 
 
 Between Normal and Alleged "Controlled" Writing 
 
 (Reproduced from Flournoy's "From India to the Planet Mars.") 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 325 
 
 a complete picture of the object with the ability of 
 the percipient (the medium) in the cases following. 
 Place the two series side by side, and note how strik- 
 ingly similar is the effect produced. 
 
 The first example is from one of Mrs. Piper's Eng- 
 lish sittings. At another sitting mention was made of 
 two Florences, with the "statement that one paints and 
 the other does not; that one is married and the other 
 is not; and that the reference was to the 'one doesn't 
 paint who is married.' It happened that Professor 
 Lodge had two cousins by the name of Florence, one 
 married and abroad, as indicated in the 'communica- 
 tion,' and who does not paint, and one who> paints and 
 is not married. In connection with the former, Phin- 
 uit had said that she had a friend, Whiteman. This 
 was all unintelligible to Professor Lodge, except the 
 names of his cousins and their relation to painting and 
 marriage, and he inquired of one of them, to find that 
 she had a lady friend by the name of Mrs. Whyte- 
 head, recently married, and he conjectures that the 
 allusion to something as the matter with her head was 
 a confusion in Phinuit's mind by the termination of 
 the name. Otherwise the allusions were all correct." 1 
 
 The telepathist also points out that many of those 
 trivial proofs of identity, on whose very triviality the 
 spiritualist lays great stress — like the "Give me my 
 hat!" incident of the Hyslop case, already quoted — 
 sound more like remembered words lurking, long for- 
 gotten, down in the subliminal self. Similar is this 
 example, 2 noted by : "March i, 1888, he re- 
 
 1 Hyslop : Science and a Future Life, pp. 142-3. 
 *Ibid., p. 168. 
 
326 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 quested, 'Throw off this rug,' referring to a loose, fur- 
 lined cloak which I wore. I noted the word as a sin- 
 gular designation for such a garment, and weeks after 
 recalled that he had once, while living, spoken of it 
 in the same way as I threw it over him on the lounge." 
 
 Secondly, says the telepathist, the alleged spirit does 
 not give evidence of all it should know. Why, when it 
 is directly using the medium's hand, so much so that 
 the handwriting alters, must it be limited to the knowl- 
 edge existent in the waking consciousness of the me- 
 dium? The spirit may have known German; Mrs. 
 Piper does not. Why, if it is itself writing, must it 
 obey Mrs. Piper's limitations, and be unable to write 
 German? Assuredly, says the telepathist, this limita- 
 tion seems suspicious ; these messages would seem to 
 have an origin no further back than Mrs. Piper's own 
 knowledge and consciousness. 
 
 Now, it is true that this seems a rather valid argu- 
 ment; for, barring a few Kaffir words given by Miss 
 Browne, and a little Italian and one or two Hawaiian 
 words uttered by Mrs. Piper, the evidence seems to 
 show that the spirit must limit itself to its medium's 
 mental capacity. 
 
 But, on the other hand, we must remember that 
 telepathy does not give us an iota more evidence on 
 its side. A language unknown to the percipient can- 
 not be received telepathically, any more than such a 
 message can be transmitted by a medium. 
 
 Objections to the Telepathic Hypothesis 
 
 Before leaving the telepathic hypothesis, we would 
 hardly be fair to the spiritualist if we did not say some- 
 thing upon the other side. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 327 
 
 He brings up three main objections to this telepathic 
 explanation, so closely allied that I shall treat them 
 together. All turn upon the fact that the "controls" 
 are exceedingly able in the selection of the facts most 
 likely to prove their identity; this, says the spiritist, 
 involves for the telepathist these assumptions : ( i ) 
 The power to select; (2) an apparent omniscience; 
 that is, an ability, if the phenomena are telepathic, to 
 draw upon any mind in the world for any fact; (3) 
 a knowledge that facts proving personal identity are 
 desired. 
 
 We have already seen how closely the subliminal self 
 seems able to imitate every earmark of genuine per- 
 sonality. Especially in the cases of dual personality 
 was this imitation so marvelously complete and con- 
 sistent as to deceive any one unacquainted with the 
 phenomenon. The apparent power to select appropri- 
 ately is but an attribute of personality, and the telepa- 
 thist sweeps this objection aside by saying that he be- 
 lieves the subliminal self endowed with every imitative 
 ability, including the ability to select. Accused, on the 
 other hand, of assuming omniscience for the subliminal 
 self, the telepathist denies that omniscience is even 
 necessary. He asserts that there was never a fact 
 delivered by a medium but had its origin either in 
 the medium's mind, her sitters' minds, or in the mind 
 of some one known to them or to her. 
 
 But, concludes the spiritualist triumphantly, saving 
 his big gun till the last, why, if the subliminal self is 
 the sole cause and origin of all the messages, why do 
 these messages reveal a continuous, eager and logical 
 attempt to prove personal identity? Do you assert, 
 continues the spiritualist, that the subliminal self (un- 
 
328 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 consciously to the medium), not content with creating 
 and continuing for years entirely fictitious characters 
 that it calls "controls," goes further, and cunningly 
 endows these fictitious "spirits" with every attribute, 
 desire, whim, method of thought, point of view and 
 reason for action that a genuine spirit might have? 
 Do you assert, in fact, that this subliminal self is spon- 
 taneously so clever, so all-powerful in its imitative and 
 imaginative ability that it can, for years, unknown to 
 the medium herself, carry on so gigantic and complex 
 a deception?" 
 
 "Yes, I do ; and I believe it," answers the telepathist. 
 The spiritualist holds that "the alleged discarnate spir- 
 its, . . . recognize the necessity of proving their iden- 
 tity, and hence supply the sort of facts commonly util- 
 ized by living persons as proof of identity. Exactly," 
 comments Mr. Bruce in an excellent summary of the 
 gist of the telepathist's argument, "and they would do 
 precisely the same thing on the supposition that they 
 were not discarnate spirits at all, but, as the telepathist 
 believes the evidence goes to show, were simply sec- 
 ondary personalities that had taken form and charac- 
 ter in Mrs. Piper's organism, just as secondary per- 
 sonalities take form and character in the organism 
 of a person who is hypnotized. In the last analysis 
 there is no difference between the trance state into 
 which Mrs. Piper goes during a seance and the trance 
 state of any hypnotic subject. The distinction simply 
 is that she seems to be constitutionally so nervously 
 unstable that she falls spontaneously into the hypnotic 
 condition. Now, a hypnotized person, . . . will enact 
 with seemingly preternatural fidelity any role suggest- 
 ed to him by the hypnotist. By so much more should 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 329 
 
 Mrs. Piper, with her exceptional autohypnotic gift, 
 be able to respond to suggestion, and in her varying 
 secondary personalities fill roles suggested to her, how- 
 ever unconsciously or subconsciously, by those who 
 have so long been experimenting with her. Remem- 
 ber F. W. H. Myers' criticism of the hypnotized pa- 
 tients of the Salpetriere: 'One feels that the Sal- 
 petriere has, in a sense, been smothered in its own 
 abundance. The richest collection of hysterics which 
 the world has ever seen, it has also (one fears) be- 
 come a kind of unconscious school of these unconscious 
 prophets — a milieu where the new arrival learns in- 
 sensibly from the very atmosphere of experiment 
 around her to adopt her own reflexes or responses to 
 the subtly divined expectations of the operator.' 
 
 "The case seems to be identical with respect to Mrs. 
 Piper. When Professor James discovered her, nearly 
 a quarter of a century ago, she was simply one of 
 numerous mediums operating in and about the city of 
 Boston. There were features in her mediumship, how- 
 ever, which appeared to him to merit investigation, and 
 accordingly the Society for Psychical Research, thru 
 Dr. Hodgson, took her in hand. The results, at first, 
 were comparatively meager, and often disappointing. 
 It was noticed that her 'control/ the so-called 'Dr. 
 Phinuit,' was given to asking leading questions and 
 to making glaringly false statements. With the arri- 
 val of 'George Pelham' there was a marked improve- 
 ment in the mediumship, and a greater improvement 
 from the day the Tmperator' group of 'controls' took 
 a hand in affairs. All this time Mrs. Piper had been 
 the subject of scientific investigation, had been in the 
 company of zealous experimenters. Is it not possible, 
 
330 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 nay, is it not probable, that, like the new arrivals at 
 the Salpetriere, she 'learned insensibly from the very 
 atmosphere of experiment around her to adopt her 
 responses to the subtly divined expectations of the 
 operator' ? 
 
 "In her case, the operators felt that the great thing 
 to be established was proof of personal identity, and 
 that it was therefore necessary for alleged communi- 
 cating discarnate spirits to cite trivial incidents con- 
 nected with their earthly career. In response, the 
 secondary personality which had assumed the character 
 of George Pelham, Professor Hyslop's father, or who- 
 ever it might be, would flash at the operators trivial 
 facts extracted telepathically from the depths of their 
 own minds. There would thus be the very selective- 
 ness which Professor Hyslop maintains is incredible 
 on the telepathic hypothesis." 1 
 
 In answer to this last argument Myers advances the 
 excellent point that there is at least one not infrequent 
 kind of message that cannot be a "mere echo of ex- 
 pectation," namely, anagrams. Of these there are 
 numerous examples in all mediumistic records. Sen- 
 tences will be written backward, or words will be 
 given in which every second letter must be read to get 
 the sense. Tables will rap out spontaneously, and so 
 fast that the letters can be hardly taken, long, complex 
 acrostics and verbal puzzles that it may take hours to 
 decipher. Surely it cannot be said that these messages 
 were expected, and came in answer to the expectation. 
 
 x Bruce: Riddle of Personality, pp. 213-6. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 331 
 
 Other Arguments for Spiritualism 
 
 But there must be other reasons in favor of spirit- 
 ualism besides those that have been given, else it would 
 not have received the adherence of those it has. The 
 very fairness and moderation of your scientific spirit- 
 ualist is itself an argument in his favor. Dr. Hyslop 
 himself calls spiritism no more than "the best working 
 hypothesis in the field to explain the phenomena con- 
 cerned. Others," he adds, "may think it absolutely 
 proved, but I shall not claim so much, nor place my- 
 self where further inquiry and knowledge might em- 
 barrass a retreat, though I think that most intelligent 
 men will agree that no other hypothesis presents half 
 the credentials of rationality that can be claimed for 
 spiritistic agency." 1 
 
 Myers, the very founder of modern spiritistic phi- 
 losophy, admits the cogency of the telepathist's argu- 
 ments ; admits, indeed, that most of the alleged spirit 
 messages are merely subliminal in their origin. He 
 says he does not wish to be understood to mean that 
 they all come "from sources external to the automa- 
 tist's own mind. In some cases they probably do this ; 
 but, as a rule, the so-called messages seem more prob- 
 ably to originate within the automatist's own person- 
 ality. "Why, then, . . ." he says, "do I call them 
 messages? We do not usually speak of a man as send- 
 ing a message to himself. . . . They present them- 
 selves to us as messages communicated from one 
 stratum to another stratum of the same personality. 
 Originating in some deeper zone of a man's being, 
 
 hyslop : Science and the Future Life, p. 267. 
 
S22 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 they float up into superficial consciousness, as deeds, 
 visions, words, ready-made and full-blown, without 
 any accompanying perception of the elaborate process 
 which has made them what they are." 1 
 
 At the very outset to his monumental work, in fact, 
 Myers had clearly stated very decided limitations in 
 the application of the spiritistic hypothesis. "This 
 work of mine," he says, "is in a large measure a crit- 
 ical attack upon the main spiritist position, as held, 
 say, by Mr. A. R. Wallace, its most eminent living 
 supporter — the belief, namely, that all, or almost all, 
 supernormal phenomena are due to the action of spirits 
 of the dead. By far the larger proportion, as I hold, 
 are due to the action of the still embodied spirit of the 
 agent or percipient himself. Apart from speculative 
 differences," he adds, "I altogether dissent from the 
 conversion into a sectarian creed of what I hold should 
 be a branch of scientific inquiry, growing naturally out 
 of our existing knowledge. It is, I believe, largely to 
 this temper of uncritical acceptance, degenerating 
 often into blind credulity, that we must refer the lack 
 of progress in spiritualistic literature." 2 
 
 Such are not the words of spiritualistic fanatics, 
 but of scientists who have carefully weighed conflicting 
 evidence. 
 
 There is one«strong argument in favor of spiritual- 
 ism, what Dr. Hyslop calls "the dramatic play of per- 
 sonality" in the communications, which, unfortunately 
 from our standpoint, appeals much more strongly to 
 those immediately present at the sitting than to the 
 
 *Myers : Human Personality, p. 258. *Ibid. t p. 7. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 333 
 
 reader. Yet I believe I can show a sufficient number 
 of examples to give you the idea, if not to create the 
 impression. 
 
 "The Dramatic Play of Personality" in Mediumistic Com- 
 munication 
 
 We have already heard the telepathist claim that the 
 subliminal self can imitate every phase of personality. 
 But the spiritualist refuses to admit that this fictitious 
 simulation can be carried far enough to create that 
 overwhelming impression of the presence of real per- 
 sonal "controls" that is given by the medium in the 
 trance state, an impression so strong that no theory, 
 or explanation, can argue it away. And this is more 
 than a mere "unity of consciousness"; that is, a con- 
 sistent continuance of a definite personality from sit- 
 ting to sitting, tho the evidence in this respect seems 
 difficult for the telepathist satisfactorily to explain. 
 Dr. Hyslop says, for example, "If the reader will re- 
 cur to the incidents which I have narrated as purport- 
 ing to come from my father, deceased, he will observe 
 that group of them . . . relating to our conversations 
 on the subject of psychic research before his death. 
 Here were a number of incidents belonging to that con- 
 versation, the reference to hallucination, my doubts, 
 thought transference, Swedenborg, hypnotism, appa- 
 ritions, and dreams, with some experiments of my 
 own. They are incidents which a personal conscious- 
 ness might naturally be expected to recall and tell, 
 but which we should not expect any telepathic process 
 to do." 1 
 
 'Hyslop : Science and the Future Life, p. 270. 
 
