There is no reason to suppose that the simulacrum of "Dr. Phinuit" is anything else than an impersonation assumed by Mrs. Piper's subconsciousness. Such impersonations are very common amongst "spirit mediums" everywhere, and in all forms of spontaneously induced trance.[135] Nor is "Dr. Phinuit" the only form assumed by Mrs. Piper's secondary consciousness. It frequently happened in the trance that "Dr. Phinuit" gave place to an impersonation, often recognised as life-like and characteristic, of some deceased relative of the sitter's, as in the case of "Uncle Jerry," mentioned below.[136] Probably in many cases the basis of these representations was supplied by unguarded remarks of the sitters themselves, or by skilful guesses on the part of "Phinuit," sometimes possibly eked out by telepathic drafts on the sitters' memories. As regards Mrs. Piper's conscious share in the matter, the persons who have observed her most closely, both in this country and in America, agree in believing that she is a woman of transparent simplicity, and with a marked absence of inquisitiveness or even ordinary interest in matters outside her domestic concerns, and that she is incapable, morally and intellectually, of carrying on a prolonged and systematic deception, and must by all impartial persons be fully acquitted of responsibility for "Dr. Phinuit's" proceedings. As is almost invariably the case with entranced persons, in the normal state she appears to know nothing of what goes on in the trance, and to share none of the information supernormally acquired by her secondary consciousness. As to whether "Dr. Phinuit" is equally ignorant of Mrs. Piper's thoughts and of knowledge acquired normally by her, it is impossible to speak with equal confidence. There can be little doubt either that he is, or that he wishes, for the sake of effect, to produce the impression that he is. But, as is not infrequently the case, the second personality is markedly inferior in its moral character to the normal consciousness. Its ruling motive in this case appears to be a prodigious vanity, which drives "Dr. Phinuit," when telepathy fails, into shuffling, equivocation, and all manner of contemptible devices for eliciting information, and passing it off as supernormally acquired. Like the Strong Man of the music-halls, to make good his bragging he is forced continually to eke out what is genuinely abnormal by artifices at once disingenuous and transparent.[137]
The following is a summary of the proceedings at two of the more successful sittings. Mrs. Piper was at the time staying in Liverpool, with Professor Lodge, who introduced to her on the morning of December 23rd, 1888, under the pseudonym of Dr. Jones,[138] a medical man practising in the city. Notes were taken throughout by Professor Lodge, who was himself ignorant of nearly all the details given. The conversation was practically a monologue, as Dr. C. himself remained almost entirely silent, assenting, "with a grunt, to wrong quite as much as to right statements." It will be observed that here, as throughout, "Dr. Phinuit" appears to gain his information in an auditory form.
No. 96.
Sitting No. 42. Monday morning, December 23rd.
Present: Dr. C. (introduced as Dr. Jones) and O. J. L.
[The following is an abstract of the correct, or subsequently corrected or otherwise noteworthy, statements.]
"You have a little lame girl, lame in the thigh, aged thirteen; either second or third. She's a little daisy. I do like her. Dark eyes, the gentlest of the lot; good deal of talent for music. She will be a brilliant woman; don't forget it. She has more sympathy, more mind, more—quite a little daisy. She's got a mark, a curious little mark, when you look closely, over eye, a scar through forehead over left eye. The boy's erratic; a little thing, but a little devil. Pretty good when you know him. He'll make an architect likely. Let him go to school. His mother's too nervous. It will do him good. [This was a subject in dispute.] You have a boy and two girls and a baby; four in the body. It's the little lame one I care for. There are two mothers connected with you, one named Mary. Your aunt passed out with cancer. You have indigestion, and take hot water for it. You have had a bad experience. You nearly slipped out once on the water." [Dangerous yacht accident last summer. Above statements are correct except the lameness. See next sitting.]
Sitting No. 43. Monday evening, December 23rd.
Present: Dr. and Mrs. C. and O. J. L. [Statements correct when not otherwise noted.]
