III. Development of Modern Spiritualism and Its Diverse Modes of Manifestation
WHAT is known as modern Spiritualism had its public beginning, as all well-informed persons know, in Hydesville, a small town in New York State, in 1848. In March of that year, Kate Fox, a nine-year-old girl in the family of a farmer at Hydesville, made the astounding assertion that she was in communion with the spirits of the dead. Considerable time elapsed before her skeptical, matter-of-fact parents were convinced that the mysterious rappings with which the household were annoyed, were directed by any intelligence. The signals, however, were soon construed into a spirit message to the effect that "a murdered man was buried in the cellar of the house, and indicated the exact 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 five years before, and had never been heard of since." The message further declared that the murdered man was the signaler; and as all the witnesses satisfied themselves that the signals were not made by any living person or by any assignable agency, they logically concluded that it was the spirit of the murdered man, "however improbable and absurd that might seem."
Its Rapid Development
Margaret Fox, Kate's sister, soon developed the same occult power. The fame of the two sisters was rapidly noised abroad. Skeptical neighbors came, saw, and were convinced. Soon after, the sisters visited Rochester. The report of their marvelous doings had preceded them. Sneering accusations of imposture were quietly answered with a readiness to undergo the most rigid tests that the skeptics could devise. Three successive committees, consisting of intelligent, hard-headed citizens, were appointed; they thoroly examined the phenomena, and arrived at the unanimous conclusion that the phenomena were supernormal. Respecting the third of these committees, Alfred Russell Wallace writes: "The last and most skeptical committee reported that they had heard sounds, and failed utterly to discover their origin. They had proved that neither machinery nor imposture had been used; and their questions, many of them being mental, were answered correctly."
This cryptic power proved to be infectious. It was imparted spontaneously to many of those with whom the sisters came in contact. A married sister of the Fox girls, Mrs. Fish, was the first to acquire the new gift. A large number of incipient psychics was developed at Auburn, as a result of a visit to that city by Kate Fox. The movement spread like a prairie fire.
In the course of a few years these mystic rappings were propagated throughout the greater part of the Eastern section of the United States. In 1851, a correspondent of the Spiritual World estimated that there were fifty or sixty "private circles" in Philadelphia and not fewer than a hundred mediums in New York City.
Skeptics as to the genuineness of spiritistic phenomena frequently refer to the fact that Kate Fox once made what purported
Contemptuous Opposition of Scientists
Of course these esoteric marvels soon appealed to the cupidity of shrewd rascals, who possessed the diabolic penetration that enabled them to descry a potential Eldorado. Hence a multitude of charlatans—swindling clairvoyants, thievish fortune-tellers, and shabby boarding-house "mediums"—began to imitate these mysterious phenomena, seeking to wheedle away the money and brains of countless easily duped men and women. As a consequence, Spiritualism soon became so malodorous that for many years scientists ignored it with contempt and scorn; much less would they consent to investigate its pretensions.
To afford some idea of the virulence of this opposition of the science world of the middle-nineteenth century, I shall adduce a few statements from some of the most eminent scientists of that time. Thus Darwin exclaimed: "The Lord have mercy upon us all if we have to believe in such rubbish! It is all imposture." Faraday declared: "The system of education that could leave the mental condition of the public body in the state in which this subject [Spiritualism] has found it must have been greatly deficient in some very important principle. This wide-spread superstition, at this day of boasted progress, is a disgrace to the age and affords astonishing proofs of the vast flood of ignorance overflowing and desolating the higher places." He felt convinced "that these reputed spiritualistic phenomena were only worthy of the scorn or pity of all intelligent persons." Tyndall summed up his opinion of believers in Spiritualism in these words: "The drugged soul is beyond the reach of reason; surely no baser delusion ever gained dominance over the mind of man." Goldwin Smith, who is still living, in a letter to the New York Sun wrote: "There is no place for the supernatural. . . . To ghosts and apparitions of all kinds, Spiritualism included, we bid a long5farewell." Even in our day President G. Stanley Hall, of Clark University, writes: "Every one who has had a hard bump on his head may see sparks, but this would not make the sparks real. . . . Spiritism in its cruder forms is the very sewage of all the superstition of the ages." As we shall see in a later article, many of these vitriolic strictures on spiritistic phenomena are true, but not always in the sense in which these noted thinkers deemed them true.
But it was not only the hideous imposture and the rank rascality that attached themselves to the spiritualistic movement, which repelled scientists. They saw clearly that science had no explanation for these alleged supernormal wonders. So they conveniently denied that they ever occurred.
The Reaction, and the Society for Psychical Research
"Yet the more thoughtful, as the century drew near its close," says Fremont Rider, "argued that where so much smoke was there must be a little fire." Multitudes of people were insisting that they had seen tables and other ponderable objects, and even human beings, levitated, and float in the air; that they had heard closed pianos which were six feet or more beyond the reach of any living person, played skilfully; and that they were continually receiving messages from friends who had died. Not a few respectable men and women, contrary to their expectation and practical judgment, declared that they had received telepathic messages. These were facts that science, in the opinion of many of its leaders, could no longer taboo and ignore.
