PSYCHIC PHENOMENA.
[TO THH EDITOR OF TECH "SPROTATOR.1
thank you for your expressed desire that Science should investigate the substantial truths that lie at the foundation of much that has been perverted to illusion and delusion. After examination for some years of the phenomena called "spiritual," conducted, not with professional mediums, who are too often un- reliable, but with many friends in private life who are possessed of this psychic power, I have arrived at the conclusion so well stated in Mr. Hutton's letter to the Times,—that there is conclusive ,evidence of the existence of a force proceeding from the human organisation in certain abnormal conditions by which action can be produced in solid bodies without muscular contact ; and that this force is [?may be] directed by the cerebral, though often unconscious, action of the medium. I have ventured to give to this agent the name, by which it is now popularly known of -"psychic force."
I have found no proof that spirits of the dead are in any way concerned in these phenomena. On the contrary, the more I have explored, the more untenable does that solution appear. All the supposed communications manifestly proceed from the mind of the medium, or from that of one or more of the persons in connection with him at the moment.
What the force is, and how it operates, are problems at present wrapt in obscurity, probably because science has not yet given the same attention to the facts and phenomena of mental phy- siology and psychology as to physics, although they are surely not of less interest or importance. The unfortunate term " spiritualism " doubtless stands in the way of such an inquiry, because it expresses a foregone conclusion. The term " medium " is equally objectionable, as implying a function that is not yet proved to exist.
Therefore it is that I have ventured to suggest to science that
it should set itself seriously to investigate the nature and powers of that psychic force which is exhibited by certain persons of a peculiar nerve-organisation who should be called "psychics," and the science itself should be termed " psychism."
But three solutions of the phenomena (if found to be true) are possible. (1.) That they are doings of spirits of the dead, as held by the spiritualists. (2.) That they are the product of a psychic force proceeding from the human mechanism, and causing motion at a distance, as suggested by Mr. Hutton, in which my own pro- tracted experiments entirely confirm him. (3.) That they are the acts of a race of beings, our inferiors in intelligence, in- habiting this earth with us, but who, being of non-molecular structure, are imperceptible to us save under some rare con- ditions,—a theory maintained by a sect of seceders from spiritualism.
Of these, the first appears to be conclusively disproved by the facts. The third is at least improbable. The second, or psychic-force theory, remains. It is, at least, rational and probable, and in no manner conflicting with science, other than in its disproof of the doctrine of materialism. Strange as motion at a distance without contact with molecular substance may appear at the first suggestion of it, a moment's reflection will show it to be a familiar fact. We wit- ness it daily with the magnet, which moves solid bodies at a distance without any perceptible connection. After centuries of investigation, science has failed to find by what medium the steel is thus pulled in direct opposition to the law of gravity. The motions of solid bodies produced by psychic force are not more inexplicable than those of the magnetic force, only they have re- ceived less attention. There is no a priori improbability that soul, or mind, or brain (whichsoever be the true source) should exercise a force, as does the magnet, without perceptible contact. We know the enormous physical power of the vital force. But life is one only of the three forces that move and direct the mechanism of man. May it not well be that the other forces also, namely, mind and soul, can exhibit themselves beyond the boundary of the molecular structure? This is the investigation to which I understand you to desire the aid of science, and I hope it will be given.—I am, Sir, &c., EDWARD W. Cox, S.L.,
President of the Psychological Society of Great Britain. 1 Essex Court, Temple, October 31.
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