One thing it is necessary clearly to realise and admit, namely that in all cases when an object is moved by direct contact of an operator's body, whether the instrument be a pencil or a piece of wood, unconscious muscular guidance must be allowed for; and anything that comes through of a kind known to or suspected by the operator must be discounted. Sometimes, however, the message comes in an unexpected and for the moment puzzling form, and sometimes it conveys information unknown to him. It is by the content of the communication that its supernormal value must be estimated.
There are many obvious disadvantages about a Table Sitting, especially in the slowness of the communications and in the fact that the sitter has to do most of the talking; whereas when some personality is controlling a medium, the sitters need say very little.
But, as said above, there are some communicators who object to a control's presence, especially if they have anything private to say; and these often prefer the table because it seems to bring them more directly into contact with the sitter, without an intermediary. They seem to ignore the presence of the medium on our side, notwithstanding the fact that, at a table sitting, she is present in her own consciousness and is aware of what goes on; they appear to be satisfied with having dispensed with the medium on their side. Moreover, it is in some cases found that information can be conveyed in a briefer and more direct manner, not having to be wrapped up in roundabout phrases, that names can be given more easily, and direct questions answered better, through the table than through a control.
It must be remembered that under control every medium has some peculiarities. Mrs. Leonard, for instance, is a very straightforward and honest medium, but not a particularly strong one. Accordingly anything like conversation and free interchange of ideas is hardly possible, and direct questions seldom receive direct answers, when put to the communicator through Feda.
I have known mediums much more powerful in this respect, so that free conversation with one or two specially skilled communicators was quite possible, and interchange of ideas almost as easy as when the communicator was in the flesh. But instances of that kind are hardly to be expected among hard-worked professional mediums.
I shall not in this volume touch upon still more puzzling and still more directly and peculiarly physical phenomena, such as are spoken of as 'direct voice,' 'direct writing,' and 'materialisation.' In these strange and, from one point of view, more advanced occurrences, though lower in another sense, inert matter appears to be operated on without the direct intervention of physiological mechanism. And yet such mechanism must be in the neighbourhood. I am inclined to think that these weird phenomena, when established, will be found to shade off into those other methods that I have been speaking of, and that no complete theory of either can be given until more is known about both. This is one of the facts which causes me to be undogmatic about the certainty that all movements, even under contact, are initiated in the muscles. I only here hold up a warning against premature decision. The whole subject of psycho-physical interaction and activity requires attention in due time and place; but the ground is now more treacherous, the pitfalls more numerous, and the territory to many minds comparatively unattractive. Let it wait until long-range artillery has beaten down some of the entanglements, before organised forces are summoned to advance.
CHAPTER XV
ATTITUDE OF THE WISE AND PRUDENT
"The vagueness and confusion inevitable at the beginning of a novel line of research, [are] naturally distasteful to the savant accustomed to proceed by measurable increments of knowledge from experimental bases already assured. Such an one, if he reads this book, may feel as though he had been called away from an ordnance survey, conducted with a competent staff and familiar instruments, to plough slowly with inexperienced mariners through some strange ocean where beds of entangling seaweed cumber the trackless way. We accept the analogy; but we would remind him that even floating weeds of novel genera may foreshow a land unknown; and that it was not without ultimate gain to men that the straining keels of Columbus first pressed through the Sargasso Sea."—F. W. H. M., Introduction to Phantasms of the Living
IT is rather remarkable that the majority of learned men have closed their minds to what have seemed bare and simple facts to many people. Those who call themselves spiritualists have an easy and simple faith; they interpret their experiences in the most straightforward and unsophisticated manner, and some of them have shown unfortunately that they can be led into credulity and error, without much difficulty, by unscrupulous people. Nevertheless, that simple-hearted folk are most accessible to new facts seems to be rather accordant with history. Whenever, not by reasoning but by direct experience, knowledge has been enlarged, or when a revelation has come to the human race through the agency of higher powers, it is not the wise but the simple who are first to receive it. This cannot be used as an argument either way; the simple may be mistaken, and may too blithely interpret their sense-impressions in the most obvious manner; just as on the other hand the eyes of the learned may be closed to anything which appears disconnected from their previous knowledge. For after all it is inevitable that any really new order of things must be so disconnected; some little time must elapse before the weight of facts impel the learned in a new direction, and meanwhile the unlearned may be absorbing direct experience, and in their own fashion may be forging ahead. It is an example of the ancient paradox propounded in and about 1 Cor. i. 26; and no fault need be found with what is natural.
It behoves me to mention in particular the attitude of men of science, of whom I may say quorum pars parva fui; for in no way do I wish to dissociate myself from either such stricture or such praise as may be appropriate to men who have made a study of science their vocation,—not indeed the peaks of the race, but the general body. For it is safe to assume that we must have some qualities in common, and that these must be among the causes which have switched us on to a laborious and materially unremunerative road.