334 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 Somewhat later, Dr. Hyslop calls attention to further 
 interesting continuances of incidents from sitting to 
 sitting. "The 'communicator' will fail at one time to 
 get his incident rightly," he says, "and come back to 
 it at a later time and correct it. Or he may get it right 
 at the first attempt and return to it later for giving 
 additional matter, or ascertaining whether his message 
 has been received or not. Thruout the experiments 
 there is this natural psychological connection between 
 the incidents, and perhaps as interesting a psychologi- 
 cal fact as any is that which indicates this connection 
 consistently carried out thru all the distinctions of per- 
 sonality in different 'communicators.' There is no 
 confusion of these, except apparently when some one 
 acts as an intermediary for another, and this is very 
 often accompanied by the statement that the incidents 
 belong to another than the intermediary, so that the 
 distinction of personalities is kept up." 1 
 
 In other words, one of the main contentions of the 
 spiritualist is that the amazingly consistent and com- 
 plete personalities built up by the messages are too 
 consistent and complete to be merely the work of im- 
 agination. 
 
 But, alas! in reply the telepathist merely points to 
 cases like Professor Flournoy's Mile. Helene. Almost 
 certainly telepathic as this is — unless we want to ad- 
 mit the reality of those Martian spirits of hers — it is 
 a remarkable example of how closely the subliminal 
 self can imitate genuine spirit personalities, and how 
 consistent and complete these fictitious personalities 
 are. Is it not possible, then, that Mrs. Piper's "con- 
 
 iHyslop : Science andy the Future Life, p. 271. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 335 
 
 trols" are, after all, merely so many fictitious person- 
 alities created by her subliminal self, and writing and 
 speaking consistently, even for years? 
 
 The reader will remember that different "controls" 
 dominate different stages of the Piper case. These 
 "controls" performed the function of a society for 
 psychical research for "the other side." They chose 
 communicators and secured them ; arranged sittings for 
 them, decided the order of their speaking; in short, 
 supervised every detail of sending the messages. 
 
 "Now, it must be conceivable," remarks Dr. Hyslop, 
 "that, if this is true, we should expect that any diffi- 
 culties associated with the 'communications' would be 
 accompanied by various intrusions of conversation and 
 remarks on the 'other side' not intended to be 'com- 
 municated,' but which would slip through, neverthe- 
 less, just as irrelevancies often occur in the telephone 
 when lines are crossed or conditions favor a confusion 
 and interruption of messages." 1 
 
 And as it happens, we have in the record many ex- 
 amples of this very thing. "Just at the beginning of 
 a sitting, Rector, acting as 'control' at the time, ap- 
 parently said to the 'communicator,' who purported to 
 be my father, 'Speak clearly, sir. Come over here.' 
 The reply was 'Yes,' as if intending to obey Rector's 
 injunction; and then Dr. Hodgson was accosted with 
 the question, 'Are you with James?' On Dr. Hodg- 
 son's affirmative reply, my father responded, with an 
 evident understanding that he was to 'communicate' 
 with Dr. Hodgson in my absence, and the sitting went 
 on." 2 
 
 hyslop : Science and the Future Life, p. 274. 
 'Ibid., pp. 275-6. 
 
336 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 There are interruptions by one of the "controls" or 
 communicators just as spontaneous and natural as any- 
 similar incident on earth. "There were a number of 
 these interferences by George Pelham. He is generally 
 better at getting proper names than Rector, and on oc- 
 casions when these give difficulty, George Pelham is 
 likely to be called in to assist. Let me take some illus- 
 trations of this. 
 
 "There had been some difficulty and confusion from 
 the start in getting the name of my cousin, Robert 
 McClellan, calling it 'Allen,' 'McCollum,' 'McAllen,' 
 etc. On one occasion, when this cousin was trying to 
 'communicate,' he gave the name of George Pelham 
 in full, and said that he, George Pelham, was assist- 
 ing him to 'communicate.' A moment later, right in 
 the midst of a 'communication' which was greatly con- 
 fused, George Pelham suddenly interjects the excla- 
 mation : 'Look out, Hodgson, I am here — George Pel- 
 him. Imperator sent me some moments ago.' Then, 
 in a few minutes, while Rector was struggling to get 
 the name McClellan clear, and could only get 'McAl- 
 len,' George Pelham breaks in and says : 'Sounds like 
 McCellan, George Pelham,' and my cousin acknowl- 
 edges its correctness by saying, 'Yes, I am he.' 1 
 
 "This cleavage of personalities and interference and 
 interruption of the messages in the manner described 
 represents a dramatic action quite natural in the situa- 
 tion, and there is no need of it on the telepathic hy- 
 pothesis." 2 
 
 ^yslop : Science and the Future Life, p. 277. 
 2 Ibid., pp. 278-9. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 337 
 
 Similarly, the mistakes and confusion which abound 
 in the record have a genuinely personal flavor, which 
 the hypothesis of telepathic simulation hardly accounts 
 for. Dr. Hyslop, for example, once asked for informa- 
 tion regarding an old neighbor named Samuel Coop- 
 er. The information given by the "communicator" 
 (Dr. Hyslop's father) was entirely wrong; but was 
 afterward found to be right concerning a Dr. Joseph 
 Cooper. It is natural enough that the mind of a dead 
 man suffer from defective memory; but, on a tel- 
 epathic theory, how is such a mix-up explicable ? Dr. 
 Hyslop had not thought of Dr. Joseph Cooper for 
 years; his mind was full of Samuel Cooper. Why 
 should not telepathy have selected this Cooper to whom 
 to give its imaginary messages? 
 
 Here is another illustration given by Dr. Hyslop: 
 "On one occasion I had asked what my uncle had died 
 with, and it was two years before I received the cor- 
 rect answer. But the immediate answer involved the 
 statement first that Robert had gotten his foot injured 
 on the railroad, and then it was afterward ascribed to 
 Frank, both Robert and Frank being names of my 
 brothers. With reference to them, however, the state- 
 ments were false. My brother Frank had had an in- 
 jured leg, but it was not caused in any connection with 
 a railway. My brother Robert never had any such 
 injury. But my uncle, about whom I had asked the 
 question, had had his leg cut off, or nearly cut off, at 
 the ankle, by a railway car, and died from the effects 
 of the operation a few hours later. No living memory 
 had the facts as they were told, while their correct 
 
338 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 form was not given. This is not a natural phenome- 
 non of telepathy. . . .* 
 
 "Another incident 2 shows this confusion very clear- 
 ly," says Dr. Hyslop. "My father had referred to an 
 illness which my sister had had three months before the 
 sitting, he having died six years previously. But he 
 could not continue what he wished to say, and later he 
 returned with the help of my wife, who had died two 
 years before ; calling her his wife — a statement correct- 
 ed by her spontaneously the next day — he showed some 
 confusion again about my sister, and Rector, the 'con- 
 trol/ said (wrote) to me: 'He seems a little dazed in 
 thought. It is most certainly connected with Lida in 
 the body.' Then my father went on to mention a dis- 
 ease and physical difficulties that he claimed had been 
 his own, the main one of which I knew to be false with 
 regard to him. But inquiry showed that examination 
 had been made for this one in my sister's case, and that 
 the other two incidents were especially relevant to my 
 sister, and were relevant to my father's condition just 
 before death. The interesting circumstance, however, 
 is that Rector was aware of the irrelevance of the facts 
 as he was going to state them, and forewarned me as 
 to their reference, while my father went on with a 
 confused sense of personal identity, claiming as his 
 own what was, in fact, intended as true for my sister." 
 
 Here is an incident 3 showing how clearly the earthly 
 consciousness seems to continue after death. The ex- 
 ample, an excellent one, occurs in Dr. Hodgson's re- 
 port on tke Piper case. "After the death of George 
 
 1 Hyslop: Science and the Future Life, p. 282. 
 'Ibid., pp. 323-4- 3 Ibid., pp. 324-5- 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 339 
 
 Pelham a friend of the deceased, by the name of Mr. 
 Hart, had some sittings with Mrs. Piper, and was very 
 much annoyed by the way in which the messages were 
 spelled out in confusion, this process extending often 
 to very ordinary words. Some time later Mr. Hart 
 himself suddenly dies, and soon afterward became a 
 'communicator,' but at first a very confused one. Dr. 
 Hodgson had known him in life, and was present at his 
 sittings. One day this Mr. Hart turned up at one of 
 Dr. Hodgson's sittings and engaged in the following 
 'communications/ whose significance is apparent at a 
 glance : 
 
 " 'What in the world is the reason you never call 
 for me? I am not sleeping. I wish to help you in 
 identifying myself. ... I am a good deal better now. 
 (You were confused at first.) Very; but I did not 
 really understand how confused I was. It is more so, 
 I am more so when I try to speak to you. I under- 
 stand now why George spelled his words to me.' " 
 
 Here the spirit confesses his own inadequacy as a 
 communicator, and refers to a trivial criticism of the 
 same fault in another communicator, a criticism which 
 he had made when on earth. Does it seem likely that 
 telepathy simulates all these little details? 
 
 Does telepathy simulate, too, the constant and fre- 
 quent change of communicators, occurring thousands 
 of times in the record? Why should some communi- 
 cators be clear, correct and rational, and others be con- 
 fused, lying and incoherent? Would this be true if 
 they were all the imaginary creatures of the subliminal 
 self? "This simulation of what we should most natu- 
 rally expect of spirits ought not to characterize telep- 
 athy. There is apparently nothing in the memory of 
 
340 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 the sitters or other living persons to make the incidents 
 remembered of one person easily accessible and those 
 of another impossible. Thus, for instance, in my 
 record I received practically nothing about my mother 
 except her name, and even that was given by another 
 than herself ! My uncle, James M'cClellan, was a very 
 clear 'communicator' in most .incidents, and his son was 
 almost a failure, tho I remembered far more about the 
 son than I did about his father. Another uncle was 
 very confused for two years, but much clearer after 
 that, while my father became more confused with 
 time." 1 
 
 There is a great difference, Dr. Hyslop notes, "be- 
 tween," for example, "Rector's and George Pelham's 
 ability to get proper names, or certain difficult and un- 
 familiar messages, while they are otherwise about equal 
 in their abilities. There is no reason of an ordinary 
 kind that can be adduced for their equality in all but 
 proper names and the like. George Pelham is better 
 than Rector in this respect, tho the telepathic hypothe- 
 sis has to assume them merely secondary personali- 
 ties of Mrs. Piper." 2 
 
 Here you have the problem, very briefly and inade- 
 quately outlined, awaiting your decision. Telepathy vs. 
 spiritism : which explains these remarkable phenomena ? 
 The evidence is still inconclusive : diligent workers are 
 still toiling in the mine of psychic research; if I have 
 made you believe that there is there, among a great 
 deal of rubbish, a little very much worth while, I shall 
 have achieved my purpose. 
 
 hyslop: Science and the Future Life, p. 262. 
 *Ibid., p. 265. 
 
"I FEEL, I KNOW WITH CERTITUDE THAT IN DYING 
 I SHALL BE HAPPY" 
 
 We live in dreams almost with the same intensity as in 
 reality. Pascal said, "I believe that if in our dreams we could 
 see ourselves constantly with the same surroundings, with, on 
 the contrary, those of our every-day life as infinitely varied as 
 our dreams, we would consider the dream as the reality, and 
 the reality as the dream." 
 
 This is not altogether exact. 
 
 The reality is distinguished from the dream in that it is 
 more real. 
 
 I would express it differently: If we had never known a 
 life more real than our dreams we would consider the dream 
 as the reality, and we would never doubt that it was our real 
 life. 
 
 All of our life, from the cradle to the grave, is it not, with 
 all of its dreams, in reality a dream which we mistake for the 
 reality? Are we not certain of its reality solely because we 
 do not know of another life which is more real? 
 
 Not only do I believe this, but I am convinced that this is 
 the only reason of our certitude. 
 
 ********* 
 
 Even as during our terrestrial life we live through a thou- 
 sand dreams, this is only one of thousands of lives from which 
 we have come, and to which we will return, to another life, 
 more real, more authentic, and to which we will return after 
 our death. 
 
 ********* 
 
 Our terrestrial life is one of the dreams of another life, more 
 real, and so on, to the infinite, to the life eternal which is 
 the life of God. 
 
 ********* 
 Birth, and the dawning of the first notions of the world, 
 may be considered the commencement of sleep: all of our ter- 
 restrial life as a profound sleep: death as the awakening. 
 
 Premature death is the death of one who is awakened before 
 having finished all his sleep. 
 
 341 
 
342 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 Death from old age is the death of one who has finished 
 his sleep and awakens of his own accord. 
 
 Suicide is a nightmare which one forces to disappear when 
 one realizes that one has been asleep. 
 
 A man who is entirely absorbed by the present life, who feels 
 no presentiment of another life, is one who sleeps profoundly. 
 
 Profound sleep, without dreams, is comparable to a state of 
 semi-bestiality. 
 
 The sleeper who feels during his sleep what takes place 
 around him, who sleeps lightly, and who is ready to awaken at 
 any instant, is he who has a consciousness, even though vague, 
 of the life from which he has come, and to which he is about 
 to return. 
 
 During sleep mankind is always selfish, lives for himself, 
 without partaking in the lives of his kind, bound to them by 
 no ties. 
 
 In the life which we consider as the real life, our ties to our 
 kind are already greater: there exists the appearance of love 
 of our brother. 
 
 In the life from which we have come, and to which we 
 will return, this tie is closer: love of our fellow man is no 
 longer a simple aspiration, but a reality. The lives of which 
 we have spoken are only a preparation for the life eternal, 
 where the ties which bind us all are still closer and brotherly 
 love greater still. 
 
 All that we dream and resolve in this life will perhaps be 
 realized in the life to come. 
 
 The corporeal body in which we live here below forms an 
 impediment to the beautiful things which our spirit conceives, 
 and hinders their execution. Matter is the enemy of the spirit. 
 The real life begins when that impediment is abolished. 
 
 Within this idea is encompassed all that we know of the 
 truth, and it gives to man the consciousness of eternal life. 
 
 I am not amusing myself in imagining a theory. I believe 
 with all my soul in what I have just said. I feel, I KNOW 
 with certitude that in dying I shall be happy, and that I will 
 enter into a life more real. 
 
 —Count Tolstoi. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 The truths which the spiritualist claims — with much 
 reason— that he has both revealed and substantiated, 
 are immeasurably the most important with which sci- 
 ence has had to do. 
 
 Scientific research has fostered the growth of a most 
 cold-blooded materialism; which, however little it has 
 been itself accepted, has seriously undermined the au- 
 thority of the church and the influence of religion. The 
 Christian of the second century and the monk of the 
 eighth viewed this life as but a transitory period of 
 trial and preparation for "another world." To them, 
 as to all Christians for hundreds of years, the Bible 
 was more than an inspired code of morals ; it was a 
 literal record of actual events. We now little realize 
 how the Mediterranean world welcomed that early 
 teaching; to them it was literally the "Go(d)-spel," 
 the "Good News." Why "good news"? Because it 
 had set their doubts at rest. There was a future life 
 for all : they were sure of it ; for "one had died and rose 
 from the dead." 
 
 But doubts are stubborn things. After nineteen 
 hundred years we find the same old query and hesitation 
 and unsatisfied longing rising again. The Reforma- 
 tion struck the first blow; the polite and mocking 
 atheism of the seventeenth century struck another ; but 
 modern science — the doctrine of evolution, the methods 
 348 
 
SU ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 of critical research — must be credited with the last and 
 severest, a blow, indeed, that was staggering. We 
 were told that geology proved that this earth of ours 
 was several million years in the making instead of a few 
 days. We were told that the Book of Isaiah, for ex- 
 ample, so far from being the work of a man by that 
 name, was probably a patchwork, mostly by two men 
 who lived some hundred years apart. We were told, 
 lastly, by some very eminent persons, that the miracles 
 of the Apostles and of the Christ himself were contrary 
 to the laws of nature, and therefore were obviously 
 myths. 
 
 At just about this time science was doing very won- 
 derful things — cleaving mountains, spanning conti- 
 nents with a tremor of intelligent electricity, propelling 
 leviathans on the seas and projectile-like carriers on the 
 land, fabricating wonderfully complex machines for 
 doing better and faster everything human hands could 
 do — in short, science was a great body of active, pow- 
 erful infallibility; its decrees were listened to with awe, 
 and accepted almost unquestioningly, regardless of be- 
 lief or former bias. 
 
 Biology, psychology, history, found no place for 
 miracles ; and the Christian world suddenly found the 
 foundation of its dogma tottering under ruthless attack. 
 Almost unconsciously, men began to think perhaps 
 One didn't "arise from the dead," after all ; that per- 
 haps that story was more or less of a myth. Anyway, 
 it happened so long ago its appeal was growing rather 
 hazy. And to-day, as a result, the average man is no 
 longer sure of the future life: he hopes, he believes, 
 or he does not care or does not think; he certainly 
 does not know. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 345 
 
 But as far back as the 70's the pendulum had be- 
 gun to swing the other way; now, whatever we may 
 think of a belief in the reality of certain psychical phe- 
 nomena, it is, among educated people, gaining momen- 
 tum daily. 
 
 Spiritualism and the Bible 
 
 Rereading the Biblical story in the light of the re- 
 searches of the Society for Psychical Research, how 
 brightly illumined are many places formerly dark ! 
 Looking at it from the spiritualistic standpoint, the in- 
 spired Book sounds like a veritable record of medium- 
 ship. 
 
 Both the Old and New Testaments are patchwork 
 narratives, whose focal points and climaxes are in- 
 stances of ecstasy or vision, some of them clairvoy- 
 ant, some of them in dreams. Moses, Joseph, all the 
 prophets, Mary, Elizabeth, Stephen at his martyrdom, 
 Saul on the way to Damascus, John — the list is a long 
 one. In many cases these visions were precognitions, 
 or prophecies. 
 
 We have telepathy exerted often in the Old Testa- 
 ment, by the Apostles, and scores of times by the Mas- 
 ter himself. The Bible does not call it "telepathy," of 
 course ; but that is what is described : "Knowing their 
 hearts" the record puts it, or "perceiving what she was 
 thinking." 
 
 We have possession by external spirits — "possessed 
 with devils" is the usual phrase — as with the swine in 
 "the country beyond the Jordan," and the demoniacal 
 girl. The latter's symptoms, as recorded, are almost ex- 
 actly those of the trance state in motor automatism; 
 and there are other descriptions of mediumistic trance 
 
S46 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 and of mediums, tho the Bible usually calls the latter 
 "witches." 
 
 In connection with Moses' miracles occurred numer- 
 ous physical phenomena in a class with table-tipping 
 and the Zollner phenomena. And we have in the Old 
 and New Testaments at least three descriptions of 
 levitation. 
 
 We have cases of apparitions, quite often in the Old 
 Testament, more rarely in the New. The latter com- 
 pensates, however, by giving us the most striking and 
 most thoroly substantiated case of materialisation that 
 we have, namely, that of the resurrected Christ him- 
 self, who ate and "suffered them to touch him," yet 
 who passed thru the solid walls of the upper chamber 
 at Jerusalem. 
 
 In fact, you will be amazed by the correspondence in 
 the phenomena recorded, case after case, detail after 
 detail, in the Bible, substantiated and corroborated by 
 the researches of modern spiritualism. Even the fraud- 
 ulent phenomena were existent then, as now; for we 
 are told there were "false prophets" who did "divers 
 wonders." 
 
 Modern science herself coming to the rescue of the 
 Scriptural narrative — this is indeed an anomaly! Yet 
 the church could gain no better ally ; and spiritualism, 
 if it be true, and I, least of all, have any desire to say 
 dogmatically that it either is or is not— will /be the 
 means of restoring to Christianity, a hundredfold 
 stronger, the place it has slowly lost in the minds and 
 hearts of many men. We know, say the spiritualists, 
 that "One has risen from the dead"; we know that 
 there is a future life, for we have proved it. Give 
 Christianity the basis of immortality again, founded 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 347 
 
 this time on reason as well as faith, and to what will 
 it not attain? 
 
 The Difficulty of Knowing of the "Other World" 
 
 Before closing, I wish to touch with the utmost brev- 
 ity upon one or two important general points. 
 
 We must never forget how little, after all, we know 
 about what troubles those "on the other side" may have 
 in their attempt to communicate. Remember, we do 
 not know that these "spirits" have our senses or our 
 memories as we have them, any more than we have the 
 senses and memories of some possible previous exist- 
 ence. 
 
 And if they do have them, they may be simply relics 
 of the earth world, unused and almost unusable. We 
 can imagine what a shock the change we call death is 
 upon the continuity of their personality; we may im- 
 agine how hard it is for the deceased spirit to grow 
 accustomed to his new environment. Perhaps in the 
 new life the earth-senses atrophy with disuse, and the 
 earth-memories fade very fast into irrevocable forget- 
 fulness. It may be that the ability to communicate re- 
 quires a strong effort of will and great exertion, or 
 even pain, to the spirit. Knowing none of these things, 
 do not let us blame the spirits if we think they fail 
 to do even "their share." 
 
 Or, as Dr. Hyslop says, their earth-memories may 
 be to them much as our dreams are to us, a confused, 
 phantasmagoric stream of sensations and incidents, in 
 which it is wofully hard for the spirit to focus upon 
 the points desired in communication. 
 
 And besides all these difficulties there are so few of 
 those loopholes that we call mediums, thru which they 
 

 348 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 can catch glimpses of our earth-world! We know 
 nothing about this desire, confusion and difficulty on 
 the other side, perhaps as great as are ours on this. 
 "Even in such fashion," says Frederic Myers, "thru 
 Mrs. Piper's trances, the thronging multitude of the 
 departed press to the glimpse of light. Eager, but 
 untrained, they interject their uncomprehended cries; 
 vainly they call the names that no man answered ; like 
 birds that have beaten against a lighthouse, they . . . 
 fly in disappointment away." 1 
 
 Dr. Hodgson sums up most admirably the difficulties 
 which may bar the way to a spirit's mediumistic com- 
 munications. "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 un- 
 reasonably make concerning the ability of the discar- 
 nate '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 con- 
 nected 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 suppo- 
 sition 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 
 
 ^■National Review, 1898, p. 240. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 349 
 
 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 con- 
 tinue my existence under another set of conditions alto- 
 gether, and if I could then return to my own body, it 
 might well be that I should be very confused and in- 
 coherent at first in my manifestations by means of it. 
 How much more would this be the case were I to re- 
 turn to another human body." 
 
 One of the very commonest condemnations of psy- 
 chical phenomena heard is that they have given us, 
 so far, very little information about the "other world." 
 Perhaps the spirits, even if they would, are absolutely 
 unable to give intelligible information ; and I believe 
 this quotation from Dr. Savage will make clear at least 
 one reason why : "All our knowledge here is limited, 
 of necessity, by our past experience, the experience 
 of the race. If I were to attempt to describe to you 
 any new thing or any new place, I could do it only by 
 comparing it with something with which you are al- 
 ready familiar ; and just in so far as it was unlike any- 
 thing with which you were familiar, just in so far it 
 would be simply impossible for me to describe it to 
 you so that you could have any intelligible idea of it. 
 Suppose, for example, that I should come back from 
 a journey in Central Africa, and should sit down with 
 a friend and say, 'I found a very strange and curious 
 thing there,' and he should say, 'Well, what shape was 
 it?' I would say, 'It was not the shape of anything 
 you ever saw. It was a new shape.' 'What color was 
 it?' 'It was a new color.' 'What was it like?' 'It 
 was not like anything you ever saw.' Do you not see 
 
350 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 that it would be absolutely impossible for me to explain 
 it to him, tho I might know about it, and might be ab- 
 solutely certain of the fact?" 1 
 
 Our universe is a universe of the senses: we see, 
 hear, feel, smell, taste things; and so know that the 
 universe exists. We know nothing of what the "other 
 world" is like. There they may neither see, hear, feel, 
 taste nor smell : how, then, can they describe to us their 
 world ? Helen Kellar, born blind, deaf and dumb, lives 
 in a universe of touch. She cannot realize our world. 
 We may tell her about it ; yet she, without three of our 
 five senses, can form only an incomplete idea of it. 
 Supposing she had none of our senses : this may be 
 similarly our condition in relation to that other world. 
 How can they tell us concerning it ? And, did they tell 
 us, how much wiser would we be? Yet, after all, we 
 are not entirely without information regarding the oth- 
 er world : we may know but one or two facts, but they 
 are important ones. 
 
 The Evidence of Future Happiness 
 
 One of the first things noticed by the psychic re- 
 searchers was the uniformly high moral character of 
 the communications received. This has not, as Mr. 
 Myers says, been sufficiently noticed or adequately ex- 
 plained. "Haunting phantoms, incoherent and unintel- 
 ligent, may seem restless and unhappy. But as they 
 rise into definiteness, intelligence, individuality, the 
 phantoms rise also into love and joy. / cannot recall 
 one single case of a proved posthumous combination of 
 
 'Savage : The Life After Death, p. 274. 
 
ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 851 
 
 intelligence and wickedness. Such evil as our evidence 
 will show us ... is scarcely more than monkeyish 
 mischief, childish folly. . . . But ... all that world- 
 old conception of evil spirits, of malevolent powers, 
 which has been the basis of so much of actual devil- 
 Worship and of so much more vague supernatural fear 
 — all this insensibly melts from the mind as we study 
 the evidence before us." 1 
 
 Regarding- the final solution of the psychic problem, 
 most of us are, as yet, not at all sure; some of us deem 
 incredible the conclusions reached by the believers in 
 spiritualism ; yet we are not sure of our unbelief ! Some 
 of us, on the other hand, believe the proof of a future 
 life scientifically established; but we realize that our 
 basis is none too surely set. 
 
 After all, what do we expect to settle in twenty-five 
 years' research ? The supreme problem that has trou- 
 bled mankind for countless centuries? We must be- 
 ware of unwarranted generalizations and deductions 
 too hastily made from insufficiently observed facts. It 
 seems incongruous here to say that nothing else 
 had delayed the progress of psychical research so 
 much as the lack of funds. But so it is. Yet 
 funds will eventually be forthcoming, and the 
 work will go on, not impatiently, not with blind 
 incredulity, but steadily and surely. "Remember," says 
 one who should know best, "that this inquiry must be 
 extended over many generations; nor must he allow 
 himself to be persuaded that there are short cuts to 
 mastery. . . . We have no confidence here more than 
 elsewhere in any methods except the open, candid, 
 
 'Myers: Human Personality, p. 252. 
 
