Adventurings in the Psychical

by H. Addington Bruce

“On another occasion, sitting in a bedroom in the dark, with only E. D. in the room, Mrs. B. was struck by a stone on the temple, heard objects thrown about the room, felt an arm put through hers, and so on. Some of these phenomena occurred when she was alone in the room—but with the door, I gathered, not shut.

“Mrs. B. one morning placed a white chrysanthemum bouquet on the boughs of the oak tree. It disappeared shortly afterward, and on the next morning two other small bouquets were found there. Mrs. B. asked for whom these were intended, and went away, leaving pencil and paper. On her return she found the paper torn in half, and the initials of her own Christian name, and that of C. D., written on the two halves respectively, with a bouquet on each half.

“About this time a secret chamber was discovered with the skeleton of a cat crouching in act to spring, and the skeleton of a woman. Asked more particularly about the latter, Mrs. B. said: ‘Well, at least a skull and some bones—but it was a woman’s skull.’

“A few days after receiving this account, I went down by invitation to the house. I saw Mrs. D. and her two children, and received from them ungrudging corroboration of Mrs. B.’s marvelous story. In E. D.’s company I penetrated the secret chamber, and found there the mummified skeleton of what might have been a cat—but nothing else. In removing the stains left by this exploit, I contrived a tête-à-tête interview with E. D., and asked him: ‘How much did you do of all these things?’ He replied: ‘Oh, not much. I only did a few little things.’

“Pressed on particular points, he admitted having thrown one stone at the garden roller, and having also thrown a trouser button against the wall when sitting alone in the bedroom with Mrs. B. He denied having produced the other phenomena on those occasions. Asked as to the bouquets, he said he had not placed them on the tree. Pressed a little more, he said: ‘If I did it, it must have been without knowing it.’ This without any suggestion from me as to possible somnambulism, or unconscious action. He assured me that his sister had had no hand in this matter. I could not get any more out of him, as he was shortly after called away.

“I subsequently learned from his mother that E. D. was so nervous and delicate that he slept in her room at night; that he was not allowed to do much mental work; that he was subject to attacks of somnambulism; and had, indeed, fallen into a semiconscious state only a few days before, during a lesson in carpentry.”

Probably the whole affair originated in a moment of mischief, and was carried on and elaborated because of an uncontrollable, and perhaps not entirely conscious, desire on the part of the abnormally conditioned lad to mystify the too easily imposed upon elderly lady.

In point of fact, the investigations of the Society for Psychical Research make it certain that in nine cases out of ten a poltergeist is a by-product of hysteria, using the term in its strictest medical sense. As is well known, one of the distinctive symptoms of hysteria is a tendency to indulge in all manner of lies and deceptions, coupled often with almost diabolical cleverness in giving these lies and deceptions a color of reality. Impulse to such trickery may arise from a great variety of motives; frequently, it would seem, from nothing more than an abnormal craving for notoriety and admiration. Certainly, the hysterical young people run to earth by the poltergeist hunters of the Society for Psychical Research did not engage in their hoaxings because they expected to make money out of them.

The bearing of all this on the physical phenomena of spiritism is surely self-evident. It shows, for one thing, that the money motive is not the only motive inciting mediums to fraud; that when a neurotic or hysterical condition is present, the best of characters is no guarantee against duplicity; and that under such circumstances the detection of fraud is exceedingly difficult, particularly in the case of witnesses predisposed to regard the phenomena as genuine. If hysterical children can, as they have often done, carry on a course of deception mystifying a whole community, it is manifest that mediums of similar hysterical tendencies, working under cover of darkness or in a dim light, can more or less readily deceive the most expert observers; and, moreover, that they may be only partially, if at all, conscious of their own frauds.[31]

Further, in estimating the nature of the phenomena produced at the séances of physical mediums, it is imperative to take into account the innumerable possibilities of mal-observation on the part of the spectators. Experience has shown that comparatively few people, no matter how honest, are trustworthy witnesses even when conditions for observation are of the best.