BOOKS.

MODERN SPIRITUALISM.*

THE modern history of spiritualism is a subject that both fascinates. and repels the mind.' It fascinates inasmuch as it presents the extraordinary spectacle of men facing, as they believe, supernatural yet material facts. Such a spectacle has in it dramatic possibilities that have ever been seized with avidity and set forth by the great poets of the world. But it as inevitably and finally repels the mind, for it discloses that terrible abyss of credulity on the edge of which all men walk, and into which the large majority of mankind are sooner or later hurled. It is a condition of every man's existence, if he is to realise the possibilities of his life, that he should walk by faith; but the pathway is narrow and difficult, and on one side is the precipice of false belief, and on the other the boggy, pathless country of no belief at all. It is clear, tberrifore, that the wise man will spare no effort that will help to define his path, that will enable him to avoid the dangers which beset it. The history of credulity will

prove, if studied dispassionately, a lamp unto his feet. It is to be read on every side and in the records of every trade, occupation, calling, and profession. The capacity of man for self-deception is only equalled by his receptivity for the germs of outward deception. Perhaps the most convincing proof of this can be found in the annals of spiritualism, and Mr. Frank Podmore has done a real service to the world in the production of these two laborious volumes, which relate in valuable and authenticated detail the history of modern spiritualism, and expose with judicial force the claims of the "medium" and the machinery of his imposture. The object of Mr. Podmore's work is well set out in the first paragraph of the introduction :—

" The system of beliefs," he tells us, "known as Modern Spiritualism—a system which in one aspect is a religious faith, in another claims to represent a new department of natural science—is based on the interpretation of certain obscure facts as indicating the agency of the spirits of dead men and women. The primary aim of the present work is to provide the necessary data for determining how far, if at all, that interpretation of the facts is justified. But the question, Is the belief justified ? cannot, as the whole history of mysticism stand F, to prove, be finally answered until we are pre- pared with a more or less adequate answer to two subsidiary questions : first, If not justified, what is the true interpretation of the facts ? and, second, How can the origin and persistence of the false inter oretation be explained?"

Mr. Podmore is not a believer in the spiritualist position. He is personally convinced, as indeed almost any reader of his book must be convinced, that the spirits of the dead have no relation to the obscure phenomena to which he refers, phenomena that have as yet survived, unexplained, the attack of every form of ev i den tiary analysis. When every possibility of fraud and self-deception has been removed, there still appears to remain a residue of unexplained phenomena, and the one valuable aspect of the sad story of spiritualism during the last half - century is that it has at last presented 1 for solution certain problems which science can no longer wave aside. There is, perhaps, nothing surprising .in the • Modsmi Spiritualism: a History and a Criticism. By Frank rOdM0111. 2 vols. London ; Methuen and Co. [21o. not.] fact that many distinguished scientific men have refused to grant an opportunity of examination to the phenomena which seem to underlie the cult of spiritualism. The atmosphere of fraud and mysticism which surrounded and surrounds the whole subject had and has the unfortunate, though perhaps not unnatural, effect of making men of science forget that the primary duty of science is investigation, however unpromising, and that dogmatic assertion of disbelief is generally offensive and always unscientific. The necessity for an open mind in respect to so-called spiritualistic phenomena is now largely recognised, and certain remarkable manifestations during the last ten years have received careful consideration from men as eminent as Sir Oliver Lodge, the late Mr. F. W. H. Myers, Dr. Hodgson, Professor William James, of Harvard, Professor Charles Richet, of Paris, Sir W. Crookes, and Dr. A. R. Wallace. That such mani- festations involve any communication with the souls of the dead we cannot on the evidence believe, but we do believe that the investigation of the phenomena may open the gate into new and vast fields of knowledge. History tells us that the scientific period in the investigation of any particular subject has always been preceded by a pseudo-scientific period. The mysticism of numbers preceded the theory of numbers, the mysticism of geometry preceded the science of geometry, astrology lay behind astronomy, custom in all its grotesque and often abhorrent forms lay behind law, religions ,crude, cruel, and foolish lay behind Christianity, and it does no violence to the imagination to suppose that spiritualism lies behind a new and beneficent psychology.

Indeed, the whole development of spiritualism, as traced by the careful, judicial, and scrupulously fair methods that Mr. Podmore employs throughout his authoritative volumes, is one which supports this hypothesis. The phenomena, we find, have occurred sporadically in many modern places and times. The Ursuline Nuns of Loudun were " possessed " as early as 1632-34; Dr. Dee in the same age divined many things through a crystal ; men spoke with " tongues " round the tomb of the Jansenist Deacon Paris in 1730, and a century later the followers of Edward Irving did the same. These -various people possessed all the symptoms of spiritual inter- ference. The first spiritualist in our modern sense of the word was, however, Emanuel Swedenborg. He believed in the inter- course between the dead and the living, and his writings have in- spired innumerable mediums. Witchcraft possibly to some ex- tent laid the ground for certain modern aspects of spiritualism. Witches were closely related to Poltergeists, and it must be remembered that the Poltergeist plays a most important part in the history of spiritualism. The Poltergeist is supposed to be a spirit that causes "mysterious knocks and rappings, accompanied by throwing of stones, ringing of bells, breaking -of crockery, and other more violent disturbances." It will be remembered that Mr. Samuel Wesley's parsonage of Epworth was disturbed in this way. Mr. Podmore in his careful investigation of this class of phenomena proves to any reason- able mind that the manifestations are invariably the work of some tricky child, or young man or woman and that the work is carried out with a cleverness which is almost diabolical. It is probable in all these cases that the agent is, at first at any rate, in an abnormal mental condition. The witch and the Poltergeist, however, could never alone have developed a new form of faith. The doctrine of animal magnetism was needed. We get glimpses of the remarkable mental phenomena that -appeared under this name in the cures effected by Valentine Creatrakes in the middle of the seventeenth century. A hun- dred years after we find that Mesmer has developed a scientific theory for the cure of disease by means of a new physical force which he called animal magnetism. In 1782 a Com- mission appointed by the French Government declared that the alleged magnetic fluid could not be perceived by the senses, nor could its existence be inferred from any effects produced by Mesmer's treatment. One member of the Commission, how- ever, suggested that the effects should be explained. He con- sidered that the effects showed that there was at any rate some human element in the case. But he thought that this element was an organic emanation from the operator, while