352 ARE THE DEAD ALIVE? 
 
 straightforward methods which the spirit of modern 
 science demands." 1 And a little further on he adds: 
 "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 thru rifted clouds 
 we see the desires and creeds of many generations float- 
 ing and melting upward into a distant glow." 2 
 
 flyers : Human Personality, p. 252. 
 
 2 Myers : The Drift of Psychical Research. National Review, 
 v. 24, p. 190. 
 
 THE END 
 
INDEX 
 
 A., Miss, medium, 276-8 
 
 Abruzzi, Duke of the, Eusapia's 
 
 patron, 74 
 Accordion playing, 26 
 Adare, Lord, levitations with Home, 
 
 66-7 
 Agents, in telepathic experiments, 
 
 236-7 
 Aggazotti, Alberta, at second Turin 
 
 seances, 95 
 Ahrensburg cemetery disturbances, 
 
 210 
 Aksakof, M., at Milan sittings, 78; 
 
 striking levitation test of, 84; 
 Alexis, clairvoyant medium, 24 
 Amusing fraud, an, 179-80 
 Anagrams, in messages, 330 
 Anesthesia, induced telepathically, 
 
 247-8 
 Animals, see apparitions? 207-11 
 Anthropomorphization of ghosts, 
 
 202 
 Apparitions, remarkable, 117-18; 
 
 proofs of immateriality of, 195-6; 
 
 evidenced in proof of future life, 
 
 289-90; in the Bible, 346 
 Apparitions of the dead, see Ghosts 
 Apparitions of the living, 181-7; 
 
 proved by Census, 181; statement 
 
 of Dr. Savage, 182; probable, 183; 
 
 premonitory, 183-4; self-projection, 
 
 184-7; case of Mr. Kirk, 184-5; c ase 
 
 of the Misses Verity, 185-6; man's 
 
 astral body travels many miles, 
 
 186 
 Appetites, hypnotic control of, 166 
 Apports, of flowers, n; of flowers 
 
 and fruit, 29; definition of, 86; 
 
 reality of (Wallace), 221 
 
 Apulian dialect, Eusapia speaks, 73 
 
 "Arena," remarkable case of pre- 
 monition in, 254-5 
 
 Arlington, Mass., home of Mrs. Pi- 
 per, 291 
 
 Arullani, Dr., at second Turin 
 seances, 96 
 
 Association for the Advancement of 
 Science, Crookes' Address before, 
 9 
 
 Astral body, possibility of, 126 
 
 Astral body, projection of the, see 
 Self-projection 
 
 Astral hands leave prints, 78; break 
 a mold, 118; seen, 106-10 
 
 Astral hands, see also Materializa- 
 tion 
 
 Astral members, education of, 1 15-16 
 
 Auburn, Fox sisters visit, 42 
 
 Audenino, Dr., at first Turin sit- 
 tings, 91 
 
 Auto-hypnotization, see Self-hypno- 
 tization 
 
 Automatic writing, observed by 
 Dialectical Society, 29; W. T. 
 Stead on, 172; of Moses MSS., 
 283-4; Mrs. Piper's, 293; .spiritistic 
 hypothesis for, 323-4 
 
 Automatism, phenomena of, 266-71 ; 
 various phases of, 268-72; defini- 
 tion of, 269 
 
 Automatism, see also "Watseka 
 Wonder," Possession, Motor 
 Automatism 
 
 Aylesbury, Commander T., case of, 
 161-2 
 
 B 
 
 B., Mme., case of, 134-5 
 Balfour, Arthur James, president of 
 S. P. R., 5 
 355 
 
356 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Barbaroux, Jacques, at first Turin 
 seances, 91 
 
 Barber, Mrs. Caroline, case of 
 telepathy, 233 
 
 Barrett, Prof. W. F., founder of 
 S. P. R., 5; rappings observed by, 
 45; table tipping noted, 48; is 
 there a future life? 288; impos- 
 sible ever to prove, 288-9; eminent 
 scientific men believe it proved, 
 2S9; psychic phenomena not 
 trivial, 289; evidence of appari- 
 tions, 289-90 
 
 Barzini, at Genoa sittings, 86 
 
 Beauchamp, Miss, case of, 135-6 
 
 Bebee, Harriet, becomes medium, 
 42 
 
 Bellachini, endorses Slade, 25 
 
 Berisso, at Genoa sittings, 86 
 
 Bianchi, M., at first Naples sittings, 
 76 
 
 Bible, spiritualism and the, 343-6; 
 ecstasy in the, 345; precognitions 
 in the, 345; telepathy in the, 345; 
 possession in the, 345-6; mediums 
 in the, 346; physical phenomena 
 in the, 346; levitation in the, 346; 
 apparitions in the, 346; materiali- 
 zation in the, 346; fraudulent phe- 
 nomena in the, 346 
 
 Birchall, Mr., agent in telepathic 
 experiments, 237 
 
 Blavatsky, Mme., detected in fraud, 
 14 
 
 Bocca, M., at first Turin seances, 91 
 
 Bodies, movement of, 11 
 
 Bodily organism, powers of the, 
 163-4 
 
 Borrelli, Count Guy, at first Turin 
 seances, 91 
 
 Bottazzi, Filippo, convinced of fu- 
 ture existence, 99; wishes proofs, 
 101 ; works with scientific thoro- 
 ness, 102; describes materializa- 
 tions, 107, 108, 109; photographs 
 materialized hand, 109; and Eusa- 
 pia's synchronism, 113-15 
 
 Bouquet, levitation of a, 100 
 
 Bourne, Ansel, remarkable case of, 
 136-9; leaves his home in Greene, 
 R. I., 136; as A. J. Brown in 
 Norristown, Pa, 136; awakening, 
 137; hypnotized, tells his story, 
 137-9 
 
 Bozzano, at Genoa sittings, 86 
 
 Breaking to pieces of a table, 97 
 
 Breathing, changes in, in trance, 
 150 
 
 Breeze, cold, from medium, 92 
 
 Brewer's Dictionary of Miracles, 
 Home's exploits in, 64 
 
 British Association for the Ad- 
 vancement of Science, Cfooke's 
 address before, 9 
 
 British Society for Psychical Re- 
 search, see Society for Psychical 
 Research 
 
 Brougham, Lord, ghost seen by, 
 188-9 
 
 Brown, A. J., see Bourne, Ansel 
 
 Bruce, H. Addington, summarizes 
 difficulties with old definition of 
 self, 129-30; Mrs. Piper's phenom- 
 ena telepathic, 328-9 
 
 Bulgings of cabinet curtain, typical 
 example, 87-8 
 
 Bundy, Col. J. C, investigates 
 "Watseka Wonder" case, 140 
 
 Cabinet curtain, bulgings of, typi- 
 cal example, 87-8 
 
 Cahagnet's subject, case of automa- 
 tism, 271 
 
 "Canning, Willie," a control of 
 Rancy Vennum, 144 
 
 Cardarelli, Antonio, at Naples 
 seances, 104 
 
 Card-plates, levitation of, 26 
 'Cards, telepathy with, 244-5 
 
 Carrington, Hereward, wholesale 
 fraud in slate-v/riting, 32-3; diffi- 
 culty of detecting it, 37; criticism 
 of Zollner phenomena, 39; table- 
 tipping certainly genuine, 48; con- 
 clusions regarding table-tipping, 
 
INDEX 
 
 357 
 
 S3; endorses Home, 63; note on 
 Home's "elongation," 68-9; fraud 
 in spirit photography common, 
 177-8; shows methods of, 178-80; 
 tells an amusing fraud, 179-80; 
 methods of "mind-reading," 228- 
 31; fraud improbable in Piper 
 case, 294 
 Catalepsis, 166. 
 
 Census of Hallucinations, 173-6; 
 proves apparitions of the living, 
 181-2 
 Chain, breaks in mediumistic, 105 
 Chair, levitation of, 11 
 Challis, Professor, quoted, 21 
 Change in communicators, argu- 
 ment from, 339-40 
 Chiaia, Prof., Eusapia and, 75 
 Christian, early, view of future life, 
 
 343 
 Christian Science, place of, 167 
 Christ's passion, stigmata of, 166 
 Clairaudience, definition, 7; phe- 
 nomena of, 161-3; case of Com- 
 mander Aylesbury, 161-2; case of 
 the Jeannette, 162; case of Major- 
 Gen. R., 162-3 
 Clairvoyance, definition, 7; typical 
 cases of, 152-6; case of Prof. Greg- 
 ory, 152-3; message with planchet, 
 154; spirit tells of distant events, 
 155; violation of a grave, 155-6; 
 finding of Helge Dehli, 156-7; 
 case of Bertha Huse, 158-61; other 
 examples of, 161; what is clair- 
 voyance? 163-7 
 Clay, impressions in, see Impres- 
 sions in clay 
 Clothes, of ghosts, 204; material- 
 ized, 214; melt away, 214; restore 
 themselves, 215 
 Coals, hot, handled with impunity, 
 
 69-70 
 Cold breeze from medium, 92 
 Cold of seance room registers on 
 
 thermometer, 13 
 Communication with the dead pos- 
 sible, 171; example of, 172; diffi- 
 culties in, 348-9 
 
 Communications, spirit, how made, 
 261-2; by direct writing, 262-3; not 
 easy, 265-6; supernormal knowl- 
 edge in mediumistic, 279-82 
 
 Communications, see Messages 
 
 Communicators, change in, argu- 
 ment from, 339-40 
 
 Confusion, in messages, argument 
 from, 337-8 
 
 Consciousness, threshold of, 131; 
 subliminal, 130-2 
 
 Continuation of incidents from sit- 
 ting to sitting, 333-5; similar cases 
 in telepathy, 334-5 
 
 Control, phenomena of, 139 
 
 Controls, remarkable change in, 
 304-5; 307-9; interference between, 
 335-6 
 
 Controls, see also "Phinuit" con- 
 trol, "Pelham" control, "Imper* 
 ator" control, etc. 
 
 Conway, percipient in telepathy, 242 
 
 Cook, Miss, materializing medium, 
 217-20 
 
 Cord, knots tied in, 90 
 
 Corriere della Sera, sittings under 
 auspices of, 85 
 
 Cox, Edw., Report of Dialectical 
 Society, 31-2 
 
 Crawford, Earl of, see Lindsay, 
 Master of 
 
 Creasy, Jack, a "spirit," 276-8 
 
 Credulity, danger of, 20 
 
 Crookes, Sir William, converted to 
 spiritualism, 4; phenomena ob- 
 served by, 9-14; states his posi- 
 tion, 10; gets a lath message, 
 13-14; defends his position, 19-20; 
 statement of, 22; rappings ob- 
 served by, 43-5; table-tipping cer- 
 tain, 48-9; Home's levitations 
 with, 64-6; Home's heat phenom- 
 ena with, 69-70; table of vibra- 
 tions, 126; message with planchet, 
 154; scientific courage of, 199; 
 materialized clothes with, 214-15; 
 materializations with Home, 215- 
 17; Katie King materialization, 
 
358 
 
 INDEX 
 
 217-20; message by direct writing, 
 262-3 
 
 Crystal gazing, observed by Dia- 
 lectical Society, 29 
 
 Curtain of cabinet, bulgings of, 
 typical example, 87-8 
 
 Damiani, Sig., teaches Eusapia 
 spiritualism, 75 
 
 Dark room, why necessary, 59 
 
 Davey, S. J., duplicates slate-writing 
 tricks, 16 
 
 Dead, the, do not seem to be source 
 of psychic force, 58; soul may 
 exist after death without commu- 
 nication, 58; communication with 
 the, possible, 171; example of, 172; 
 have never died (Wallace), 221 
 
 De Amicis, investigates Eusapia, 
 100; at Naples seances, 104 
 
 Death, apparitions immediately after, 
 175-6; apparition at moment of, 
 191; apparitions before, 1; telepa- 
 thy more possible at moment of, 
 227; a, described by automatic 
 writing, 302-3; an awakening 
 (Tolstoi), 342 
 
 Death, see also Future life 
 
 DeGasparin, table-tipping researches 
 of, 50-1; table tested with flour, 
 51; stubbornness of tables, 51 
 
 Dehli, Helge, finding of, 156-7 
 
 Delayed percipience, 321; definition 
 of, 322-3 
 
 Delusion, does not explain Dialecti- 
 cal Society phenomena, 30 
 
 "Demons, possessed by," see Pos- 
 
 Discarnate spirits, not necessary to 
 
 psychic phenomena, 116-19 
 Discarnate spirits, possession by, 
 
 see Possession 
 Distance, events at a, told, 155; ac- 
 tions observed at a, 306-7 
 Diver, aided by clairvoyance, 160-1 
 "Doctor," control, 285 
 Dogs, see apparitions? 207-11 
 Double, astral, see Self-projection 
 Double exposure, "spirit" photog- 
 raphy, 179 
 Double impression, telepathic send- 
 ing of, 240-2 
 Double slates, slate-writing with, 
 
