M. Balmès, who returned to Geneva on the following Monday, and whom I saw the same evening, was very much struck with Hélène’s vision, for, on Sunday afternoon he really took part in a scene which came near being tragic, and in the course of which his friend X. had offered him a pistol which he always carried with him. Mlle. Smith and M. Balmès did not hesitate to see in this coincidence a highly characterized supernormal phenomenon. This case offers, however, some difficulty—viz., that the incident of the pistol at S. did not take place till more than two hours after Hélène’s visions, and that M. Balmès, as he affirms, had no premonition of the affair at the time when Hélène had her vision. It follows from this that there was a kind of anticipated telepathy, a premonition experienced by another than the interested principal, and this raises the great question of the supernormal knowledge of future events. I find it easier to admit that, although M. Balmès did not consciously foresee the incident of the pistol, he foresaw subconsciously the event, and that this idea passed telepathically to Hélène. Perhaps this case might be explained without having recourse to the supernormal at all. Mlle. Smith, knowing M. Balmès’ character, and up to a certain point his personal circumstances, having been present the evening before when M. Balmès received the telegram, and foreseeing (as she said at the seance), the gravity of the situation, could easily imagine the intervention of a fire-arm in the affair. Besides, no detail of the vision indicates that the pistol seen in the glass ball corresponds to that of M. X.
How far the delicate sense of probabilities can go, and how often spontaneous inferences, with people of a quick imagination, are correct, one never knows. Undoubtedly we often see a supernormal connection where there is, in reality, only a striking coincidence, due to a happy divination and prevision, which is very natural. I ought to add that this manner of evicting the supernormal and reducing the vision of the pistol to a mere creation of the subliminal fantasy, seems inadmissible to Hélène, who remains absolutely certain that this was a convincing case of telepathy.
The above example, 2, which is the best of all, in my opinion, is still not irreproachable.
IV. Lucidity
All the facts of lucidity (clairvoyance, second-sight, etc.) which are attributed to Mlle. Smith may be explained by telepathic impressions proceeding from living persons. This means that I not only admit from the start the possibility of such phenomena by virtue of the “Principle of Hamlet,” but, since telepathy is not, in my opinion, anything very strange, I shall feel no subjective difficulty in accepting the reality of Hélène’s supernormal intuitions, provided that they present some serious guarantee of authenticity, and do not explain themselves still more simply by normal and ordinary processes.
Leopold, who appears in almost all of these veridical messages—whether he recognizes himself as the author or whether he accompanies simply by his presence their manifestation through Hélène—has never deigned to grant me one under entirely satisfactory conditions, and he censures my insistence as vain and puerile curiosity. As to the innumerable phenomena with which others more fortunate than myself have been gratified, they have always offered this singularity: when they appeared to be really of a nature calculated to furnish a decisive and convincing proof as to their supernormal origin, I never succeeded in obtaining a written, precise, and circumstantial account, but only uncertain and incomplete tales, too intimate and too personal to be divulged by those interested in them; and, again, when my friends were quite willing to write out a detailed account and to answer to my demand for exact information, the fact reduced itself to such a small matter that it was beyond my power to see anything of the supernormal in it.
Taking everything into consideration, I am inclined to believe that Mlle. Smith, in truth, possesses real phenomena of clairvoyance, not, however, passing beyond the possible limits of telepathy; only, in order that they may be produced, it is necessary that Leopold—that is to say, the special psychic state of Hélène which is necessary for the reception and externalization of these telepathic impressions—be aided from the outside by the influence of certain favorable temperaments, more frequently met with among convinced spiritists than among persons who are normal, and that he be not impeded, on the other hand, by the paralyzing presence of hostile temperaments, such as that of a critical observer. It is greatly to be regretted that the naïve believers who inspire and succeed in obtaining magnificent phenomena of lucidity usually care so little for the desiderata of science, and, above all, refuse to submit themselves to an examination which might explain the phenomena in a natural manner; while the investigators in search of “convincing” proofs are not inspiring and obtain almost nothing.
However it may be, I shall give a few examples of Mlle. Smith’s proofs of lucidity, which are not very varied, and can be divided into the three categories of the medical prescriptions and diagnoses, of lost objects found again, and of retrocognitions of events more or less remote.
1. Medical Consultations.—In promising specimens of extraordinary facts of this kind I have gone too far. Many such have been told me—as, for instance, Leopold dictating an unknown and complicated recipe of a hair tonic for a gentleman living abroad, a single bottle of which was sufficient to bring forth a full growth of hair on a head which had become bald before middle age; or, again, Leopold, being consulted about the health of a lady living at a great distance from Geneva, revealing both the veridical nature of her illness, which was unknown till then to her physicians, and its origin, which was due to certain unsuspected but perfectly true incidents connected with her childhood, and, finally, the treatment, which was crowned with success. But the absence of written testimony and precise information as to the concomitant circumstances of these marvellous cures reduce them to the rank of amusing stories, the value of which cannot positively be estimated. As to better-attested episodes, it is true I have been able to obtain authentic stories, but they are those in which the probability of a supernormal element has been reduced to a minimum—imperceptible to me. I will cite but one case.
M. and Mme. G. having invited Mlle. Smith during the month of August to pass a day with them in the country, a few leagues distant from Geneva, took advantage of the visit to hold a seance in order to consult Leopold on the health of one of their children. I will tell the incident from a written account sent me by Mme. G. soon afterwards: