6
I am obliged, for lack of space, to refer those who wish to form an opinion of their own on the “Piper-Hodgson” case to the text of the Proceedings. The case, at the same time, is far from being one of the most striking; it should rather be classed, were it not for the importance of the sitters concerned, among the minor successes of the Piper series. Hodgson, according to the invariable custom of the spirits, is, first of all, bent on making himself recognized; and the inevitable and tedious string of trifling reminiscences begins twenty times over again and fills page after page. As usual in such instances, the recollections common to both the questioner and the spirit who is supposed to reply are brought out in their most circumstantial, their most insignificant and also their most private details with astonishing eagerness, precision and vivacity. And observe that, for all these details, which he discloses with such extraordinary facility, the dead man speaking goes by preference, one would say, to the most hidden and forgotten treasures of the living listener’s memory. He spares him nothing; he harps on everything with childish satisfaction and apprehensive solicitude, not so much to persuade others as to prove to himself that he still exists. And the obstinacy of this poor invisible being, in striving to manifest himself through the hitherto uncrannied doors that separate us from our eternal destinies, is at once ridiculous and tragic:
“Do you remember, William, when we were in the country at So-and-so’s, that game we played with the children; do you remember my saying such-and-such a thing when I was in that room where there was such-and-such a chair or table?”
“Why, yes, Hodgson, I do remember now.”
“A good test, that?”
“First-rate, Hodgson!”
And so on, indefinitely. Sometimes, there is a more significant incident that seems to surpass the mere transmission of subliminal thought. They are talking, for instance, of a frustrated marriage which was always surrounded with great mystery, even to Hodgson’s most intimate friends:
“Do you remember a lady-doctor in New York, a member of our society?”
“No, but what about her?”
“Her husband’s name was Blair ... I think.”
“Do you mean Dr. Blair Thaw?”
“Oh, yes. Ask Mrs. Thaw if I did not at a dinner-party mention something about the lady. I may have done so.”
James writes to Mrs. Thaw, who declares that, as a matter of fact, fifteen years before, Hodgson had said to her that he had just proposed to a girl and been refused. Mrs. Thaw and Dr. Newbold were the only people in the world who knew the particulars.
But to come to the further sittings. Among other points discussed is the financial position of the American branch of the S.P.R., a position which, at the death of the secretary, or rather factotum, Hodgson, was anything but brilliant. And behold the somewhat strange spectacle of different members of the society debating its affairs with their defunct secretary. Shall they dissolve? Shall they amalgamate? Shall they send the materials collected, most of which are Hodgson’s, to England? They consult the dead man; he replies, gives good advice, seems fully aware of all the complications, all the difficulties. One day, in Hodgson’s life-time, when the society was found to be short of funds, an anonymous donor had sent the sum necessary to relieve it from embarrassment. Hodgson alive did not know who the donor was; Hodgson dead picks him out among those present, addresses him by name and thanks him publicly. On another occasion, Hodgson, like all the spirits, complains of the extreme difficulty which he finds in conveying his thought through the alien organism of the medium:
“I find now difficulties such as a blind man would experience in trying to find his hat,” he says.
But, when, after so much idle chatter, William James at last puts the essential questions that burn our lips—“Hodgson, what have you to tell us about the other life?”—the dead man becomes shifty and does nothing but seek evasions:
“It is not a vague fantasy but a reality,” he replies.
“But,” Mrs. William James insists, “do you live as we do, as men do?”
“What does she say?” asks the spirit, pretending not to understand.
“Do you live as men do?” repeats William James.
“Do you wear clothing and live in houses?” adds his wife.
“Oh yes, houses, but not clothing. No, that is absurd. Just wait a moment, I am going to get out.”
“You will come back again?”
“Yes.”
“He has got to go out and get his breath,” remarks another spirit, named Rector, suddenly intervening.
It has not been waste of time, perhaps, to reproduce the general features of one of these sittings which may be regarded as typical. I will add, in order to give an idea of the farthest point which it is possible to attain, the following instance of an experiment made by Sir Oliver Lodge and related by him. He handed Mrs. Piper, in her “trance,” a gold watch which had just been sent him by one of his uncles and which belonged to that uncle’s twin brother, who had died twenty years before. When the watch was in her possession, Mrs. Piper, or rather Phinuit, one of her familiar spirits, began to relate a host of details concerning the childhood of this twin brother, facts dating back for more than sixty-six years and of course unknown to Sir Oliver Lodge. Soon after, the surviving uncle, who lived in another town, wrote and confirmed the accuracy of most of these details, which he had quite forgotten and of which he was only now reminded by the medium’s revelations; while those which he could not recollect at all were subsequently declared to be in accordance with fact by a third uncle, an old sea-captain, who lived in Cornwall and who had not the least notion why such strange questions were put to him.
I quote this instance not because it has any exceptional or decisive value, but simply, I repeat, by way of an example; for, like the case connected with Mrs. Thaw, mentioned above, it marks pretty exactly the extreme points to which people have up to now, thanks to spirit agency, penetrated the mysteries of the unknown. It is well to add that cases in which the supposed limits of the most far-reaching telepathy are so manifestly exceeded are fairly uncommon.