 34 
 "Dramatic play of personality," ar- 
 gument from, 332-40; continuance 
 of incidents from sitting to sit- 
 ting, 333-5; interference between 
 controls, 335-6 
 •Drawings, by "spirits," 29; clair- 
 voyant, 156-7; telepathy of, 239-42 
 Dream, life is a (Tolstoi), 341 
 Drums, rappings imitating, 45 
 Dual personality, not uncommon, 
 134; case of Mary Reynolds, 134; 
 case of Mme. B., 134-5; case of 
 Felida X., 13s; Miss Beauchamp 
 case, 135-6; remarkable case of 
 Ansel Bourne, 136-9; distinguished 
 from possession, 139 
 Dummy book, fraudulent slate- 
 writing with, 35 
 Du Prel, Chas., at Milan sittings, 78 
 Dynamometer, registers levitation, 
 
 13; fraud in register, 94 
 Dynamo, winds itself up, 107 
 
 Dentist saves his life by premoni- 
 tion, 252-3 
 De Rochas, theory of fluidic double, 
 
 113 
 Dessoir, German spiritualist, 5 
 Dialectical Society, see London Dia- 
 lectical Society 
 Direct writing, message by, 2623 
 Disappearance of table, miraculous, 
 40 
 
 Earles, Ansel Bourne rents shop of 
 the, 137 
 
 Ecstasy, evidence for, 225; in the 
 Bible, 345 
 
 Education, of astral members, 
 115-16 
 
 Eglinton, slate-writing medium, 16 
 
 Elliotson, Dr., convert to spiritual- 
 ism, 17 
 
INDEX 
 
 Elongation, observed by Dialectical 
 Society, 29; Home's, 67-9 
 
 Enfield, N. H., home of Bertha 
 Huse, 158 
 
 Ermacora, Dr., at Milan sittings, 78 
 
 Erotic ecstasy, trance state, 149 
 
 Espie, Mr., suicide of, 168 
 
 Etheric hands, see Astral hands 
 
 Evidence, laws of, 222-3 
 
 Externalization of sensibility, with 
 Eusapia, 113 
 
 Eye-glasses, levitation of, 100 
 
 Eyes, Eusapia's, 103 
 
 Faces, materialization of, 217 
 
 Faraday, measures "psychic force," 
 52 
 
 Fechner, observed Zollner phenom- 
 ena, 38; partially blind, 39 
 
 Felida X., case of, 135 
 
 Fingers, luminosity around, in; 
 anestheticized telepathically, 247-S 
 
 Finzi, M., Milan sittings with, 78 
 
 Fire phenomena, see Heat phe- 
 nomena 
 
 Fish, Mrs., one of Fox sisters, 42 
 
 Flags, telepathic drawings of, 239- 
 42 
 
 Flames, see Luminous appear- 
 ances 
 
 Flammarion, Camille, attacks skep- 
 ticism, 20; rappings noted by, 45; 
 table-tipping no longer doubtful, 
 48; has no doubt of soul sur- 
 vival, 55 ; his study of psychic 
 forces, 55-6; role of psychic force 
 little understood, 57; cause of 
 rappings unknown, 58; psychic 
 force is not from dead, 58; soul 
 may exist after death without 
 communicating, 58; table-tipping 
 true but unexplained, 59; why 
 darkness in seance-room is nec- 
 essary, 59; what S. P. R. has 
 accomplished, 60; final conclu- 
 sions of, 60; at first Naples sit- 
 tings, 75-7; description of trance 
 state, 150-1 
 
 Flaps, trick slate-writing with, 35 
 
 Flottum, John, clairvoyant medi- 
 um, 156-7 
 
 Flour, table-tipping tests with, 51 
 
 Flowers, apports of, n, 29; levi- 
 tation of, 107; levitation of a pot 
 of, 121; spirit, around sitter, 303 
 
 Flournoy, Prof., 269 
 
 Fluidic double, theory of, 113 
 
 Foa, Carlo, at second Turin seances, 
 95 
 
 Foa, Pio, investigates psychic phe- 
 nomena, 99 
 
 Fogazzaro, Milan sittings with, 85 
 
 Forces, all composed of vibrations, 
 123-5 
 
 Fourth dimension, Zollner biased 
 by theory of, 38-9 
 
 Fox, Kate, confesses fraud in rap- 
 pings, 43; retracts confession, 43; 
 observed by Crookes, 43-4 
 
 Fox sisters, confess fraud, 14; 
 discovery of their power, 40-1; 
 investigated by townspeople, 41- 
 2; spread of their rappings, 42-3; 
 materialization with the, 213-14 
 
 Fraud, an inadequate explanation, 
 3; in all professional phenomena, 
 14-19; does not explain Dialecti- 
 cal Society phenomena, 29; whole- 
 sale, in slate-writing, 32-3; difficul- 
 ty of detecting, 37; probability of 
 in Zollner phenomena, 38-40; Kate 
 Fox's confession of, 43; retraction 
 of confession, 43; doubtful in 
 table-tipping, 48; lack of with 
 Home, 63, 70-1 ; Eusapia's discov- 
 ered by S. P. R., 82; Eusapia de- 
 tected in at Genoa, 88-9; cunning 
 of Eusapia's, 89; in a dynamom- 
 eter register, 94; precautions 
 against, Naples, 104-5; precautions 
 against with Eusapia, 121 ; com- 
 mon in spirit photography, 177-8; 
 methods of, 177-9; an amusing, 179- 
 80; in materialization, 212-13; does 
 not explain all (Wallace), 222; in 
 telepathy, 227-32; muscle-reading, 
 231-2; can be excluded, 259; al- 
 
360 
 
 INDEX 
 
 leged, not apparent in Piper case, 
 293-4; impossible in (Hyslop), 
 294; efforts to obviate, in, 299- 
 301 
 
 Fraudulent phenomena in the Bible, 
 346 
 
 Fruit, apports of, 29 
 
 Fullerton, Geo. S., explanation of 
 Zollner phenomena, 39 
 
 Funk, Dr. Isaac, comments on 
 Crookes' table of vibrations, 126; 
 quotes case of clairaudience, 162; 
 fraud in spirit photography com- 
 mon, 177; quotes case of self- 
 projection, 186; Miss M.'s medi- 
 umship, 274-6 
 
 Future life, probability of, 6; Sir 
 Oliver Lodge convinced of, 12; 
 proved by S. P. R., 147; W. T. 
 Stead believes in, 171; improbable 
 (Richet), 198; proofs of survival 
 weak, 198; ghosts not sufficient 
 proof of, 2ii ; happiness of the, 
 221; psychic research the only 
 thing proving the, 223; impossible 
 to assert regarding (Lang), 250; 
 we deal only with prejudices con- 
 cerning (Lang), 250-1; is there a? 
 288; impossible ever to prove a, 
 288-9; eminent scientific men be- 
 lieve in a, 289; information re- 
 garding, no proof, 316; happiness 
 of assured (Tolstoi), 342; surety 
 of, to early Christians, 343; made 
 to seem doubtful by science, 344- 
 5; difficulty of knowing about the, 
 347; "spirits" may not have our 
 memories or senses, 347; evidence 
 of happiness in, 350-2 
 
 Future life, see also Dead, the 
 
 Galeotti, investigates Eusapia, 100; 
 at Naples, 101 ; describes a start- 
 ling materialization, no 
 
 Garling, Mr., knocking heard by, 
 208 
 
 Garrison, Mr., case of premonition, 
 252 
 
 Genoa, sittings at, 86-91 
 
 Gerosa, M., at Milan sittings, 78 
 
 Ghosts, existence of, proved, 5; ap- 
 parently proved by Census of 
 Hallucinations, 173-6; photography 
 of, 177-81; of the living, 181-7; 
 one seen by Lord Brougham, 188- 
 9; case of the officer in the Trans- 
 vaal, 189-91; other cases, 191; the 
 Morton "haunting," 191-7; what 
 are ghosts, 201-5; wha^ ghosts are 
 not, 201-3; true definition, 203; 
 veridical after-images, 204; clothes 
 of, 204; not all are subjective, 
 205-11; proofs of reality of, 206-7; 
 do animals see? 207-n; in the 
 Bible, 346 
 
 Ghosts, see also Materializations; 
 Apparitions; Census of Halluci- 
 nations; Dead, the 
 
 Gilbert, Dr., case of telepathic hyp- 
 nosis, 246-7 
 
 Gigli, Prof., at first Naples sittings, 
 76 
 
 "Godfrey" case, self-projection rath- 
 er than multiple telepathy, 322 
 
 Goodrich-Freer, Miss, successful 
 Piper seance with, 303 
 
 Grave, violation of a, related clair- 
 voyantly, 155-6 
 
 Greene, R. I., home of Ansel 
 Bourne, 136 
 
 Gregory, Prof., case of clairvoyance 
 with, 152-3 
 
 Grocyn, in automatic script, 284 
 
 Gurney, quotes case of self-projec- 
 tion, 185-6; theory of veridical 
 after-images, 204; proofs of ghosts, 
 206-7; telepathic sending of tastes, 
 242-3 
 
 Guthrie, Malcolm, telepathic ex- 
 periments, 234-7 
 
 H 
 
 Hair, levitation of a lock of, 100 
 Hallucinations, see Ghosts, Appa- 
 ritions, Census of Hallucinations, 
 Materializations 
 
INDEX 
 
 361 
 
 Hammersmith, haunting of house 
 
 at, 208-9 
 Hands, materialized, 11; materiali- 
 zation of, at first Naples sittings, 
 77; astral, leave prints, 78; mate- 
 rialization of a woman's, 92; start- 
 ling materialization of arm and, 
 106; materialization of big, black, 
 107; materialized, feeling of, 106-7; 
 astral, break mold, 118; materiali- 
 zation of a hand in a globe of 
 light, 213; materialization of a 
 baby's, 216; character of a ma- 
 terialized, 216-17 
 Handkerchief unburned by coal, 70 
 Happiness, of future life, 221; of fu- 
 ture life assured (Tolstoi), 342; 
 of future life, evidence of, 350-2 
 Hart, Mr., message from a, 338-9 
 Haunting of house at Hammer- 
 smith, 208-9 
 Haunting, see also Ghosts 
 Head, materialization of a sinister, 
 92; materialized, changes in size, 
 94; materialization of a, 100; shape 
 of Eusapia's, 103 
 Healing, psychic, observed by Dia- 
 lectical Society, 29; hypnotism in, 
 166-7 
 Heat phenomena observed by Dia- 
 lectical Society, 29; Home's, 69- 
 70 
 Heavy bodies, telekinesis of, 48-9 
 Herlitzka, Amadeo, at second Turin 
 
 seances, 95 
 Hindu fakir, rappings made by, 46 
 Hodgson, Dr. Richard, detects 
 Mme. Blavatsky, 14; criticizes 
 Eusapia tests, 82; discovers her in 
 fraud, 82; investigates Ansel 
 Bourne case, 137; investigates 
 "Watseka Wonder" case, 140; 
 haunting case in Penn., 210; opin- 
 ion of, on Piper case, 292; early in- 
 vestigation of Mrs. Piper, 296-7; 
 investigates her again, 303-4; ante- 
 cedents of, 304; note on "George 
 Pelham," 304-5; displaces "Impera- 
 tor" controls, 311; convincing 
 
 message noted by, 33S-9; difficul- 
 ties in communication, 348-9 
 
 "Hogan, Katrina," a control of 
 Rancy Vennum, 144 
 
 Home, D. D., lath message with, 
 13-14; mediumship of, 61-71; born 
 in Conn., 61 ; a convert to spirit- 
 ism, 62; fascinating personality, 
 62; seances with Crookes, 62; 
 death, 62; lack of fraud with, 63; 
 levitations with, 63-7; elongation 
 with, 67-9; heat phenomena, 69- 
 70; physical strain of trance on, 
 151-2; materializations with, 215-17 
 
 Horses see apparitions? 210 
 
 Hot coals handled with impunity, 
 69-70 
 
 Houdin, Robert, endorses Alexis, 
 24 
 
 Hudson, Dr. Thomson Jay, oppo- 
 nent of extreme spiritualism, 3; 
 case of alleged multiple telepathy, 
 321-2; experience as a percipient, 
 235-6 
 
 Human beings, levitation of, with 
 Crookes, 11 
 
 Huse, Bertha, case of, 157-61 
 
 Husks, are ghosts merely? 203-4 
 
 Hydesville, Fox sisters born at, 40 
 
 Hyperesthesia, in trance, 150; theory 
 of, in premonitions, 256-7 
 
 Hypnosis, telepathic, 245-8; case of 
 Mme. B., 246-7; anesthesia in- 
 duced telepathically, 247-8; tele- 
 pathic power increased under, 249 
 
 Hypnotism and the subliminal self, 
 164-5 
 
 Hypnotism, see also Self-hypnotiza- 
 tion 
 
 Hyslop, James, criticism of Z611- 
 ner's rope-tying, 39; endorses 
 truth of telepathy, 224-5; defines 
 automatism, 269; rules for medi- 
 umistic experiments, 272; test sen- 
 tence from father of, 279-80; opin- 
 ion of, on Piper case, 293; fraud 
 impossible in Piper case, 294; 
 comment on "Phinuit" control, 
 298; investigates Mrs. Piper, 309; 
 
362 
 
 INDEX 
 
 spiritualism not yet proved, 331; 
 instances of continuance of per- 
 sonality from sitting to sitting, 
 333-4; examples of mistakes in 
 messages, 337-8 
 