"How's little Daisy? She will get over her cold. But there's something the matter with her head. There's somebody round you lame and somebody hard of hearing. That little girl has got music in her. This lady is fidgety. There are four of you, four going to stop with you, one gone out of the body. One got irons on his foot. Mrs. Allen, in her surroundings, is the one with iron on leg. [Allen was maiden name of mother of lame one.] There's about 400 of your family. There's Kate; you call her Kitty. She's the one that's kind of a crank. Trustworthy, but cranky. She will fly off and get married, she will. Thinks she knows everything, she does. [This is the nurse-girl, Kitty, about whom they seem to have a joke that she is a walking compendium of information.] (An envelope with letters written inside, N—H—P—O—Q, was here handed in, and Phinuit wrote down B—J—R—O—I—S, not in the best of tempers.) A second cousin of your mother's drinks. The little dark-eyed one is Daisy. I like her. She can't hear very well. The lame one is a sister's child. [A cousin's child, the one née Allen, really.] The one that's deaf in her head is the one that's got the music in her. That's Daisy, and she's going to have the paints I told you of. [Fond of painting.] She's growing up to be a beautiful woman. She ought to have a paper ear. [An artificial drum had been contemplated.] You have an Aunt Eliza. There are three Maries, Mary the mother, Mary the mother, Mary the mother. [Grandmother, aunt, and granddaughter.] Three brothers and two sisters your lady has. Three in the body. There were eleven in your family, two passed out small. [Only know of nine.] Fred is going to pass out suddenly. He married a cousin. He writes. He has shining things. Lorgnettes. He is away. He's got a catchy trouble with heart and kidneys, and will pass out suddenly." [Not the least likely.]
Notes.—The most striking part of this sitting is the prominence given to Dr. C.'s favourite little daughter, Daisy, a child very intelligent and of a very sweet disposition, but quite deaf; although her training enables her to go to school and receive ordinary lessons with other children. At the first sitting she is supposed erroneously to be lame, but at the second sitting this is corrected and explained, and all said about her is practically correct, including the cold she then had. Mrs. Piper had had no opportunity whatever of knowing or hearing of the C. children by ordinary social means. We barely know them ourselves. Phinuit grasped the child's name gradually, using it at first as a mere description. I did not know it myself.
The following is a summary of the false assertions:—
ERRONEOUS STATEMENTS.
At Sitting 42:—
"Your lady's Fanny; well, there is a Fanny. [No.] Fred has light hair, brownish moustache, prominent nose. [No.] Your thesis was some special thing. I should say about lungs." [No.]
At Sitting 43:—
"Your mother's name was Elizabeth. [No.] Her father's lame. [No.] Of your children there's Eddie and Willie and Fannie or Annie and a sister that faints, and Willie and Katie (no, Katie don't count) [being the nurse], and Harry and the little dark-eyed one, Daisy. [All wrong except Daisy.] One passed out with sore throat. [No.] The boy looks about 8. [No, 4.] Your wife's father had something wrong with leg; one named William. [No.] Your grandmother had a sister who married a Howe—Henry Howe. [Unknown.] There's a Thomson connected with you [no], and if you look you will find a Howe too. Your brother the captain [correct], with a lovely wife, who has brown hair [correct], has had trouble in head [no], and has two girls and a boy." [No, three girls.]
In this case it will be seen that no details were given which could not have been derived from the conscious knowledge of the sitter. Apart from the fact that the agent made no effort to impress his thought, it resembles a case of ordinary telepathy. Of much the same character are the following details, quoted from Professor James's account of his interviews with Mrs. Piper (Proc. S.P.R., vol. vi. pp. 658, 659):—
No. 97.—From Professor W. JAMES.
"The most convincing things said about my own immediate household were either very intimate or very trivial. Unfortunately the former things cannot well be published. Of the trivial things, I have forgotten the greater number, but the following, raræ nantes, may serve as samples of their class: She said that we had lost recently a rug, and I a waistcoat. [She wrongly accused a person of stealing the rug, which was afterwards found in the house.] She told of my killing a grey-and-white cat, with ether, and described how it had 'spun round and round' before dying. She told how my New York aunt had written a letter to my wife, warning her against all mediums, and then went off on a most amusing criticism, full of traits vifs, of the excellent woman's character. [Of course no one but my wife and I knew the existence of the letter in question.] She was strong on the events in our nursery, and gave striking advice during our first visit to her about the way to deal with certain 'tantrums' of our second child, 'little Billy-boy,' as she called him, reproducing his nursery name. She told how the crib creaked at night, how a certain rocking-chair creaked mysteriously, how my wife had heard footsteps on the stairs, etc., etc. Insignificant as these things sound when read, the accumulation of a large number of them has an irresistible effect. And I repeat again what I said before, that taking everything that I know of Mrs. P. into account, the result is to make me feel as absolutely certain as I am of any personal fact in the world that she knows things in her trances which she cannot possibly have heard in her waking state, and that the definitive philosophy of her trances is yet to be found. The limitations of her trance-information, its discontinuity and fitfulness, and its apparent inability to develop beyond a certain point, although they end by rousing one's moral and human impatience with the phenomenon, yet are, from a scientific point of view, amongst its most interesting peculiarities, since where there are limits there are conditions, and the discovery of these is always the beginning of an explanation.
"This is all that I can tell you of Mrs. Piper. I wish it were more 'scientific.' But, valeat quantum! it is the best I can do."