Accordingly, the now famous Society for Psychical Research was organized in England in 1882. The first president of the Society was Prof. Henry Sedgwick, of Cambridge University, one of the greatest writers on ethics of the past century. Among the vice-presidents were Prof. Balfour Stewart, eminent in science; Mr. R. H. Hutton, editor of the London Spectator; Mr. Edmund Gurney, who died in the thick of his work; Dr. F. W. H. Myers, whose name became famous the world over, as a student of, and writer on, spiritistic phenomena. Two other original vice-presidents still occupy their position—these are the Hon. A. J. Balfour, one of the famous names in English political life; and Prof. W. F. Barrett, of Dublin University.
An American branch of the same Society was organized in 1885. The American Society comprised such learned men as Prof. William James, and Professor Royce, of Harvard University; Prof. J. H. Hyslop, of Columbia University; the Rev. Dr. M. J. Savage, and so on. Soon after, the Society extended its organization into England and Italy. The Hon. W. E. Gladstone was made an honorary member of the Society. Concerning the work of the Society, Mr. Gladstone said: "It is the most important work that is being done in the world—by far the most important." Other men of renown, who threw themselves enthusiastically into the work of "psychical research," are Sir Oliver Lodge, one of the greatest of English physicists; Sir William Crookes, F.R.S., president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science; Alfred Russell Wallace, famous as a writer on diverse scientific subjects; William T. Stead, one of the greatest of living journalists; Archdeacon Colley, a leading intellectual light of the Anglican church; Camille Flammarion, the most celebrated living astronomer in France; Victorien Sardou, the noted French dramatist; Dr. Charles Richet, the greatest authority on medicine in France; Dr. Pio Foa, Professor of Pathological Anatomy at the University of Turin; Cesare Lombroso, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Turin; and Dr. V. Maxwell, another distinguished French scientist.
England's Veteran Editor, Wm. T. Stead
Only yesterday the scientific world was contemptuously skeptical of everything that smacked of mysticism, spiritism, and the like. To-day, it can be truly said that never before was the world of science so ghost-ridden. Never before did it turn so wistfully to the occult. Never before did it listen so painfully at the sealed door of the tomb, behind which mysterious silences reign. Mr. Vance Thompson not long since said piquantly: "The ghosts that haunt the societies for psychical research have taken on a scientific air. They walk no more in windy corridors, clanking spectral chains; but in a practical, modern way they exhibit themselves to scientific congresses." Yes, the world over, psychical phenomena are being studied by thoroly trained scientists. Science, then, has reached the point where it no longer ignores the supersensible, spiritistic world. It no longer denies the apparition of "spirits," it seeks to account for them. Their labors range from the study of hysteria, of hypnosis, and the transmission of psychic forces, to the world-old mysteries of enchantment and apparitions.
With very few exceptions, these scholars and scientists began their psychical researches as confirmed skeptics, firmly believing the alleged phenomena to be the result either of fraud or of hallucination or of involuntary muscular action. They believed that they could swiftly prove to a demonstration that one or more of these hypotheses constituted the explanation of the phenomena. But they soon discovered their mistake. The uncanny wonders refused to be explained away. They were realities which the trained investigators could in no honest way deny.
Many of them, after protracted investigation, made the following admission: "It was only by irresistible evidence, under conditions that precluded the possibility of either of the above-named solutions, and after trial and test many times repeated, that we were slowly and reluctantly convinced that the phenomena exhibited in the course of our inquiry were veritable facts." Again: "After trials often repeated we were compelled to confess that imposture was out of the question."
Some of the Actual Results
After more than a quarter-century of painstaking, scientific investigation of all sorts of occult phenomena, the Society unanimously reports that the reality of the following supersensible phenomena has been definitely proved:
Telepathy, the power to communicate thought across either limited or infinite space, independently of the physical senses; sometimes called mind-reading.
Clairvoyance, the ability to see independently of the eye or physical organ of vision; the power that reads the sealed letter or the document hidden in the black heart of an iron safe.
Clairaudience, the corresponding ability to hear subjectively, or independently, of the physical organ of hearing.
Telekinesis, the power to move material objects without visible or tangible contact; as, for example, moving or levitating chairs, tables, or other objects, when at a distance from them. (Levitation in its strictest meaning signifies the raising or otherwise moving human bodies by supersensible agencies.)
Materialization, the appearance of spirits in objective form, visible not only to the psychic, but also to the non-psychic.
Prevision, the power mentally to penetrate time either in the direction of the past or more rarely in that of the future. In former case it is the power supernormally to know what has happened in the past; in the latter, to foretell future happenings.
Automatic writing and automatic speaking.
As to the present conviction of these learned investigators respecting the bearing of their researches upon the question of the survival of human personality after death, must be told in a future article.