 I 
 
 Iceberg figure of subliminal self, 
 133 
 
 Identity, problem of, 196-7; prob 
 lem of, 316-17; an example prov 
 ing, 317; the difficulty of proving, 
 3 1 1- 18; surest proof of, in trivial 
 things, 318; examples of, 319-20 
 strong proof of, in, 325-6; why 
 messages seek to prove, 327-9 
 
 Immateriality of an apparition, 
 proofs of, 195-6 
 
 Imoda, Dr., at first Turin sittings, 
 91; at second Turin seances, 96 
 
 "Imperator," control, 285; displaces 
 "Pelham" in Piper case, 307-9; is 
 displaced by Dr. Hodgson, 311 
 
 Imposture, see Fraud 
 
 Impressions, in clay, Eusapia makes, 
 78-9; in paraffine, 118 
 
 Intelligence, rappings governed by, 
 46-7; behind automatic message, 
 154 
 
 Interference between controls, 335-6 
 
 Involuntary muscular action, see 
 Unconscious muscular action 
 
 Jannacone, Prof., at first Turin 
 seances, 91 
 
 Jastrow, Prof., experiments with 
 psychic force, 52-3 
 
 Jeannette, case of the, 162 
 
 Joncieres 1 , Victorin, musical rap- 
 pings, 45 
 
 Jona, Emmanuele, at Naples se- 
 ances, 104 
 
 Julia, Letters from, 318-19 
 
 K 
 
 Kellar, shows slate-writing tricks, 
 
 23; and Eglinton, 24 
 Kennedy, Dr. Harris, investigates 
 
 Huse case, 160 
 "King, John," Eusapia's "control," 
 
 impressions resemble, 79 
 "King, Katie," materialized clothes 
 
 of, 215; famous case of, 217-20; 
 
 proofs of materialization of, 218-20 
 Kirk, Mr., self-projection of, 184-5 
 Knots, tied in handkerchief, 26; 
 
 untie themselves, 87; tied in cord, 
 
 90-1 
 Knot-tying, with Zollner, 38; Hys- 
 
 lop's criticism of Zollner's, 39 
 Knowledge, supernormal, see Super- 
 normal knowledge 
 Kobbe, Major, keeps appointment 
 
 thru premonition, 253 
 
 Jacolliot, rappings observed by, 46 
 James, Professor William, a con- 
 vert to spiritualism, 4; investi- 
 gates Huse case, 160; opinion of, 
 on Piper case, 292; early investi- 
 gation of Mrs. Piper, 295-6; com- 
 ment of "Phinuit" control, 298; 
 psychic science has been con- 
 temptuously disregarded, 312; ex- 
 istence of the subliminal self 
 proved, 312-13; instances of sub- 
 liminal warning, 313-14; intoler- 
 ance of science inexcusable, 314 
 Janet, French spiritualist, 5; case of 
 telepathic hypnosis, 246-7 
 
 L., Lord, apparition of, 191 
 
 Lake Shore & Mich. Southern R.R., 
 remarkable case of premonition 
 on, 254-5 
 
 Lang, impossible to assert regard- 
 ing future life, 250; we deal only 
 with prejudices, 250-1; science 
 should investigate psychic phe- 
 nomena, 251; endorses Mrs. Piper, 
 294 
 
 Languages, medium unable to 
 write in unknown, 326 
 
 Lath, message with a, 13-14; tries 
 to write message, 262-3 
 
INDEX 
 
 363 
 
 Lebanon, N. H., home of Mrs. 
 
 Titus, 158 
 Levitation, of a chair, 11; of a 
 table, 11; of human beings, 11; 
 registered on dynamometer, 13; of 
 a card-plate, 26; observed by Dia- 
 lectical Society, 28; with Zollner, 
 38; complete, of tables, 50; with 
 Home, 63-7; at first Naples sit- 
 tings, 76-7; of tables photographed 
 at Milan, 78; test of Aksakof, 84; 
 at Genoa sittings, 86-7; remark- 
 able, 90; and breaking to pieces 
 of a table, 97; of various bodies, 
 100; weight of medium increases 
 during, 122; reality of (Wallace), 
 222 
 Life, is a dream (Tolstoi), 341; 
 saved by premonition, 252-3; 254-5 
 Light, sensitiveness to, 150; possi- 
 bly fatal, 150; materialization of 
 a hand in a globe of, 213 
 Lights, see Luminous appearances 
 Limoncelli, Prof., at first Naples 
 
 sittings, 76 
 Lindsay, Master of, levitations with 
 Home, 66-7; elongation with 
 Home, 67-9 
 Livermore, Mary A., case of 
 
 premonition, 252 
 Livermore, Mr., materializations at 
 
 house of, 214 
 Living, apparitions of the, see Ap- 
 paritions of the living 
 Lodge, Mrs., remarkable message 
 
 for, 302-3 
 Lodge, Sir Oliver, believer in "oc- 
 cult" phenomena, 4; convinced of 
 future life, 72; tests Eusapia, 82; 
 endorses truth of telepathy, 224; 
 description of .telepathic experi- 
 ments of, 234-7; telepathic experi- 
 ments recorded by, 237-41; inves- 
 tigates Piper case, 299-301; mes- 
 sage regarding cousins of, 325 
 Lombardi, investigates Eusapia, 100; - 
 
 at Naples seances, 104 
 Lombroso, at first Naples sittings, 
 76; growing conversion to spirit- 
 
 ualism, 77; at Milan sittings, 78; 
 at Milan sittings, 85 ; at first Turin 
 sittings, 91; scientific thoroness 
 of, 103; radio-active theory, in; 
 endorses psychic phenomena, 120- 
 22; incident of a Venice seance, 
 121 
 
 London Dialectical Society, spirit- 
 ualistic investigation of, 27-32 
 
 Lubbock, Sir John, president of 
 Dialectical Society, 27 
 
 Luminous appearances, n; with 
 Eusapia, 110-11; around Eusapia's 
 "scar," in; around 'her fingers, 
 xxi ; materialization of, 215-16 
 
 M 
 
 M., Miss, medium, 274-6 
 
 Macalister, Prof., denounces Mrs. 
 Piper, 301 
 
 McAlpine, Mrs., case of, 167-8 
 
 Magicians, see Prestidigitators 
 
 Magnet, fraudulent slate-writing 
 with, 35-7 
 
 Mandolin, plays itself, 93; is played 
 by a materialized hand, 93-4; 
 plays itself, 107; synchronism in 
 playing a, 113-15 
 
 Manuscripts of Wm. S. Moses, 283-4 
 
 Maris, M., at first Turin seances, 
 91 
 
 Mars, spirits from, 269 
 
 Marvin, Dr., phenomena of table- 
 tipping genuine, 48 
 
 Maskelyn, J. N., condemns pro- 
 fessional mediumship, 15 
 
 "Masking" common fraud in spirit 
 photography, 178 
 
 Materialization, of a hand, 11; 
 progress of a, 12; flimsy trickery 
 of, 23; observed by Dialectical 
 Society, 28; at first Naples sit- 
 tings, 77; at Genoa sittings, 87-8; 
 of shadowy appearances, 91 ; of a 
 sinister head, 92; of a woman's 
 hand, 92; struggle with a, 92-3; 
 of a head which changes size, 94; 
 of "Peppino," 100; startling, at 
 
364 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Naples, 106-10; detailed descrip- 
 tion of a, 108-9; of hands, photo- 
 graphed, 109; breaks photographic 
 plate, 118; photography of, 177-81; 
 of a picture, 179-80; discussion of, 
 212-20; fraudulent, 212-13; cases of, 
 with Eusapia, 213; of a hand in 
 globe of light, 213; with the Fox 
 sisters, 213-14; of clothes, 214-15; 
 with D. D. Home, 215-17; ot 
 luminous appearances, 215-16; of 
 a baby's hand, 216; character of 
 the materializations, 216-17; Katie 
 King case, 217-20; in the Bible, 
 346 
 
 Mathematical proof of telepathy, 
 243-5 
 
 Maxwell, Dr. V., telekinesis noted 
 by, 26; rappings noted by, 45; 
 soul is reincarnated, 258; phenom- 
 ena of psychical research very 
 old, 258; beginning has now been 
 made, 258; present wave of spirit- 
 ualism, 259; good mediums few, 
 259; fraud is excluded, 259; "what 
 the force is I do not know," 260 
 
 Mediumistic chain broken, 105 
 
 Mediumistic communications, super- 
 normal knowledge in, 279-82; im- 
 provement in, 308 
 
 Mediumistic experiments, rules for, 
 272 
 
 Mediumistic phenomena, typical, 
 274-8; case of Miss B., 274-5; case 
 of Dr. Z., 278-9 
 
 Mediums, professional, not used by 
 Dialectical Society, 30; first so- 
 called, 42; rappings differ with 
 each, 44-5; what mediums are, 
 148; our duty regarding, 148; not 
 sole factor in psychic phenomena, 
 1 18-19; weight of, increases during 
 levitation, 122; mediumship, 148; 
 clairvoyant, 156-7; 158-61; good 
 ones few, 259; supernormal knowl- 
 edge displayed by, 295-6; unable 
 to write in unknown languages, 
 326; in the Bible, 346; rarity of, 
 
 Mediumship, trance state in, 149- 
 51; phenomena of, 261-87; reason 
 for, 262; trial at message without, 
 262-3; prerequisites 0^264; difficul- 
 ty of, 265-6; message-bearing, 266- 
 8; rules for, 272-3; Miss M.'s, 274- 
 6; Miss A.'s, 276-8; of Wm. S. 
 Moses, 282-7 
 
 Memory, tenacious, of "Phinuit" 
 control, 298-9; of "spirits," not 
 ours, 347 
 
 Messages, source of, 8; with lath, 
 13-14; received by Dialectical So- 
 ciety, 28; rappings give, 46-7; 
 from the other world, 148; with 
 planchet, 154; spirit, how made, 
 261-2; by direct writing, 262-3; not 
 easily sent, 265-6; message-bear- 
 ing phenomena, 267-8; spirit, tests 
 for, 315-16; from subliminal self, 
 322-3; anagrams in, 330; come 
 from subliminal self, 331-2; mis- 
 takes and confusion in, argument 
 from, 337-8; convincing, 338-9 
 
 Metronome starts itself ticking, 87 
 
 Meurice, telekinesis with, 26 
 
 Milan, first Eusapia sittings at, 78; 
 second sittings at, 85-6 
 
 Mind-reading, see Telepathy 
 
 Minerno-Murge, birthplace of Eu- 
 sapia, 73 
 
 Minutillo, Nicola, at Naples se- 
 ances, 104 
 
 Miracles, Brewer's Dictionary of, 
 Home's exploits in, 64 
 
 Miraculous disappearance of table, 
 40 
 
 Mistakes in messages, argument 
 from, 337-8 
 
 Mitchell, S. Wier, ghost reported 
 by, 191 
 
 Mooltan, case of clairaudience at 
 siege of, 162-3 
 
 Morbid phenomena of trance un- 
 necessary, 151 
 
 Morgan, Prof., table-tipping inci- 
 dent of, 25; on Dialectical Society 
 Committee, 27 
 
 Morse code, message in, 13-14 
 
INDEX 
 
 365 
 
 Morselli, makes impression in clay, 
 79; believes Eusapia genuine, 80; 
 at Genoa sittings, 86 
 
 Morton haunting, 191-7; story of the 
 case, 191-5; proofs of immateri- 
 ality of apparition, 195-6; identity 
 of apparition, 196-7 
 
 Moses, William Stainton, materia- 
 lized hand with, 213; mediumship 
 of, 282-7; his MSS., 283-4; auto- 
 matic messages of, 285-6; genuine- 
 ness of, 286-7; a proof of identity 
 given by, 317 
 
 Mosso, Prof., 95 
 
 Motor automatism, phenomena of, 
 139 
 
 Motor automatism, see also Posses- 
 sion; "Watseka Wonder"; Autom- 
 atism 
 
 Movement of heavy bodies, 11 
 
 Mucchi at first Turin seances, 91; 
 struggles with a materialization, 
 92-3 
 
 Mucilage pencils, slate-writing with, 
 34 
 
 Multiple telepathy, 321-2 
 
 Murdered man discovered by raps, 
 41 
 
 Murdered woman, ghost of a, 204 
 
 Muscle-reading, 231-2 
 
 Muscles, hypnotic control of the, 
 166 
 
 Music hastens trance condition, 151 
 
 Musical instruments play them- 
 selves, 28 
 
 Musical rappings, 45 
 
 Myers, Frederic W. H., founder of 
 S. P. R., 5; criticizes ultra-con- 
 servatism, 19; tests Eusapia, 82; 
 defines limits of spectrum, 124; 
 compares our senses to the spec- 
 trum, 125-6; standing of, 127; his 
 Human Personality a master 
 work, 128; theory of subliminal 
 self, 128-31; facts proved by S. 
 P. R., 147; (a) survival of soul, 
 147; (b) existence of subliminal 
 self, 147-8; (c) reality of telepathy, 
 etc., 148; what a medium is, 148; 
 
 our duty regarding mediumship, 
 148; future methods of work, 148; 
 Census of Hallucinations, 173; 
 additional proof of ghosts, 176; 
 quotes case of self-projection, 185- 
 6; definition of ghosts, 201-3; evi- 
 dence for "ecstasy," 225; telepa- 
 thy a first step, 225-6; telepathy of 
 tastes, 242-3; defines motor au- 
 tomatism, 269-70; mediumship of 
 Wm. S. Moses, 282-7; his MSS., 
 283-4; opinion of, on Piper case, 
 292-3; note on Salpetriere patients, 
 329; spiritualism not a religious 
 creed, 330; difficulty of communi- 
 cating, 348; happiness of future 
 life, 350-1; future of psychical re- 
 search, 351-2 
 Myers, Frederic W. H., see also 
 Subliminal self 
 
 N 
 
 N-rays emitted by medium, 164 
 
 Naples, Eusapia born in, 73; first 
 sittings at, 75-7; second seances 
 at, 101-18 
 
 Norlenghi, Dr., at first Turin se- 
 ances, 91 
 
 Norristown, Pa., Ansel Bourne at, 
 136-9 
 
 Norton, Chas. Eliot, opinion of, on 
 Piper case, 292 
 
 Numbers, telepathy with, 243-5 
 
 Objects, telepathy of thoughts of, 
 
 237-8 
 Obscenity repudiated by a spirit, 
 
 121-2 
 Obsession, see "Watseka Wonder," 
 
 Automatism 
 Occult Science in India, quoted, 46 
 Ochorowicz tests Eusapia with 
 
 Richet, 81; tests Eusapia for S. 
 
