We have still to examine the claims of the automatic writers; but, after all this, the reader will not expect much. Never yet was a message received which could not have been learned by the medium in a normal way. The overwhelming mass of the messages which are delivered daily in every country are fraudulent. In an amusing recent work (The Road to En-Dor) two officers have shown us how easy it was to dupe even educated men by these professions of marvellous powers. The advantage is on the side of the conjurer every time, and the sitter has little chance. Let the mediums come before a competent tribunal. All sorts of inducements have been offered to them to do so, but they are very shy of competent investigators. In 1911 an advertisement in the Times offered £1,000 to any medium who would merely give proof of possessing telepathic power, and there was not a single offer. This year Mr. Joseph Rinn, a former member of the American Society for Psychical Research and a life-long inquirer, has deposited with that Society a sum of £1,000 for any evidence of communication with the dead under proper conditions. There will again be no application. Mediums prefer a simpler and more reverent audience, even if the fees be smaller. But those who consult them under their own conditions, knowing that fraud has been practised under those conditions from San Francisco to Petrograd ever since 1848, must not talk to us about "evidence."
FOOTNOTES:
[14] The chapter should be read in Truesdell's racy book, which is now unfortunately rare, Bottom Facts Concerning the Science of Spiritualism (1883), pp. 276-307.
[15] These experiments are recorded in his Experiments in Psychical Science (1919), pp. 134-35 and 170-89.
Chapter VIII AUTOMATIC WRITING
The Spiritualist—if any Spiritualist reader has persevered thus far—will be surprised to hear that many Rationalists censure me because I decline to admit that his movement is "all fraud." For heaven's sake, he will exclaim, let us hear something about our honesty for a change! Even the impartial outsider will possibly welcome such a change. How is it possible, he will ask, that so many distinguished men have given their names to the movement if it is all fraudulent?
Now let us have a word first on these supposed distinguished Spiritualists. During the debate with me Sir A. C. Doyle produced a tiny red book and told the audience that it contained "the names of 160 people of high distinction, many of them of great eminence, including over forty professors" (p. 19). He said expressly that "these 160 people ... have announced themselves as Spiritualists" (p. 20). The book was handed to me, and it will be understood that I could not very well read it and attend to my opponent's speech, to which I had to reply. But I saw at a glance several utterly destructive weaknesses. Several men were described as "professor" who had no right to the title. Several men were included who were certainly not Spiritualists (Richet, Ochorowicz, Schiaparelli, Flammarion, Maxwell, etc.). And in not one single case is a precise reference given for the words which are attributed to these men. My opponent regretted that chapter and verse were not "always" (this word is omitted from the printed Debate) quoted in his little book. As a matter of fact, "chapter and verse" (book and page) are never given, in any instance; and in the vast majority of the 160 cases not even words are quoted to justify the inclusion. He further said that he quite admitted that some of the "forty professors" in the book did not go so far as Spiritualists. But I have already quoted his words to the effect that they had "announced themselves as Spiritualists," and the same impression is undoubtedly conveyed by the book itself, the title of which is Who Are These Spiritualists?
I have the book before me, and any reader who cares to glance at the printed Debate and see what Sir A. C. Doyle said about it will be astonished when I describe it. The printed text gives 126 names, and 32 further names (many illegible) are written on the margins in Sir A. C. Doyle's hand. Only in 53 cases out of the 158 is any quotation given from the person named, and in not one of these cases are we told where the quotation may be verified. There are 27 (not 49, as Sir Arthur said) men described as "professors"; and of these several never were professors, and very few ever were Spiritualists. Sir A. C. Doyle has himself included Professor Morselli, who calls Spiritualism "childish and immoral." There are men included who died before Spiritualism was born, and there are twenty or thirty Agnostics included. Men like "Lord Dunraven, Lord Adare, and Alexander Wilder" are described, with the most amazing effrontery, as "some of the world's greatest authors." Padre Secchi, the pious Roman Catholic, is included. Thackeray, Sir E. Arnold, Professor de Morgan, Thiers, Lord Brougham, Forbes Winslow, Longfellow, Ruskin, Abraham Lincoln, and other distinguished sceptics are dragged in. For sloppy, slovenly, loose, and worthless work—and I have in twenty years of controversy had to handle a good deal—this little book would be hard to beat.