MARY JANE.

41 MARY JANE" is a new and by no moans trivial sign of this slipshod and uneasy age, in that half articulate and pathetic aspect of it in which it tries to make up by eager jets of sceptical superstition for a relaxed faith and troubled dreams. We have from time to time drawn attention to the curious epidemic, or perhaps we should rather say, with the medical men, "sporadic" appearances of a sort of materialistic fanaticism, —the dreary half faith in Zadkiel and his astrology, the social excitement which hummed and buzzed the other day, even in a court of justice, round the magic crystal, the mystical animal magnetism which formed the centre of fascination in Sir Bulwer Lytton's "Strange Story," the rapid growth of ghost literature, the physical convulsions attending the last religious "Revival," an-1, above all, the chronic and growing superstition which for the last ten years has constantly been breaking out, subsiding, and again breaking out with ever fresh vigour, about table- turning, mediums, spirit-photographs, and the rest, and which recently centred round Mr. D. D. Home. Of all this species of delirium "Mary Jane" is, we think, by far the most characteristic result. Mary Jane is both a book and a creature, the book, of course, deriving its title from the crea- ture. We say "a creature," not a woman, because Mary Jane is authoritatively pronounced in the book, after a study of her cha- racter during several months, to be an "intelligent vapour" emanating from the "medium," but also very much affected in intellect by the minds of those present at the seance, whether mediums or not. We are all of us regarded as vapours, but Mary Jane is not supposed to be an independent vapour, only a vapour of a vapour, existing apparently for only a few minutes, or at most house, together, during what is called a seance, created out of the phy-ical and mental powers and qualities, whether conscious or unconscious, of those who take part in it, but ceasing to exist when the meditun goes to sleep, or probably when she breaks up her 81ance. In short, the author of the volume now before us, who has christened this temporary intelli- gence, of his wife's creating, Mary Jane, might well have added the surname Frankenstein, for she, he, or it, corresponds with tolerable accuracy to that extraordinary conception, and may, we think, very likely one day turn and rend in some unexpected way its mistress or master.

But it is time we gave our readers some intelligible account of this new but strikingly significant incoherence of our age. The book called "Mary Jane," in which we find the account of the creature Mary Jane, is an anonymous volume of a large size, on handsome paper, and published at the great price of one guinea, adorned with coloured lithographs, said to be pc similes of Mary Jane's work. It is called "Mary Jane ; or, Spiritualism chemi- cally explained, with Spirit drawings. Also, Essays and Ideas (perhaps erroneous), by a Child at School." Our first impression was so strong that an anonymous volume published at such a price was a mere device for getting money by trading on the credulity of the public that we refused to pay the guinea and departed ; but some of the passages we had seen seemed so curiously symp- tomatic of sincere materialism groping about amid a considerable mass of scientific knowledge, that we reluctantly bought this guinea- worth of signs of the times after all, believing that it was probably not meant as a fraud on the public, while it did give a real glimrse into the distracted mind of the day. And no one, we think, who should come across this eccentric work and really read it, will doubt that "Mary Jane" is written by some one who expresses real ideas and impressions, though some of the impressions seem very lunatic impressions indeed. The writer has obviously a re- spectable knowledge of chemistry, has been apparently a surgeon in the East Indies, and belongs to that curious school of flippant materialistic scepticism which residence in that strange land so often seems to foster among Englishmen, side by side with the intensest form of Calvinistic dogmatism. This is exactly such a book,—incoherent and vain, as well as materialistic,— which the late General Jacob, had he been as much of a chemist as this writer, might have written. But it is its extraordi- nary disjointedness, rawness, materialism, and levity, interspersed with shrewd scientific observations, and a genuine interest in science, which make the curious physico-spiritualism of its conclusion the more remarkable as a token of the drift of our modern scepticism. Nearly three-fourths of it are taken up with disjointed observe- tionsin favour of materialism, generally dotted with acute remarks, but sometimes abruptly broken by anecdotes, apropos of nothing, which the writer has entered in his diary during his travels in Italy or the East. In the last quarter of the book he suddenly enters, at the request of a distinguished spiritualist, Mr. Wason (we believe of Liverpool) on the examination of spirit-rapping with the avowed view of refuting it, when, as the book says, his wife suddenly be- comes a medium, the tables are turned on him in his own house, and he enters on a series of experiments intended to in- vestigate the nature of the new power, and, if possible, reconcile the facts with his old theory that human intellect is a highly electric form of phosphorus, iodine, chlorine, &c. The phenomena themselves are the old, 9.1d things,—a palpitating table, knocks all over the room, intelligent replies to questions mental and written, the swinging of a zinc pate in the air which was strung up to the ceiling,—spii it drawings with and without the aid of pencils,—and. finally, spirit paintings, made on paper which was sealed up during the operation, of various flowers, hands, and so forth,—paint- ings wholly unremarkable except for the asserted process (which we have to take on faith from an anonymous writer) by which they were produced. The phenomenon, however, on which the author pounces as a clue to everything, is, that the medium's hands, when closely pressed together in the dark, became phosphorescent, and had all the smell of phosphorus, the smell dis- appearing directly the pressure ceased. This induced him to regard the phenomena as due to an "intelligent vapour," Chiefly consisting of phosphoric elements, his view of the intellectual elements of which we shall explain directly. This intelligent vapour he bap- tizes as "Mary Jane," so convinced is he that it is intelligent :—

