'One of the most interesting cases that I have ever encountered is the following, which I consider of remarkable psychological interest from various points of view.
During the early summer of 1911, a gentleman called upon me, stating that he knew a wonderful physical medium, of the same type as Palladino. He himself was a lawyer; his friend, the medium, was also a lawyer, and had "a scientific interest in these things," and in "having the remarkable manifestations which occurred in his presence solved," etc. For three years and a half, I was told, this case had been under private observation, and the manifestations had grown more and more numerous and bewildering as time went on. This, and much more of like nature, I heard by way of preliminary to the investigation of what appeared to be a very promising case.
An evening having been arranged, the two gentlemen called at my house, and, after a chat, the demonstrations were undertaken.
A broom was placed on the floor, and then, the medium kneeling over the object (or, rather, squatting on the ground), he placed his fingers on either side of the broom-handle, and then gradually took them away. As he did so the broom was seen to rise into the air. It remained suspended in space for a few seconds, then fell to the floor. The effect was most striking, while the phenomenon was of that simple order which one would naturally expect to discover in a simple undeveloped medium.
The first two or three experiments interested me immensely, I must confess. But I noted one particular thing about the movements of the medium, which was that every time he placed an object on the floor, he placed it very close to his knees; this caused me to look between his knees intently instead of at the object during the next few trials. The result was that I distinctly saw a fine black thread stretched from leg to leg, forming a loop, into which the various objects were slipped in the act of placing them on the floor. The rest was only a matter of balance.
In spite of the fact that I had discovered the modus operandi, I did not wish to act hastily, having been accused so often in the past of condemning too hastily upon discovering the fraud. Accordingly I asked the medium to meet me a few evenings later at the office of my friend, Dr. Gustave Sayer, and here we witnessed a second demonstration. It would be useless to repeat the details of this performance, which was simply a repetition of the first. Suffice it to say that not only was the medium seen using the loop of thread throughout, but this loop broke twice during the evening—once in the middle of the experiment—the thread being heard to break, and the object at once falling to the ground.
On the first occasion the medium made an excuse, retired upstairs, and evidently arranged the thread, for he came down again in a few minutes and proceeded to give us a further test. Upon the thread (audibly) breaking a second time, however, he said that he "did not think he could do any more for us that evening," and sat down, apparently exhausted.
It was the most flagrant and bare-faced swindle I ever came across, and in this Dr. Sayer agrees with me.
And yet here was a young lawyer practising these tricks, apparently for no motive, and constantly lying about them in a most astonishing manner; and this was a case from which much was to be hoped, apparently.'
This story hardly needs comment; but the writer's attitude towards another and more famous medium, Eusapia Palladino, is very different.
Until I read the book from which these passages are quoted I thought no one regarded this lady as anything but an exposed fraud; even Sir Oliver Lodge has written concerning her, 'my only regret is that I allowed myself to make a report, although only a private report, to the Society for Psychical Research, on the strength of a few exceptionally good sittings, instead of waiting until I had likewise experienced some of the bad or tricky sittings to which all the Continental observers had borne frequent witness.'[33]
Mr. Carrington says of this lady[34]:—
'In any event, it appears to me obvious that, even assuming that fraud was intended on this occasion, it proves nothing more than the fact that Eusapia will resort to clever trickery whenever the occasion is given her to do so—a fact which all students of her phenomena know full well already; and it does not in the least prove that the whole séance was fraudulent—which is what is implied in Professor Munsterberg's article. Every one knows well enough that scores of phenomena have been observed in the past which could not possibly have been accounted for, even assuming that the medium had both her feet free—a fact I have previously pointed out. The difference between Eusapia and the other mediums spoken of in this volume is this, that in their case they invariably fail whenever "test conditions" are imposed, whereas Eusapia generally succeeds; further, the whole tenor and setting of the séance, so to speak, is entirely different. Lastly, we have the unanimity of opinion amongst scientific men as to Eusapia's powers, whereas we have nothing of the sort in the case of any other medium. On the contrary, whenever they are investigated along these lines, they either fail altogether or are detected in fraud.'
This gentleman has reason for pride in his powers of observation, but his spiritualist complexes are so firmly enclosed in their logic-tight compartment that his own critical powers beat in vain against the door. It was unfortunate for the young lawyer, but at the same time inexplicable, that Mr. Carrington pitted his observations, made at two sittings only, against those of the people who had had the case under private observation for three and a half years. Surely this respectable young man deserved the laurels of mediumism as much as did Eusapia. What are two failures against three and a half years' manifestations that 'had grown more and more numerous and bewildering as time went on'? I am sure that, if Mr. Hereward Carrington had given his blessing, this young man might have become a famous medium instead of being blighted after his years of successful effort.
But Mr. Carrington cannot conceive an alternative between a bare-faced swindle and a spirit manifestation, and in this he is harsher than I. It is plain that this young lawyer had the respect of his friends and was believed to be honest, just like Mrs. Piper and Stainton Moses, and Mr. Carrington missed a chance of useful psychological investigation when he dismissed the case so curtly. The chance cannot be recalled, but a talk with this medium might have helped in the understanding of his distinctly disordered mind. I once had the chance of a frank talk with the accomplice of a professional medium, but, though he had some belief in the occult, he was so fully conscious of his roguery that I learned no more psychology than I have picked up from a three-card trickster. Anyhow, Mr. Carrington gives us an example of a medium in the making who we can only guess was a man whose disappointed ambitions and neurotic 'Will to Power' had led him astray.
I wonder how Mr. Carrington explains the failure of previous observers to detect the trickery? The man's apparent honesty of course helped, but the Herd Instinct was also at work and converts would be unlikely to criticise when a few reputable people had expressed their belief. Certain card-tricks are safer from detection by a large audience than by a small one. If three people are present and one thinks he detects the trick he may speak, for he is only in a minority of one to two; but if five out of fifteen detect it, each one, feeling he is in a minority of one to fourteen, is over-ruled by his sense of insignificance and remains silent accordingly. It is easier to sway a crowd than to persuade an individual.
Let me make it clear that I do not merely compare the medium with the hysteric, I regard them as identical except in those cases where the medium is a conscious deceiver. The attitude of the believers in the honesty of the medium is the same as that of the sympathising friends of the hysteric patient, and it is often as difficult and thankless a task to explain the patient's condition to his or her friends as it is to save the credulous from falling a prey to the fortune-teller. But such difference as there may be is in favour of the unfortunate hysteric, who is the victim of forces that are too powerful to be resisted without help and who often anxiously desires recovery.
I have seen in a man suffering from war-strain the spontaneous development of what would be accepted as clairvoyance; the identity of his performance with that of the medium is of great importance. The patient was in that condition of dissociation or partial hypnosis into which these men easily pass, and was apparently 'seeing' some of the horrors he had experienced. As a rule such revivals of war episodes can be relied upon as a true reproduction of actual events, but in this case there were inconsistencies in the story. For example, describing how Uhlans drove their lances into Belgian babies, he said: 'If I had my revolver I'd let them have it,' but gave no indication of what he, a British soldier, was doing unarmed and under such circumstances. Moreover, though the account was given with due emphasis, there was a lack of the emotion characteristic of the revival of actual horrors.