(d) Luminous phenomena are easily simulated; phosphorescent oil and certain sulphides give excellent imitations of hands and forms. I have seen a photograph taken by magnesian light in a seance for materialisation. The medium, by way of imitating a materialised garment of some kind, had wound a white cloth around his neck, and moreover wore a false beard. Those present at this seance will not admit they were cheated. One of the sitters, a friend of mine, one familiar with psychical matters, but too honest himself to suspect fraud in others, did not think my judgment in this case was correct. It was necessary to have it confirmed by the celebrated Papus!
As for the phenomenon of attouchements, this is of all phenomena the most easily simulated in obscurity.
Every one knows the rôle played by dolls, disguises and confederates in seances for materialisation. The trickster’s imagination is of inconceivable fertility. The recent Rothe trial gives us a fresh example of this.
(e) Motor and sensory automatisms can be imitated with extreme facility, and their efficacious control is impossible. A careful analysis of the messages is necessary in order to appreciate their value. On the other hand, well-observed premonitions are of immense importance.
From the preceding, we see that all psychical phenomena can be simulated; this does not mean that every psychical phenomenon is simulated. Those who wish to explain away everything by fraud make as great a mistake, as those who trustingly accept everything without control.
There is an important general observation to be made concerning the phenomena I am treating in this book. It is of historical order, but nevertheless it gives a much wider signification to these facts than is usually accorded them. Many writers, Janet among them, imagine that spiritistic phenomena, as they call them, date from the celebrated events of Rochester, about the year 1847, where the Fox sisters were the objects of diverse manifestations. But in reality these facts date much further back. One of the best observed cases is the one spoken of by Dr. Kerner in his book Die Seherin von Prevorst, which has been translated by Dr. Dusart into French, probably from Mrs. Crowe’s English translation. Kerner observed raps and movements without contact from the year 1827, when he had Madame Hauff staying in his house.
Phenomena of the same kind are to be met with in accounts of haunted houses. There are stories of this kind dating from remote epochs, and diverse decrees of parliament exist cancelling leases for this cause. These phenomena were criticised at the end of the eighteenth century.
It is only the metaphysical system founded upon these facts which is new. It is in that, and in that only, that spiritism or spiritualism consists. It is undeniable that the doctrine embodying the essence of these teachings has attained a considerable extension. I pointed out the radical differences existing between the beliefs of Anglo-Saxon spiritists and those of spiritists of other nationalities, particularly in that which concerns reincarnation. I will not go back to this; but in order to specify the point in question, I will recall to mind that the only new phenomena which spiritistic forms of contemporary mysticism offer, are their constitution into a body of religious doctrines and their rapid extension. These phenomena are of sociological, not biological order. The facts upon which they are based belong, on the contrary, to biology.
Further, it is not absolutely true to say, that the metaphysical theories established upon the revelations of spirits are new. The life of some of the ‘saints’ in the Roman Church offers us several examples, one of the most celebrated being the devotion to the Sacrè Cœur de Jésus,’ a special kind of worship based upon revelations claimed to have been accorded to a nun named Marie Alacoque, who lived in the eighteenth century. Monastic life has not the monopoly of such experiences. Commerce with spirits appears to be likewise one of the elements of the religious ceremonies of the Shakers; even the Mormons seem to indulge in practices similar to those of spiritism; Jérôme Cardan, John Dee, Martinez de Pasqually pass for having held intercourse with immaterial beings; members of the order of the Red Cross have also been looked upon as holding frequent intercourse with diverse genii. If we study the history of human thought, we see that nothing is really new, nothing save perhaps the contemporary extension of spiritism. From many points of view, spiritism appears to play a rôle in the civilised, sceptical, material society of to-day, analogous to the simple rôle which Christianity played in the second and third centuries of our era.
But this is a sociological problem; its examination, however interesting it may be, would lead me beyond the limits I have traced for myself. I will confine myself, therefore, to drawing from the brief historical account I have just given, the conclusion it admits of. The facts studied by Janet and others are anterior to spiritism, and cannot be legitimately designated by this name. I have already indicated that this word expresses an ensemble of metaphysical and religious doctrines explaining psychical phenomena by the intervention of spirits, and drawing their teachings from the revelations attributed to these same spirits. It is terminologically incorrect to designate these facts by a word which has a wider signification, since it expresses an explanatory hypothesis of these same facts.