"This matter had to be investigated chemically, and this new being had to be christened ; for, as I did not wish to make a single false step, even in nomenclature ; and as I had no proof whatever of its being a spirit in the sense usually attributed to that word— that is, the soul of a departed person—and, as I had already one clear cause for the movements of the table, in the same emanations from the human body which produce mesmeric sleep and the (pro- bable) sleep of the sensitive plant, I did not choose to embarrass myself with two causes, even by the adoption of a name, until intimate scientific conviction should oblige me to. Still, an in- telligent being, to be talked to, must have a name, and the house was full of children from school, and country. servants. How it was I don't know—having no relative, nor knowing any lady of that name,—but I christened the new comer Mary Jane,' and it answered to Mary Jane, and from that time forward Mary Jane has been with us at any time we choose to talk with her, and has even repeatedly called for the alphabet, and given us a very sensible opinion on the subject we were discussing, when we did not think of appealing to her. You may be sure that, on finding a third party so unexpectedly domiciled with us, we asked it every possible question, and we received replies, the sense and accuracy of which pleased and startled us, as clearly proving a distinct and partially superhuman intelligence."

Mary Jane, it seems, at first always wanted the presence of some one with drawing power in order to be able to draw, of historic knowledge in order to be able to talk history, of musical power in order to be able to play music, but could, after suf- ficient practice, manage these operations in the absence of these specialites ;—that is, though the invisible hand could not at first play the, guitar without a musical organization in the room, nor at first draw its pictures beneath the table without a pictorial person in the room, nor take an interest in East Indian subjects without some East Indian influence in the room,—yet when Mary Jane had done all these things through the medium, assisted by those other odyllic forces, frequently, then, it seems, she could do them again, though more slowly and with more difficulty, without those other reservoirs of musical power, drawing power, and historical power to draw from. She had borrowed by that time a little of these various odyllic requisites, and stored them up in her medium's organization for use when the other auxiliaries were absent. Mary Jane could not only effect in action what her friends could not manage to do at all, but she could discern accu- rately things far beyond the conscious knowledge of any one present, stating, for instance, always accurately the number of minutes before a given lady's carriage would arrive. "Our Mary Jane," says the author, "delights in accompanying the violin or the guitar in the fastest waltz, in playing cards and dominoes, and in making very smart answers to any remarks addressed to her, and when we are alone gives her opinion respecting persons and things in the most unreserved manner ; but as to her having at any time been the denizen of any other corporeal body than that which she now has [the medium's, we conclude], our evidences carry the most profound conviction to ohr mind of the contrary." And the author holds, as we know, that Mary Jane is an "intelligent vapour," 'generated from his wife's body, but the character of her iutelli- gence influenced by other persons in the room. "A medium," he says, "is a thinking being who holds conversation with another being which has been eliminated from her body, but which is totally dis- tinct from her body, as distinct as the child at the breast is from the mother, and exists, just as the child, on condition of the supply of nutriment being kept up ; and this being is composed of nothing else but the vapours which have emanated from the medium's body, and this being can tell the medium things which her own

