When I commenced my investigations into spiritism, no desire for consolation attracted me to the study. For thirty years I had only lost one near relative, my father, and he had passed over nearly twelve years before, at a good old age. In this respect I have been unusually fortunate; but the most powerful incentive any man can have to delve into the occult was absent in my case. I wanted to know the truth. "If a man die, shall he live again?" - this was the problem to be solved.
Bulwer Lytton, the mystic and novelist, in his letter to the Dialectical Society's Committee, February 28, 1869, says with reference to physical phenomena: "In these constitutional idiosyncrasies, whether the phenomena exhibited through or by them be classed under the name of clairvoyance, spirit manifestation, or witchcraft, I have invariably found a marked comparative preponderance of the electric fluid; and the phenomena are more or less striking in proportion to the electricity of the atmosphere.
Hence the most notable exhibitions appear to have been obtained in the dry winter nights of New York". I had heard from Miss Bates of her personal experiences in New York and other parts of the States, and determined to go there in December 1904; I arrived on Christmas day, a Sunday. That evening I attended a materialisation sèance; Mr. de Witt Hough was the medium. The female figures were veiled, but one appeared at the opening of the cabinet, after some six or seven materialisation's had taken place, which was precisely the right height and figure or Iola, and have her earth name. I approached the cabinet; the figure advanced to meet me with outstretched hands; she was trembling excessively, and could utter only a few words. I saw her twice after that through Hough's mediumship, and communicated with her many times through psychics in New York and Boston. On one occasion she said "I did not know I was dead until I saw someone cut off a lock of my hair from behind my right ear." I was ignorant of this, as I was in the Indian Ocean when my relative died in Scotland; but on inquiry, I found the statement to be correct: after her death a lock of hair had been cut off from behind her right ear.
It is not easy for any man to recall the exact date when he came to a definite understanding with himself as to the certainty of a consciousness that a new proposition is, to him, a matter of belief; but I think I may say there was one evening during this visit to New York when I was able to say to myself: "Mistakes there may be; fraud there is, occasionally, no doubt, as in all other matters on earth; but I now know that this spiritism is worthy of careful investigation, as I have evidence that there is reality behind it.
It was on December 30, 1904, and the medium was a young woman called Dora Hahn. I am sorry to hear that she passed over six years ago, and that I shall not have the pleasure of meeting her again on this plane of consciousness. She had never seen or heard of me in her life. We sat down opposite to one another in the dark. She first described a form near me, and gave the earth name of Iola; then went into trance, and an Indian girl called "Lark" assumed control. Lark, accompanied by Iola, when went on a voyage for me; the particulars I shall describe in their proper place in another chapter. After about half-an-hour or so Lark departed, and the psychic came out of trance.
The lights were lit, and I produced a packet of fourteen cartes-des-visite from my pocket, laid it down on the table and retired sufficiently far away to avoid giving any suggestion by looking at the pictures. I said "Please pick out the portrait of Iola; you described her to me before you went into trance." She took some time over this; but while she was looking through the photographs she took up one and brought it to me with an air of perfect confidence, saying "Iola says this is your wife; and she tells me that, among these others, there is another one of your wife.
I will get it." She then returned to the table. I followed her back, and she handed out a second portrait of Mrs. Moore. Both were correct.
Remark the following particulars. These two portraits had been taken, one in 1865 and the other in 1871; the former was as a little girl in a short frock. When she was on earth Iola not only knew these pictures well, but she knew all the cartes in the pack except one, as she was closely associated as a young woman with my wife. I had no one in my mind at the time but Iola.
I have discussed this incident with many people, and tried to spoil it; it is wise to do this after an apparent manifestation by invisible intelligence's. But in this care everyone who attempted to give a normal explanation asserted something which is more incredible than the spiritual hypotheses. To me there is only one rational explanation: Iola was in the room, and impressed the psychic to pick out these two photographs and to present them to me as those of my wife. The portrait of Iola herself was not selected at first shot. Two were brought to me first; one of those was a near relative, and considered by the family to resemble her.
On this occasion I remained in America one month, and saw and heard quite enough to convince me that those whom I had thought of as dead were very much alive. I returned to England in a frame of mind ready to receive the truths of spiritualism if I could find them in any honest quarter. I now made a mistake. I endeavoured to persuade others that this spiritism was no vain delusion, but a hypothesis which had come to stay, and was not to be disregarded. I caused cards to be sent o my friends for our private sèances, and, after they took place, discussed the matter with them. The men and women selected were people of good social standing, and intellectually above the average. There were Fellows of the Royal Society, soldiers and sailors who had distinguished themselves in their profession, engineers, country squires, and others whose common sense and capacity were not to be disputed. I found they could not see as I did; could not hear as I heard.
Their minds were unprepared. Some were considerably impressed at the moment, but the next day thought themselves the victims of jugglery on the part of the medium or some confederate; they could not, and did not, suspect that the rooms were prepared, or that I and my friends in the circle were imposing upon them; but speaking generally their view was: "We are not experts in juggling, and we do not know what may be possible in that line; this is contrary to all human experience; we cannot believe it." I remember, especially, one electrical engineer and one lady who could see or hear hardly anything. They were both hostile to the subject, and their eyes and ears were open only to what their minds expected - which was nothing - or fraud.
Since that time I have become convinced that all propagandism is useless. It is the duty of those who have the privilege of being shown the effects of the higher and more delicate forces of nature to state in plain terms what they have seen; it is their duty to seek to make converts. No man can give to another the understanding to assimilate facts new to ordinary human experience.
Nor do I imagine that science will prove anything in either the mental or physical aspects of spiritism. Mortals know of only three dimensions. They may suspect that, outside their ken, there are beings operating in four or more, but all they see is the effect of these operations. The effects of gravity have been reduced to law; but, so far, nothing is known of gravity itself. When it comes to the passage of matter through matter, and others of the higher forces of spiritism that can only be witnessed under favourable mental and atmospheric conditions, it is difficult to see how science can prove anything. Every man and woman must search individually for the truth. If all who have the time to do this according to their opportunity, and communicate their experiences to their fellow men, a body of irresistible testimony will be collected upon which faith can be reasonably founded.
But to resume. By 1908 I had seen every phenomenon worth seeing in England. I had read every book worth reading on the subject of spiritism, and a good deal of trash, including The Confessions of a Medium, which bears internal evidence of being written by an anti-spiritualist, and which, though pure fiction, has been out forward as a true narrative. I knew that, owing to our unfortunate climate, it was useless to pursue my inquiries further in this country; and I resolved to return to America to complete my study in December 1908. This time I determined to go inland, where I was wholly unknown; and I spent two and a half months I Rochester, N.Y.; Toledo Ohio; Detroit, Michigan; and Chicago, Illinois.
The evidence I obtained in these cities convinced me that I had been in direct communication with Iola, and with many relatives and friends through her influence, by the mediumship of professional and non-professional psychics. The phenomena consisted of automatic mirror-writing, materialisation, direct writings, pictures precipitated by invisible intelligence's, and the direct voice. The correlation of the evidence through different psychics who did not know one another, and in some cases had not even heard of one another, was striking, an - to me - conclusive of the genuineness of each; I left the United States with an impression, not likely to be easily removed, that there was only one alternative to the spiritistic hypothesis - that of the continual presence of personating demons, able to read every thought of mortals, and to construct at will dramatic situations that answered every doubt and uncertainty in the mind of an investigator.
This is the Roman Catholic doctrine. I reject it, not only because of its intrinsic improbability, but on account of the consideration of many incidents of a strictly private nature than cannot be here related.
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