The Spirit World and a Future Life
By Geo. W. Rine
VI. Spiritualistic Revelations; Method and Matter
Automatic Writing and Speaking
After half a century of investigation, many of the greatest scientists of the world are convinced that in automatic writing and talking they have discovered a positively certain method of communicating with the “spirits” of the dead. In his recent address before the English Psychical Research Society, Sir Oliver Lodge said: “We have discovered that there is a new human faculty for communicating with the dead. The most important set of phenomena are those of automatic writing and talking.” Many noted thinkers believe that at least parts of these written or spoken messages may be safely credited to telepathy and clairvoyance. But Messrs. Stead, Wallace, Crookes, Lodge, and others have demonstrated repeatedly that much of the writing and talking of an automatic character can not possibly proceed from the subconscious mind of any living person. These eminent investigators declare that they can no longer doubt that the force and intelligence exerted are wholly extraneous; in other words, that they are the manifestation of spirit life. This is conclusively proved, they hold, by the fact that most of these messages are packed with events, dates, identifications, intimate details, profound secrets, which the medium could not possibly have known. Striking instances of automatic writing and talking are numerous enough to fill volumes. Mr. Stead asserts that he wrote that marvelous work, “Letters from Julia,” automatically, and produces evidence to prove his claim. The famous French dramatist, the late Victorien Sardou, possessed the gift of automatic writing in a preeminent degree. Let him tell us in his own vivid phrasing about his gift. Here are his words: **“The first time I had any peculiar manifestation I came in one night and, before going to bed, I wished to try to see whether my hand would write anything. All of a sudden my hand began to run rapidly over the paper, but when the thing was finished I could not make anything out of it. I laid the paper down and went over to the other side of the room to exchange my lamp for a candle. In coming back I looked at the paper from the other side. What was my amazement to see the5head of the devil perfectly drawn, horns and all! And this was upside down.** “Shortly after this, I was sitting by my table one day, idling, dreaming, not making any effort to do anything in particular. All of a sudden my hand began to work on the paper before me with a rapidity and precision which astonished me. The result was a fantastic piece of work, drawn in delicate lines, fine almost as a spider’s web, and at the bottom a signature—‘Bernard Palissy.’ ‘What is it?’ I asked. “And my automatic hand wrote: ‘The House of Swedenborg, on the Planet Jupiter.’ This was considered as most curious by all my friends, who knew that personally I had no aptitude for drawing. A plate was prepared and I was given an etching-tool. The result, in the same order of design, was a more elaborate piece of work, this time curiously combined out of all sorts of musical terms, clefs, notes, bars, and so on, and the whole was designated as the House of Mozart, also on Jupiter, and the whole was again signed ‘Palissy.’ In fact, Bernard Palissy became my almost constant companion. “Do not misunderstand me. I do not believe that those drawings are necessarily copies of houses occupied by Mozart and Swedenborg. Nor do I think that the being which guided my hand was necessarily Bernard Palissy. It might have been simply some talented spirit which came to me to convince me of a grand truth,—the existence of intelligent beings around us.” One of the most remarkable illustrations of the gift of automatic speaking is afforded by Miss Laura Edmunds, daughter of Hon. J. W. Edmunds who was for many years on the bench of the Supreme Court of New York State. Judge Edmunds vouches for the fact that the only language his daughter knew besides English was a smattering of French. Yet when in a trance state, under the dominance of her “controls,” she spoke thirteen languages fluently, including Italian, Polish, Hindu, and Greek. This took place, says Judge Edmunds, in the presence of eight or ten persons, all intelligent and reasonable, and all “as capable as any one of distinguishing between illusion and real fact.” This case especially has nonplused those who advance the theory that automatic writing and talking are purely functions of the subliminal mind. Professors James, Hyslop, Newbold, Crookes, and Lodge have published copious reports of their experiments with the noted psychic, Mrs. Piper. Through her automatic hand her spirit “controls” dictated scores of messages divulging details which no living person could by any possibility have known. Not a few of these messages were forecasts of future events, all of which actually came to pass. The most significant and melancholy of these predictions automatically written by Mrs. Piper was the forecasting of Dr. Richard Hodgson’s death from too violent exercise—“a warning which the doctor disregarded only to fall dead at the Boston Tournament Club,” not many months after the prediction was given. Dr. Isaac K. Funk, of New York City, head of the well-known publishing house of Funk and Wagnalls Co., vouches for the truth of the following striking case of revelation through the agency of Spiritualism. He says he spent considerable time investigation the following facts. He has this to say: “I have seen the correspondence, and am acquainted with the man concerned—I will call him Mr. R.