 P. R., 82 
 Oesel, Island of, disturbances on, 
 
366 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Omniscience, necessity of power of, 
 
 in telepathic hypothesis, 327 
 Organism, powers of the, 163-4 
 Osier, Dr., and the astral life, 125 
 
 Paintings by "spirits," 29 
 
 Paladino, Eusapia, table-tipping 
 common with, 51; birth, 73; hole 
 in head, 73; first exhibits powers. 
 73; appearance, 74; incident at St 
 Petersburg, 74; lack of education 
 74; taught by Damiani, 75; at 
 tracts attention of Prof. Chiaia 
 75 ; first Naples seances, 75-6: 
 goes to Milan, 77-8; success of 
 Milan seances, 78; makes impres 
 sions in clay, 79; tested oy Richet, 
 Si; tested by Richet and Ochoro 
 wicz, 81; downfall of, in England 
 82-4; doubts of her fraud, 84 
 second Milan sittings, 85-6; Genoa 
 sittings, 86-91; cunning of her 
 trickery, 89; remarkable table levi 
 tation with, 90; first Turin sittings, 
 91-5; struggle with a materializa- 
 tion, 92-3; materialized head with 
 94; tampers with dynamometer. 
 94-5; second Turin seances with 
 95-8; investigated by men of sci 
 ence, 100; scientific description of, 
 103; is securely sealed to floor, 
 no; startling materializations with 
 108-10; externalization of sensi- 
 bility with, 113; remarkable syn- 
 chronism with, 113-15; education 
 of astral members, 115-16; does 
 she prove future life? 116-19; en- 
 dorsed byLombroso, 120; radio-ac- 
 tivity of, 164; materialization with, 
 213 
 
 Pallor in trance, 150 
 
 Pansini, Dr., at Naples seances, 
 104 
 
 Pelham control, appearance of, in 
 Piper case, 304-5 ; improvement 
 shown in, 305-6; tests given by, 
 306-7; displaced by "Imperator" 
 
 controls, 307-9; good on names, 
 336 
 Pencil tries to write message, 262-3 
 Pendulum set in motion, 26 
 "Peppino," a materialization, 100 
 Percipience, delayed, 321; definition 
 
 of, 322-3 
 Percipient in telepathic experi- 
 ments, 234-5; can any one be a? 
 235-6 
 Perring, Dr., violation of a grave 
 
 told by a, 155-6 
 Personality, imitation of, in mes- 
 sages? 339-40 
 I Personality, see also "Dramatic play 
 
 of personality" 
 Perspiration in trance, 150 
 Phantasms, see Ghosts, Apparitions, 
 
 Materializations 
 "Phinuit," control, 297; improbably 
 genuine, 297-8; Dr. Hyslop's com- 
 ment on, 298; Prof. James on, 
 298-9; tenacious memory of, 298-9 
 Photographic plate broken by a ma- 
 terialization, 118 
 Photographs, "spirit," 172; 177-81; 
 probably fraudulent, 177-8; meth- 
 ods of producing, 178-9; possibly 
 genuine, 180-1 
 Physical ordeal of trance, 151 
 Physical phenomena of spiritualism, 
 
 8 
 Physiological changes in trance 
 
 state, 150 
 Piano plays itself, 107 
 Picture "materializes," 179-80 
 Pierce, Dr. W. J., spirit photogra- 
 phy, 180-1 
 Piper, Mrs. Leonora, improvement 
 of trance state with, 151; case of 
 automatism, 271; early seances of, 
 281-2; importance of case of, 291; 
 genuineness of, 291-2; testimony of 
 Dr. Hodgson, 292; Prof. James, 
 292; Chas. Eliot Norton, 292; 
 Frederic Myers, 292-3; Dr. Hys- 
 lop, 293; alleged fraud not appa- 
 rent, 293-4; early phases of case 
 °f> 295-9; Prof. James investigates, 
 
INDEX 
 
 367 
 
 295-6; Dr. Hodgson investigates, 
 296-7; "Phinuit" control, 298-9; 
 investigated in England, 299-304; 
 efforts to obviate fraud, 299-301 ; 
 unsatisfactory sittings, 301 ; re- 
 markable message for Mrs. Lodge, 
 302-3; successful sittings with. 
 Miss Goodrich-Freer, 303; Dr. 
 Hodgson investigates again, 303- 
 4; appearance of "Pelham" con- 
 trol, 304-7; Pelham displaced by 
 "Imperator" controls, 307-9; im- 
 provement in communications, 
 308; Dr. Hyslop investigates, 309; 
 examples of prophecy with, 309-11; 
 trivial incidents in case of, 319- 
 20; arguments for the telepathic 
 hypothesis, 324-6; objections to the 
 telepathic hypothesis, 326-33; phe- 
 nomena of, telepathic, 328-9 
 Planchet, message with, 154 
 Plaster, impressions in, see Impres- 
 sions in clay 
 Podmore, Frank, warns against dog- 
 matic denial, 17; endorses Home, 
 63; Census of Hallucinations, 173; 
 endorses Mrs. Piper, 294 
 Poltergeist phenomena at Naples 
 sittings, 77; spirits not necessary 
 for, 116-19; at Naples, 106, 107-8 
 Pomba, at first Turin sittings, 91 
 Porro, Dr., endorses Eusapia, 80 
 Possession in the Bible, 345 
 Possession, see also "Watseka Won- 
 der," Automatism 
 Precognition observed by Dialecti- 
 cal Society, 29; of a suicide, 168; 
 of a telegram, 169-70; examples 
 of in Piper case, 309-11; in the 
 Bible, 345 
 Precognition, see also Premonitions 
 Prejudices, we deal only with 
 
 (Lang), 250 
 Premonitions, 252-7; examples of, 
 252-4; remarkable Wyman case. 
 254-5; what are premonitions? 256- 
 7; telepathic theory, 256; theory 
 of hyperesthesia, 256-7; theory of 
 "spirits," 257 
 
 Premonitions, see also Precognition 
 Premonitory apparitions, 183-4 
 Prestidigitation, often deceives, 16; 
 testimony of, 24; an inadequate 
 explanation, 25 
 Prevision, definition, 7 
 Prevision, see also Precognition 
 Professional phenomena, fraudu- 
 lent, 14-19 
 Prophecy, see Precognition 
 Psychic force, registered on dy- 
 namometer, 13; Crookes' idea of, 
 22; Dialectical Society assured of 
 existence of, 32; Faraday's meas- 
 urement of, 52; Jastrow's conclu- 
 sions regarding, 52-3; Carrington's 
 conclusions regarding, 53; Thury's 
 theory regarding, 53-4; Flam- 
 marion's study of, 55-6; role of, 
 little understood, 57; does not 
 seem to be from the dead, 58; 
 genuine existence of, 60; is it 
 radio-activity? 111-12; reality of, 
 200; character of unknown (Max- 
 well), 260 
 Psychic phenomena, inadequately 
 observed, 10; professional all 
 fraudulent, 14-19; some genuine, 
 18; not explained by prestidigi- 
 tation, 25-7; science should in- 
 vestigate, 251; not trivial, 289; 
 have been contemptuously disre- 
 garded, 312; intolerance of science 
 regarding, inexcusable, 314; telep- 
 athy not a proved explanation for, 
 323-4 
 Psychic phenomena, see also Psy- 
 chical Research 
 Psychic problem as yet far from 
 
 settled, 351 
 Psychical research, definition, 6; 
 neglected by science, 19; future 
 methods of work, 148; great recent 
 progress in, 199; the only thing 
 proving the future life, 223; very 
 old subject (Maxwell), 258; a good 
 beginning has been made, 258; 
 future of, 351-2 
 
INDEX 
 
 Psychical research, see also Spirit- 
 ualism 
 
 Psychode, Thury's psychic force, 
 S3-4 
 
 Psychology and psychical research, 
 19 
 
 Pulse, changes in, in trance, 150 
 
 R., Major-General, case of, 162-3 
 R., Miss, percipient in telepathic 
 
 experiment, 237 
 Radio-activity, is psychic energy? 
 
 111-12 
 Rappings, observed by Crookes, n; 
 observed by Dialectical Society, 
 27; genuine? 43-7; Kate Fox's con- 
 fession of fraud, 43; retraction of 
 confession, 43; Crookes' remarks 
 on, 43-4; are peculiar to the Fox 
 sisters, 40-3; discovery of their 
 power, 40-1; spread of rappings, 
 41-3; are different with each me- 
 dium, 44-5; appear unexpectedly, 
 45; musical rappings, 45; in a 
 bronze vase of water, 46; transmit 
 messages, 46 
 "Rector," control, 285; 335-6 
 Reid, definition of the self, 129 
 Restaurants, rappings in, 45 
 Revelations of a Spirit Medium, 
 
 quoted, 17 
 Reynolds, Mary, case of, 134 
 Richet, Charles, a convert to spirit- 
 ualism, 4; at Milan sittings, 78; 
 tests Eusapia anew, 81; tests Eu- 
 sapia with S. P. R., 82; quotes 
 case of precognition, 169-70; sur- 
 vival is improbable, 198; proofs' 
 of survival weak, 198; great re- 
 cent progress in psychical re- 
 search, 199; scientific courage of 
 Crookes, 199; reality of psychic 
 force, 200; science the only solu- 
 tion, 200; endorses Mrs. Piper, 
 294 
 Rigidity in trance state, 149 
 Rings, slipped over table leg larger, 
 38 
 
 Roasenda, Dr. Joseph, at first Turin 
 seances, 91 
 
 Rochester, Fox sisters visit, 41 
 
 Roff, Mary, alleged to possess 
 Rancy Vennum, 140-6; a hysteric, 
 145; addicted to excessive blood- 
 letting, 145; remarkable clairvoy- 
 ance of, 145-6 
 
 Romanes, Dr. Geo. J., apparition 
 seen by, 183 
 
 Roses, spirit, around a sitter, 303 
 
 Rostain, Chevalier, at second Turin 
 seances, 96 
 
 Rules for mediumistic experiments, 
 272 
 
 s 
 
 St. Petersburg, incident with Eu- 
 sapia at, 74 
 "Sally," see Beauchamp, Miss, case 
 
 of 
 Salpetriere, patients of the, 329 
 Sardou investigates psychic phe- 
 nomena, 99 
 Savage, Dr. Minot J., clairvoyant 
 incident, 155; apparitions of the 
 living are proved, 183; telepathic 
 analogy of, 225; reason for medi- 
 ums, 262; early seances of Mrs. 
 Piper, 281-2 
 Sayles, Ira, ghost seen by, 191 
 Scales register levitation, 13 
 Scar, Eusapia's, 73; luminosity 
 
 around, 11 1 
 Scarpa, Dr., at Naples seances, 104 
 Scheibner, observed Zollner phe- 
 nomena, 38; partially blind, 39 
 Schiaparelli at Milan sittings, 78 
 Science, psychical research neg- 
 lected by, 19; attitude of, toward 
 table-tipping, 54; the only solu- 
 tion of the psychic problem, 200; 
 cannot impose her conditions 
 (Wallace), 222; should investigate 
 psychic phenomena, 251; intoler- 
 ance of, inexcusable, 314; has fos- 
 tered materialism, 343-4; has made 
 future life seem doubtful, 344-5; 
 to the rescue of the Bible, 346-7 
 
INDEX 
 
 369 
 
 Scoffing, and table-tipping, 53 
 
 Screen, broken, Zollner's incident 
 of, 39-40; explained by Carring- 
 ton, 40 
 
 Sealed slates, reading, 35-7 
 
 Seance-room, coldness of, registers 
 on thermometer, 13; mental effect 
 of, 20; darkness in, why necessary, 
 59; cold breeze in, 92; medium- 
 istic chain in, broken, 105 
 
 Secondary personality, influence of, 
 excluded, 273; in Piper case? 328-9 
 
 Secretions, hypnotic control of the, 
 166 
 
 Selectiveness, necessity of power of, 
 in telepathic hypothesis, 327 
 
 Self, old definition of the, 129; dif- 
 ficulties of, 130 
 
 Self, see also Subliminal self 
 
 Self-hypnotization, improbability of, 
 
 12 
 
 Self-projection, definition, 7; possi- 
 bility of, 113; 126; 184-7; case of 
 Mr. Kirk, 184-5; case of the Misses 
 Verity, 185-6; man's astral body 
 travels many miles, 186 
 
