Delphi Complete Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Illustrated) (1547 page)

 
NOTES TO CHAPTER VII

 
ADDITIONAL TESTIMONY OF PROFESSOR AND MRS. DE MORGAN

 
PROFESSOR DE MORGAN says:

I gave an account of all this to a friend who was then alive, a man of ologies and ometers both, who was not at all disposed to think it anything but a clever imposture. “But,” said he, “what you tell me is very singular: I shall go myself to Mrs. Hayden; I shall go alone and not give my name. I don’t think I shall hear anything from anybody, but if I do I shall find out the trick. Depend upon it,

I shall find it out.” He went accordingly, and came to me to report progress. He told me that he had gone a step beyond me, for he had insisted on taking his alphabet behind a large folding screen and asking his questions by the alphabet and a pencil, as well as receiving the answers. No persons except himself and Mrs. Hayden were in the room. The “spirit” who came to him was one whose unfortunate death was fully detailed in the usual way. My friend told me that he was “awestruck,” and had nearly forgotten all his precautions.

The things which I have narrated were the beginning of a long series of experiences, many as remarkable as what I have given; many of a minor character, separately worth little, but jointly of weight when considered in connection with the more decisive proofs of reality. Many of a confirmatory tendency as mere facts, but of a character not sustentive of the gravity and dignity of the spiritual world. The celebrated apparition of Giles Scroggins is a serious personage compared to some which have fallen in my way, and a logical one, too. If these things be spirits, they show that pretenders, coxcombs and liars are to be found on the other side of the grave as well as on this; and what for no? as Meg Dods said.

The whole question may receive such persevering attention as shall worm out the real truth; or it may die away, obtaining only casual notice, until a new outburst of phenomena recalls its history of this clay. But this subsidence does not seem to begin. It is now twelve or thirteen years since the matter began to be everywhere talked about, during which time there have been many announcements of the total extinction of the “spirit-mania.” But in several cases, as in Tom Moore’s fable, the extinguishers have caught fire. Were it the absurdity it is often said to be, it would do much good by calling attention to the “manifestations” of another absurdity, the philosophy of possibilities and impossibilities, the philosophy of the fourth court. Extremes meet, but the “meeting” is often for the purpose of mutual exposure, like that of silly gentlemen in the day of pop-and-paragraph duels. This on the supposition that Spiritualism is all either imposture or delusion; it cannot be more certainly one or the other than is the philosophy opposed to it. I have no acquaintance either with P or Q. But I feel sure that the decided conviction of all who can see both sides of the shield must be, that it is more likely that P has seen a ghost than that Q knows he cannot have seen one. I know that Q says he knows it.

In this connection the following from the Publishers’ Circular on the appearance of Mrs. De Morgan’s book shows a contemporary estimate of Professor De Morgan’s critical faculty:

Mere LITTERATEURS and writers of fiction may be pardoned for a little tendency to the visionary and unreal, but the fact that the well-known author of the standard works on Formal Logic, the Differential Calculus, and the Theory of Probabilities, should figure with his lady in the characters of believers in spirit-rapping and table-turning, will probably take most people by surprise. There is perhaps no contributor to our reviews who is more at home in demolishing a fallacy, or in good-humouredly disposing of an ignorant pretender in science than Mr. De Morgan. His clear, logical, witty and whimsical style is readily traced by literary readers in many a striking article in our critical journals. He is probably the last man whom the sceptical in such mysteries would expect to find on the side of Mr. Home and Mrs. Newton Crosland. Yet we must record the fact that Mr. De Morgan declares himself “ perfectly convinced that he has both seen and heard, in a manner which should make unbelief impossible, things called spiritual which cannot be taken by a rational being to be capable of explanation by imposture, coincidence, or mistake.”

Let us add to the foregoing Mrs. De Morgan’s testimony:

It is now ten years since I began attentively to observe the phenomena of “Spiritualism.” My first experience occurred in the presence of Mrs. Hayden from New York. I never heard a word which could shake my strong conviction of Mrs. Hayden’s honesty; indeed, the result of our first interview, when my name was quite unknown to her, was sufficient to prove that I was not on that occasion the victim of her imposture, or my own credulity.