—and have thoroly cross-examined him, and have made inquiries of his neighbors and business friends who have known him for years, I find him to be a thoroly reputable man and that he is regarded by those who know him as wholly truthful. “When he was two years of age his father and mother quarreled and the father left home, never to return. This was in London, England. Twenty-nine years passed. The mother had died, and the son had come to America, and had succeeded in business, and had married. Through newspaper reports he learned that a psychic a number of miles distant from where he lived was answering questions concerning lost friends, etc. He wrote a letter, addressed it to his spirit mother, asking whether his father was living, and if so, how he could find him. He told no one of his intentions to visit the medium. He was not a Spiritualist, and knew no one at the meeting. The letter he placed before the medium. She answered that a motherly woman is here and calls ‘William.’ She says his father was living, and that if he would address a letter to Messrs. So-and-So on such a street and at such a number in London, he would be told of the father’s whereabouts. Mr. R. said that he did not know the firm in England, but sent a letter of inquiry as directed, asking his father’s address. In a short time he received a letter saying that Mr. —— had been in their employ until about three years before, and that if a letter were addressed to him at such a street and number in Glasgow, it would be likely to reach him. He addressed a letter, and soon received one from his father. It so happened that shortly after having written this letter, the father was killed in a railroad accident; but the son, through the correspondence that was found among his father’s papers, heard from the executor and received his share of the estate. “This is a case that, if the facts are as here given,—and after very extensive investigation I am fully convinced that the facts are correct—no recognized theory of telepathy or clairvoyance can possibly explain. “What is the explanation? I frankly say: ‘I don’t know.’ . . . It is not inconceivable that the countless spirit intelligences, good, bad, and indifferent in the universe, may be able to perform such marvels as these I have just mentioned; AND THIS EXPLANATION MAY LEAVE THE MOTHER WHOLLY OUT OF THE CASE. This latter explanation would be Spiritualism, minus the identity of the spirit.” (Capitals mine.) One of “Many Convincing Experiments”
Mrs. Ella Wheeler Wilcox has assured Dr. Funk of the truth of the following which she herself experienced and which is to her conclusive proof of the continuity of existence and of the possibility of intramundane communication. She says: “A woman of . . . social position and culture called upon me a few days ago. We possessed mutual friends; but had never before met. I had heard of the remarkable psychic powers of this lady, known only to her intimate associates, and never employed for gain, as she was born in affluence. . . . I mentioned what I had heard of her and expressed a wish for a test. My caller seemed embarrassed and said: ‘I do not like to tamper with the strange force. I have possessed it since a child, and my father nearly lost his mind investigating these things. . . . I rarely permit myself to give any exhibition of my powers to any one. I confess I do not understand my gifts, and am a little afraid of them.’ “After some persuasion she consented to oblige me. I was living in a New York hotel at the time. . . . I obtained two slates. But we had no pencils; and at my suggestion the psychic for the first time tried to obtain messages on note paper between two slates. With the paper I placed a morsel of lead-pencil, . . . so small that it could not have been held under the finger-nail without losing itself. “I alone touched the paper; I alone touched the pencil; the paper bore the hotel mark and I took it from my own desk with my own hands. “The room was brilliantly lighted. After I placed the paper and pencil between the two slates, my caller held two ends of the slates in her hands and I held the other two. Almost instantly the closed slates were jerked and pulled as by some violent force; and on the table and on the back of my chair knockings were distinctly audible. “Upon the paper in a fine, spider-like penmanship, but perfectly legible, was a most tender and motherly message bearing the signature of my husband’s mother, who died when he was a small child; . . . and whose name and history are not known to one friend in a thousand of our circle of acquaintances. “I replaced other sheets of paper and in all six messages were given to me, all from different people, and all under the glare of a fully lighted chandelier, and all in my own room