 Sensation, within narrow limits, 
 125-6 
 
 Senses of "spirits," not ours, 347 
 
 Sensibility, externalization of, with 
 Eusapia, 113 
 
 Sensitiveness, to light, in trance, 
 150; increased, in trance, 150 
 
 Seybert Commission, 33 
 
 Shaker Bridge, scene of Huse case, 
 158-61 
 
 Sidgwick, Mrs., endorses Mrs. 
 Piper, 294; note by on haunting, 
 209 
 
 Sidgwick, Prof., founder of S. P. 
 R., 5; Census of Hallucinations, 
 173; experiments with telepathy, 
 244 
 
 Siemiradski tests Eusapia, 81 
 
 Signals, messages by, 28; rappings 
 in, 46-7 
 
 Singsaas, Norway, home of John 
 Flottum, 156 
 
 Size, changes in, in a materialized 
 head, 94 
 
 Skeptic pinned to wall by table, 26 
 
 Skepticism, dangers of, 3 
 
 Skirving, Mr., case of premonition, 
 252 
 
 Slade, endorsed by Bellachini, 25; 
 investigated by Seybert Commis- 
 sion, 33; Zollner phenomena, 37" 
 40 
 
 Slate-writing, wholesale fraud in, 
 32-3; definition, 33; Seybert Com- 
 mission investigates, 33; fraudu- 
 lent methods, 33-7; with mucilage 
 pencils, 34; with double slates, 
 34-5; with trick flaps, 35; with 
 magnet, 35-7; with dummy book, 
 35; difficulty of detecting fraudu- 
 lent, 37; with Zollner, 38 
 
 Sleight-of-hand, see Prestidigitation 
 
 Smith, Mile., medium, 269; continu- 
 ance of personalities in case of, 
 334-5 
 
 Smoked paper, astral handprints on, 
 78 
 
 Society for Psychical Research, aim 
 of, 4; proves professional medium- 
 ship fraudulent, 15; what it has 
 accomplished, 60; exposes Eusa- 
 pia, 82-4; takes a Census of Hal- 
 lucinations, 173; investigation of 
 telepathy, 226-7; description of 
 facts proved by the, 147; (a) sur- 
 vival of soul, 147; (b) existence 
 of subliminal self, 147-8; (c) reali- 
 ty of telepathy, etc., 148; telepath- 
 ic experiments, 234-7; investi- 
 gates Mrs. Piper, 296-7; investi- 
 gates Mrs. Piper in England, 299- 
 
 304 
 Soldier, spirit of, identifies himself, 
 
 3i7 
 Soul is in process of reincarnation 
 
 (Maxwell), 258 
 Soul, see also Future life; Dead, 
 
 the; Subliminal self 
 Speer, Dr. Stanhope T., quotes case 
 
 of materialization, 213 
 
370 
 
 INDEX 
 
 "Spirit" photography, see Photo- 
 graphs of spirits 
 
 Spiritistic hypothesis, automatic 
 writing, 323-4; further arguments 
 for. 33 1 ; caution of spiritists, 
 331-2; argument from "dramatic 
 play of personality," 332-40; con- 
 tinuance of incidents from sitting 
 to sitting, 333-5; interference be- 
 tween controls, 335-6; character of 
 mistakes and confusion, 337-8; 
 convincing message in favor of, 
 33S-9; argument from change in 
 communicators, 339-40; compared 
 with telepathic hypothesis, 340 
 
 "Spirits" surround us in the air, 
 99; repudiate obscenity, 121-2; tell 
 of distant events, 155; give premo- 
 nitions? 257; how would they com- 
 municate? 261-2; subliminal self in 
 harmony with, 264; from Mars, 
 269; two, struggle for control, 271; 
 have they our memories and 
 senses? 347 
 
 Spirits, see also Discarnate spirits 
 
 Spiritualism, proved, 4; proves fu- 
 ture life, 6; founding of, 41; early 
 spread of, 42-3; present wave of, 
 259; vs. telepathy, 315-40; caution 
 necessary in, 332 
 
 Spiritualism, see also Psychical Re- 
 search 
 
 Statuette, telekinesis of, 26 
 
 Stead, William T., investigates 
 psychic phenomena, 99; believes 
 in future life, 171 ; communica- 
 tion with dead possible, 171; hears 
 from a dead friend, 172; letters 
 from Julia, 318-19 
 
 Stewart, Prof. Balfour, president of 
 S. P. R., 5; experiments with 
 telepathy, 245 
 
 Stigmatization, 166 
 
 Storie, case of clairvoyance, 161; an 
 apparition at death, 191 
 
 Struggle with a materialization, 92-3 
 
 Stubbornness of tables, 51 
 
 Subconscious self, see Subliminal 
 self 
 
 Subliminal self, hypothesis of, 127- 
 33; iceberg figure of, 133; exist- 
 ence of, proved by S. P. R., 147- 
 8; and hypnotism, 164-5; is telepa- 
 thy a power of? 248-9; relation to 
 mediumship, 264; existence of 
 proved (James), 312-13; instances 
 of warning by the, 313-14; imi- 
 tative powers of, 320; messages 
 from, 322-3; messages come from, 
 331-2; does it imitate change in 
 communicators? 339-40 
 
 Suggestion, telepathic, 245-8; case of 
 Mme. B., 246-7; anesthesia induced 
 telepathically, 247-S 
 
 Suicide, precognition of a, 168 
 
 Sully-Prudhomme endorses Eusapia, 
 79 
 
 Supernatural, definition of the, 124- 
 5; scientific attitude changing to- 
 ward, 126 
 
 Supernormal knowledge in medium- 
 istic communications, 279-82; in- 
 stances of, 295-6; 302-3; actions ob- 
 served at a distance, 306-7; pre- 
 cognition in Piper case, 309-11 
 
 Survival after death, see Future 
 life 
 
 Swedenborg, case of automatism, 
 271 
 
 Synchronism noticed with Eusapia, 
 "3-15 
 
 Syracuse, spread of spiritualism to, 
 42 
 
 T 
 
 Table, levitation of, with Crookes, 
 11; pins skeptic to wall, 25; rings 
 slipped over leg of larger, 38; 
 miraculous disappearance of, 40; 
 levitation, remarkable, 90; breaks 
 itself to pieces, 97; weight of 
 added to mediums, 122; trick, for 
 "mind-reading," 230-1 ; levitated at 
 Naples sittings, 76-7; photographs 
 of levitated, 78; levitated at Genoa 
 sittings, 86-7 
 
 Table-tipping, observed by Dialecti- 
 cal Society, 31; phenomena of, 
 
INDEX 
 
 371 
 
 47-54; definition of, 47; existence 
 of incontestable, 48-9; Carrington, 
 Flammarion, Marvin, Barrett, 
 Crookes, quoted affirmatively, 48-9; 
 conclusive experiment of Dialecti- 
 cal Society, 49; why tables? 50; 
 complete levitation, 50; researches 
 of De Gasparin on, 51; tests with 
 flour, 51; occasional stubborn- 
 ness in, 51; with Eusapia, 51; not 
 essential to proof of future life, 
 52; explanation of, 52-3; Jastrow's 
 experiments, 52-3; Thury's theory, 
 53-4 ; present attitude of science 
 regarding, 54 
 
 Tamlin, Mrs., medium, 42 
 
 Tastes, telepathic sending of, 242-3 
 
 Telegram, precognition of a, 169-70 
 
 Telegraphy, spirit, 13-14 
 
 Telekinesis, definition, 7; of heavy 
 bodies, 11; of a pendulum, 26; of 
 a statuette, 27; observed by Dia- 
 lectical Society, 28; examples of, 
 31; of heavy bodies, 48-50; true 
 (Wallace), 221 
 
 Telekinesis, see also Table-tipping, 
 Levitation, Apports 
 
 Telepathic hypothesis, arguments 
 for, 324-6; objections to, 326-33; 
 compared with spiritistic hypothe- 
 sis, 340 
 
 Telepathy, reality of, proved, 5; defi- 
 nition, 7; proved by S. P. R., 148; 
 224-249; now an established fact, 
 224; Lodge endorses truth of, 224; 
 Hyslop endorses, 224-5; analogy of 
 Dr. Savage, 225; evidence for 
 ecstasy, 225; a first step, 225-6; 
 proved by S. P. R., 226-7; fraudu- 
 lent, 227-32; "mind-reading," 227-8; 
 methods, 228-31; muscle-reading, 
 231-2; we know little about, 232; 
 spontaneous, 232-3; example of, 
 233; experiments of S. P. R., 234-7; 
 percipient in, 234; can any one be 
 a percipient? 235-6; agents in, 
 2 36-7; proof of, 237-45; objects, 
 237-8; drawings, 239-42; of double 
 impression, 240-2; of tastes, 242-3; 
 
 mathematical proof of, 243-5; tele 
 pathic hypnosis and suggestion 
 245-8; anesthesia induced tele 
 pathically, 247-8; wonderful en- 
 largement of, 248; what is telepa- 
 thy? 248-9; premonitions, 252-4 
 remarkable Wyman case, 254-5 
 telepathic theory of premonitions 
 256; vs. spiritualism, 315-40; hy- 
 pothesis of, in Piper case, 320 
 enlargement of conception of 
 321-2; delayed percipience, 321 
 multiple telepathy, 321-2; not a 
 proved explanation for all psychic 
 phenomena, 323-4 
 
 Test sentence from spirits, 279-82 
 
 Tests given by "George Pelham," 
 306-7; for spirit messages, 315-16; 
 sealed letter, 316 
 
 "Theophilus," control, 2S5. 
 
 Theosophical Society, 14 
 
 Thermometer, registers psychic 
 coldness, 13 
 
 Thomson, Sir Wm., quoted, 19 
 
 Thoulet, Prof., case of precognition, 
 169-70 
 
 Threshold of consciousness, 131 
 
 Thury, psychic force theory of, 53-4 
 
 Titus, Mrs., clairvoyant medium, 
 158-61 
 
 Tolstoi, Count, our life is a dream, 
 341 ; death a sure and happy 
 awakening, 342 
 
 Torpor, trance state, 151 
 
 Train-wreck, life saved in, by pre- 
 monition, 252; prevented by pre- 
 monition, 254-5 
 
 Trance, morbid phenomena of, un- 
 necessary, 151 ; Mrs. Piper's, 293 
 
 Trance-speaking, observed by Dia- 
 lectical Society, 29 
 
 Trance state, description of, 149-51 
 
 Transvaal, ghost of officer in, 189-91 
 
 Trivial things, surest proof of 
 identity is in, 318; examples of, 
 319-20; strong proof in, when re- 
 membered, 325-6 
 
 Turin, first seances at, 91-5; second 
 seances at, 95-8 
 
m% 
 
 INDEX 
 
 U 
 
 Unconscious mental action, influ- 
 ence of, excluded, 273 
 
 Unconscious muscular action, an 
 explanation of table-tipping, 52 
 
 Varley, on Dialectical Society Com- 
 mittee, 27 
 
 Vase, rappings in a, 46 
 
 Venice, incident of a seance at, 121 
 
 Vennum, Rancy, see "Watseka 
 Wonder" 
 
 Venzano, at Genoa sittings, 86 
 
 Verdun, Count, at second Turin 
 seances, 96 
 
 Veridical after-images, 204 
 
 Verity, self-projection case of the 
 Misses, 185-6 
 
 Vibrations, all force composed of, 
 123-5; body composed of, 126 
 
 Violation of a grave, related clair- 
 voyantly, 155-6 
 
 Visions in crystals, see Crystal gaz- 
 ing 
 
 Vizioli, Prof., at first Naples sit- 
 tings, 76 
 
 Voices in the air, 29; carried many 
 miles, 161-3 
 
 Von Schrenck-Notzing, tests Eusa- 
 pia, 81 
 
 w 
 
 Wallace, Alfred Russell, accepts 
 spiritualism, 3; facts of spiritual- 
 ism incontestable, 17; Dialectical 
 Society Committee, 27; cases of 
 animals seeing apparitions, 207-11; 
 note on cases of apparitions, 210- 
 n; the dead are "alive" still, 221; 
 happiness of future life, 221 ; tele- 
 
 chemical phenomena, 222; fraud 
 does not explain, 222; science can- 
 not impose her conditions, 222; 
 laws of evidence, 222-3; psychic 
 research only thing proving future 
 life, 223; an extreme spiritualist, 
 332 
 
 Water, rappings in a vase of, 46 
 
 "Watseka Wonder," case of the, 
 140-6; tests made with, 143; earlier 
 controls of the, 144; later life of, 
 144; doubts cast on story of, 144-5 
 
 Weber, observed Zollner phenom 
 ena, 38; an incompetent witness 
 39 
 
 Weight, of medium, increases dur- 
 ing levitation, 122 
 
 Wills, Rev. J. T., spirit photog 
 raphy, 180-1 
 
 Wreck, life saved in, by premoni 
 tion, 252-3; prevented by premo- 
 nition, 254-5 
 
 Writing, message by direct, 262-3 
 
 W'yllie, Edmund, photographing 
 medium, 180-1 
 
 Wyman, Wm. H., remarkable case 
 of premonition, 254-5 
 
 Wynne, Captain, levitations with 
 Home, 66-7 
 
 X., Miss, medium, 279-80 
 X., Felida, case of, 135 
 
 Z., Dr., "spirit" physician, 278-9 
 Zollner phenomena, probably fraud- 
 ulent, 38; character of, 38; reasons 
 against, 38-9; criticism of rope- 
 tying, 39; broken screen incident, 
 39-40; miraculous disappearance of 
 
 kinesis, apports, levitation, 221-2; table, 
 
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