After describing the visit to Mrs. Hayden, to whom none of the names of those present was mentioned, she says:

We sat for at least a quarter of an hour and were beginning to apprehend a failure, when a very small throbbing or patting sound was heard, apparently in the centre of the table. Great was our pleasure when Mrs. Hayden, who had before seemed rather anxious, said, “They are coming.” Who were coming? Neither she nor we could tell. As the sounds gathered strength, which they seemed to do with our necessary conviction of their genuineness, whatever might be their origin, Mrs. Hayden said, “There is a spirit who wishes to speak with someone here, but as I do not know the names of the gentlemen and ladies, I must point to each in turn, and, when I come to the right one, beg that the spirit will rap.” This was agreed to by our invisible companion, who rapped in assent. Mrs. Hayden then pointed to each of the party in turn. To my surprise, and even annoyance (for I did not wish this, and many of my friends did), no sounds were heard until she indicated myself, the last in the circle. I was seated at her right hand; she had gone round from the left. I was then directed to point to the letters of a large type alphabet, and I may add that, having no wish to obtain the name of any dear friend or relation, I certainly did not rest, as it has been surmised is often done, on any letter. However, to my astonishment, the not common name of a dear relation who had left this world seventeen years before, and whose surname was that of my father’s, not my husband’s, family was spelt. Then this sentence, “I am happy, and with F. and G.” (names at length). I then received a promise of future communication with all three spirits; the two last had left the world twenty and twelve years before. Other persons present then received communications by rapping; of these some were as singularly truthful and satisfactory as that to myself, while others were false and even mischievous.

Mrs. De Morgan observes that after the seances with Mrs. Hayden she and her friends experimented in private, “and it was found that a number of persons, both in and out of my own family, possessed the faculty of mediumship in a greater or less degree.”

 
NOTE TO CHAPTER X

 
WERE THE DAVENPORTS JUGGLERS OR SPIRITUALISTS?

 
As Mr. Houdini has seemed to question whether the Davenports themselves ever asserted that they were Spiritualists, it may clear the matter up finally to quote the following from a letter written by them in 1868 to the Banner of Light, the leading Spiritualist journal in the United States. Dealing with the report that they were not Spiritualists, they wrote:

It is singular that any individual, sceptic or Spiritualist, could believe such statements after fourteen years of the most bitter persecution and violent opposition, culminating in the riots of Liverpool, Huddersfield, and Leeds, where our lives were placed in imminent peril by the fury of brutal mobs, our property destroyed, and where we suffered a loss of seventy-five thousand dollars, and all because we would not renounce Spiritualism, and declare ourselves jugglers, when threatened by the mob, and urged to do so. In conclusion, we have only to say that we denounce all such statements as base falsehoods.
 
Volume II NOTE TO CHAPTER II

 
THE MEDIUMSHIP OF THE REV. W. STAINTON MOSES

 
DESCRIBING an experience of levitation, Stainton Moses writes:

As I was seated in the corner of ‘he inner room my chair was drawn back into the corner and then raised off the floor about a foot, as I judged, and then al owed to drop to the floor whilst I was carried up in the corner. I described my apparent movement to Dr. and Mrs. S., and took from my pocket a lead pencil with which, when I became stationary, I made a mark on the wall opposite to my chest. This mark is as near as may be six feet from the floor. I do not think my posture was changed, and I was lowered very gently until I found myself in my chair again. My sensation was that of being lighter than the air. No pressure on any part of the body; no un consciousness or entrancement. From the position of the mark on the wall it is clear that my head must have been close to the ceiling. My voice, Dr. S. told me afterwards, sounded oddly away up in the corner, as if my head were turned from the table, as it was according to my observation and the mark I made. The ascent, of which I was perfectly conscious, was very gradual and steady, not unlike that of being in a lift, but without any perceptible sensation of motion other than that of feeling lighter than the atmosphere. My position, as I have said, was unchanged. I was simply levitated and lowered to my old place.