and with my own materials. “Several of these messages contained assertions and statements to which time has given added weight. . . . I know that I was not under any hallucination; I know that I was not in a hypnotic state; I know that the slates were not tampered with, and that I alone touched the paper and pencil; and I know that no financial consideration entered into the experiment; and I know that the messages were written by some power not explainable by physical science. “It seems to me, in the light of such experience, that it is as stupid as it is stubborn to deny the fact of communication with realms beyond. This is but one of the many convincing experiments which have come to me in the course of my investigations.” How Mr. Stead Vouches for the Genuineness of Spirit Photography
Hosts of intelligent people contemptuously deny the possibility of a genuine “spirit photograph.” Mr. Stead firmly believes in such a possibility, and tells the following wonderful experience, in corroboration of his belief: “I have referred to spirit photography. Let me disarm any skeptical reader by admitting that nothing is more easy than to fake bogus spirit photographs, and further, that an expert conjurer can almost always cheat the most vigilant observer. The use of marked plates, which I handle, expose and develop myself, no doubt affords some protection against fraud, but my belief in the authenticity of spirit photographs rests upon a far firmer foundation than that of the fallible vigilance of the experimenter. The supreme test of an authentic spirit photograph is that a plainly recognizable portrait of a dead person shall be obtained by a photographer who knows nothing whatever of the existence of such a person, and that no visible form shall be seen by the sitter in front of the camera. **“I have had such photographs not once, but many times. I will here only mention one. The photographer whose mediumship enables him to photograph the invisible is a very old, rather illiterate man, to whom this faculty was at one time a serious hindrance to his photographic business. He is clairvoyant and clairaudient. During the late Boer War I went to have a sitting with him, wondering who would come.6** “I had hardly taken my seat before the old man said: ‘I had a great fight the other day. An old Boer came into my studio carrying a gun. He fairly frightened me, he looked so fierce. So I said to him, “Go away; I don’t like guns!” And he went away. Now he’s back again. He came in with you. He has not got his gun now and he does not look so fierce. Shall we let him stay?’ “By all means,” I replied. “Do you think you can get his photograph?” “I don’t know,” said the old man, “I can try.” “So I sat down in front of the camera and an exposure was duly made. I could see nothing. Before the plate was removed I asked the photographer: “You spoke to him the other day. Could you speak to him again?” “Yes,” he said, “he’s still there behind you.” “Would he answer any question if you asked him?” “I don’t know,” he said, “I can try.” “Ask him what his name is.” “The photographer appeared to put a mental question and to listen for a reply. Then he said: “He says his name is Piet Botha.” “Piet Botha,” I objected; “I know Philip, Louis, Chris, and I do not know how many other Bothas. But Piet I never heard of.” “That’s what he says his name is,” doggedly replied the old man. “When he developed the plate there was seen standing behind me a hirsute, tall, stalwart man who might have been a Boer or a Moujik. I said nothing, but waited till the war came to an end, and General Botha came to London. I sent the photograph to him by Mr. Fischer, now Prime Minister of the Orange Free State. Next day Mr. Wessels, another Free State delegate, came to see me. “Where did you get that photograph?” he asked, “the photograph you gave to Mr. Fischer.” “I told him exactly how it had come. He shook his head. ‘I don’t hold with superstition. Tell me, how did you get that portrait? That man did not know William Stead. That man was never in England.’” “Well,” I replied, “I have told you how I got it, and you need not believe me if you don’t like. But why are you so excited about it?” “Why,” said he, “because that man was a near relative of mine. I have got his portrait hanging up in my house at home.” “Really,” I said, “is he dead?” “He was the first Boer commandant killed in the siege of Kimberley.” “Pietrus Johannes Botha,” he replied, “but we always called him Piet Botha for short.” “I have the portrait still in my possession. It has been subsequently identified by the other Free Staters who knew Piet Botha well. “This at least is not a case which telepathy can explain. Nor can the hypothesis of fraud hold water. It was the merest accident that I asked the photographer to see if the spirit would give his name. No one in England, so far as I have been able to ascertain, knew that any Piet Botha ever existed.” [NOTE.—In the next article of this series will be given the internal evidence showing that Spiritualistic phenomena can not possibly proceed from disembodied human intelligences. In a later article inspired evidence will be given as to their origin and meaning.—G. W. R.]