r.t is, in fact, almost certainly merely suggestion. The Importance of mesmerism in the history of modern spiritualism chiefly arises from the fact that it created conditions and exhibited phenomena which appear the least

explicable of the spiritualist demonstrations. Mesmerism in France rapidly came into touch with spiritualism, and persons in the mesmeric trance were supposed to be under the influence of the dead; and this influence was supplemented by physical phenomena clearly related to the workings of the Poltergeist.

In Germany the history of animal magnetism shows how the pseudo-scientific theory in that country was absorbed by the spiritualists, though there were also investigators who endeavoured to preserve a purely scientific attitude. The Poltergeist also makes his presence felt. In England, on the other hand, the scientific aspects of mesmerism, especially its medical aspect, were studied with some care, and Braid arrived independently at the same result that Bertrand in 1828, twenty years before, had announced,—namely, that the whole of the mesmeric phenomena are 'explicable as due to the subject's imagination, acting on slight hints unconsciously furnished by the experimenters." But while the genuineness of mesmerism and its allied phenomena can no longer be doubted, Mr. Podmore seems to us clearly to demonstrate the fraudulent character of practically all clairvoyance. Some extraordinary eases may be due to " hypersesthesia of the senses of touch, hearing, or sight, conditioned by the somnam- bull° state " ; but certainly disembodied spirits are far enough away.

The history of spiritualism in the United States forms the most astounding reading. Mr. Andrew Jackson Davis and his school represented the weirdest mixture of spiritualistic, philosophic, Socialistic, and religious impulses that the world has ever known. Despite, or because of, the fact that their ideas "were elusive beyond the tolerated usage of philosophers," the spiritualistic mania developed and spread through the States with the rapidity of cholera. In America fifty years ago every man thought for himself ; there was no intellectual centre, and there was no check on extravagant thought. The result was an epidemic of hysteria and fraud that swept the country and crossed the Atlantic. Both in England and America men and women of high intelligence were convinced of the reality of physical phenomena produced for the most part by clever conjuring, but undoubtedly supplemented in certain cases by mesmeric suggestion. The astounding credulity of the public undoubtedly did much to foster fraud :—

" There's no one doubts you, Sludge ! You dream the dreams, you see the spiritual sights, The speeches come in your head, beyond dispute. Still, for the sceptic's sake, to stop all mouths, We want some outward manifestation !—Well, The Pennsylvanians gained such ; why not Sludge ? Ho may improve with time !"

Could Sludge or Slade, or, indeed, any one, neglect this daily

entreaty ?— " Sludge begins

At your intreaty with your dearest dead, The little voice set lisping once again,

The tiny hand made feel for yours once more."

So the dupes, as ever of old, evolved the rogues, and were at least half responsible for the heartrending mockery that made the dead tap out old news for new.

Yet underneath all the fraud and blasphemy there appears to be, as we have said, a residual something that has as yet evaded all tests, something which certain very distinguished men are half prepared to believe is a cry from the Hinterland of life. It may be so, though the evidence does not convince us, and will never convince us until we know that the imperfect human element of observation is eliminated, as Mr. Podmore suggests, from the recording of phenomena. "The extra- ordinary ineffectiveness of the untrained senses in detective work of the kind required" (Vol. II., p. 196) is a point rarely realised even by scientific minds. Where a fact to be established is contrary to all experience it must be estab- lished under conditions that exclude the possibility of fraud. These conditions do not exist where the eye, the hand, or the ear are recording instruments. For our own part, we could much more readily conceive that the unexplained phenomena are due to a species of subconscious wireless telegraphy between individuals than that the souls of the departed should inter- vene in the trivialities of life. But, after all, an open mind is the only honest, indeed the only wise, attitude in an age of

miracles.

Meantime, the world must acknowledge in Mr. Podmore an investigator and critic of rare power. He is thorough, he is precise, and yet he can keep an even mind and not be led away by scorn for and indignation at the squalid and the foolish into a position of injustice or of blindness. May we venture to hope that he will now apply his clear and just analysis to the recorded phenomena in regard to wraiths, ghosts, and the other so-called supernatural appearances, which were necessarily excluded from the scope of his present book ? He could not fail to throw light on the subject by means of his honest and unprejudiced system of investigation.