Of the passage of matter through matter we have this instance related:

On August 28 (1872) seven objects from different rooms were brought into the seance-room; on the 30th, four, and amongst them a little bell from the adjoining dining-room. We always left gas brightly burning in that room and in the hall outside, so that if the doors were opened even for a moment a blaze of light would have been let into the dark room in which we sat. As this never happened, we have full assurance from what Dr. Carpenter considers the best authority, Common Sense, that the doors remained closed. In the dining-room there was a little bell. We heard it commence to ring, and could trace it by its sound as it approached the door which separated us from it. What was our astonishment when we found that in spite of the closed door the sound drew nearer to its! It was evidently within the room in which we sat, for the bell was carried round the room, ringing loudly the whole time. After completing the circuit of the room, it was brought down, passed under the table, coming up close to my elbow. It rang under my very nose, and went round about my head, then passed round the circle, ringing close to the faces of all. It was finally placed upon the table. I do not wish to theorize, but this seems to the to dispose of arguments which would put forward the theory of our being psychologized, or of the object coming down the chimney, as an explanation of this difficult subject.

Dr. Speer thus describes the appearance of a spirit light and a materialised hand on August 10, 1873:

A large globe of light rose from the side of the table opposite to me, and sailed up to the level of our faces, and then vanished. It was followed by several more, all of which rose up from the side opposite to me, and sometimes to the right and sometimes to the left of the medium. At request the next light was placed slowly in the centre of the table. It was apparently as large as a shaddock, and was surrounded with drapery. At this time the medium was entranced, and the controlling spirit informed me that he would endeavour to place the light in the medium’s hand. Failing in this, he said he would knock on the table in front of me. Almost immediately a light came and stood on the table close to me. “You see; now listen-I will knock.” Very slowly the light rose up and struck three distinct blows on the table. “Now I will show you my hand.” A large, very bright light then came up, and inside of it appeared the materialised hand of the spirit. He moved the fingers about close to my face. The appearance was as distinct as can be conceived.

An example of strong physical force is thus recorded by Stainton Moses:

We had ventured on one occasion, contrary to direction, to add to our circle a strange member. Some trivial phenomena occurred, but the usual controlling spirit did not appear. When next we sat, he came, and probably none of us will easily forget the sledge-hammer blows with which he smote the table. The noise was distinctly audible in the room below and gave one the idea that the table would be broken to pieces. In vain we withdrew from the table, hoping to diminish the power. The heavy blows increased in intensity, and the whole room shook with their force. The direst penalties were threatened if we again interfered with the development by bringing in new sitters. We have not ventured to do so again; and I do not think we shall easily be persuaded to risk another similar objurgation. NOTES TO CHAPTER XI

 
MR. WALES’s AUTOMATIC WRITING

 
MR. WALES writes to the author:

I cannot think there was anything in my antecedent reading to account for this coincidence. I had certainly read nothing you had published on the subject, I had purposely avoided “Raymond” and books like it, in order not to vitiate my own results, and the “Proceedings” of the S.P.R. which I had read at that time, do not touch, as you know, upon after-death conditions. At any rate I obtained, at various times, statements (as my contemporary notes show) to the effect that, in this persisting state of existence, they have bodies which, though imperceptible by our senses, are as solid to them as ours to us, that these bodies are based on the general characteristics of our present bodies but beautified; that they have no age, no pain, no rich and poor; that they wear clothes and take nourishment; that they do not sleep (though they spoke of passing occasionally into a semiconscious state which they called “lying asleep”-a condition, it just occurs to me) which seems to correspond roughly with the “hypnoidal” state); that, after a period which is usually shorter than the average lifetime here, they pass to some further state of existence; that people of similar thoughts, tastes, and feelings gravitate together; that married couples do not necessarily reunite, but that the love of man and woman continues and is freed of elements which with us often militate against its perfect realisation; that immediately after death people pass into a semi-conscious rest-state lasting various periods, that they are unable to experience bodily pain, but are susceptible at times to some mental anxiety; that a painful death is “absolutely unknown,” that religious beliefs make no difference whatever in the after-state, and that their life altogether is intensely happy, and no one having ever realised it could wish to return here. I got no reference to “work” by that word, but much to the various interests that were said to occupy them. That is probably only another way of saying the same thing. “Work” with us has come usually to mean “work to live,” and that, I was emphatically informed, was not the case with them-that all the requirements of life were somehow mysteriously “provided.” Neither did I get any reference to a definite “temporary penal state,” but I gathered that people begin there at the point of intellectual and moral development where they leave off here; and since their state of happiness was based mainly upon sympathy, those who came over in a low moral condition failed at first for various lengths of time to have the capacity to appreciate and enjoy it.