faculties are unequal to." Mary Jane dies (pro tempers) when the medium sleeps ; is weak when the medium is hungry ; grows

stronger when the medium has eaten and had wine,—and,—we suppose from the instinct of self-preservation,—very much objects to the medium's going to bed, because that is temporary death for 'Mary Jane. Mary Jane also dislikes an eye upon her operations, indeed frequently stops when the guitar on which she plays is looked at,—which is due, it seems, not to feminine modesty, but, as the author thinks, to a magnetic ray which the eye sends forth counteractive of the odyllic emanation. The way the philosopher ex- plains Mary Jane's superiority in knowledge and perception to her parent. is by citing the old story about the boy who could not write his Latin exercises at all while he was awake, and who was seen by his schoolmaster to get out of bed and write beautiful Latin during his sleep. Mary Jane borrows so much from the

hidden unconscious part of the medium's mind,—the part beneath consciousness, where all our old memories are buried and whence

all our automatic vital powers are, according to this gentleman's theory, directed,—as to make quite a new creature of her, and then, as she consists of pure nerve-power, instead of mere awkward

senses, she is, of course, more rapid and delicate in her movements.

He further believes that the "intelligent vapour" consists largely of phosphorus. The brains of insane people, he says, are overcharged

with phosphorus, of idiots undercharged ; and a full charge, not overcharge, is needful to excite the activity of the life beneath consciousness. When the medium was ill with slight inflammation of the lungs (when phosphorus is deficient, since it is the medicine given to cure it) no manifestations could be got out of her. There was not sufficient phosphorus to nourish Mary Jane ; a Wet nurse or new medium would have produced, perhaps, a new creature, but not Mary Jane,—and she could not be brought up by hand. So she was suppressed till the lungs got well. Smothering Mary Jane is,

we suppose, scarcely infanticide. But if this gentleman's theory were to gain ground, quite a new branch of ethics would spring up towards these poor dependent creatures. Seances would become acts of benevolence, and refraining from seances a new kind of crime—

cruelty to Intelligent Vapours."

In the confusions, or, as Mr. Carlyle would call it, the manifold welter of vain lunacies in this loose and distracted world of ours, surely Mary Jane has reached the climax of absurdity and yet pathos. We can scarcely believe the book a mere fraud, in spite of its anonymousness, because there is so much mix- ture in it of personal character and real materialist dogmatism by this "Child at School." Mary Jane, referred in one place to the second lobe in the dual constitution of the brain, in another to the latent or unconscious life which is spontaneous and automatic but beyond our control, and always regarded as an "intelligent vapour," is surely the euthanasia of the materialistic spiritualism. Mary Jane, in fact, differs only from the medium herself, in our author's view,

in being more temporary. " Our Mary Jane " is a secondary intelli- gent vapour, which, happily phosphorescent, springs out from the

primary (the bodily medium) in order to paint secret pictures and play on the guitar, and which vanishes away so soon as the primary intelligent vapour subsides into the state called sleep ; and when she returns, she is no longer the same intelligent vapour as before, but a new one, destitute of personal identity. But the parent medium or primary intelligent vapour differs only from

the secondary by being rather longer before subsiding into the sleep called death ; and so the universe altogether is but a crowd of intelligent vapours, which in its totality of effluvium may, per- haps, deserve a divine name and personality—about as much as Mary Jane. Wild and distracted as the book is, it seems to us on that -very account to carry out the ideas of the materialistic spiritualism in a way which makes it the high-tide mark of one of the most striking sporadic tendencies of the day. These lunacies or frauds, or half-frauds-half-lunacies, are the discordant notes of an age which cannot trust in God and yet cannot tell how to do without Him,—that has begun with believing God an "Intelligent Vapour," and thence very wisely and legitimately concluded that we are all of us but fractions of an intelligent vapour, which" continueth but a little time, and then vanisheth away."