Here is another example from Mr. Varley's evidence (Report on Spiritualism):
"My sister-in-law had heart disease. Mrs. Varley and I went into the country to see her, as we feared, for the last time. I had a nightmare, and could not move a muscle. While in this state, I saw the spirit of my sister-in-law in the room. I knew that she was confined to her bed-room. She said, 'If you do not move, you will die,' but I could not move; and she said, 'If you submit yourself to me, I will frighten you, and you will then be able to move.' At first I objected, wishing to ascertain more about her spirit-presence. When at last I consented, my heart had ceased beating. I think at first her efforts to terrify me did not succeed; but when she suddenly exclaimed, 'O Cromwell! I am dying,' that frightened me exceedingly, and threw me out of the torpid state, and I awoke in the ordinary way. My shouting had aroused Mrs. Varley; we examined the door, and it was still locked and bolted, and I told my wife what had happened, having noted the hour—3:45 A.M.—and cautioned her not to mention the matter to anybody, and to hear what was her sister's version, if she alluded to the subject. In the morning, she told us that she had passed a dreadful night, that she had been in our room, and greatly troubled on my account; and that I had been nearly dying. It was between half-past three and four when she saw I was in danger. She only succeeded in rousing me by exclaiming, 'O Cromwell! I am dying.' I appeared to her to be in a state which otherwise would have ended fatally."
In considering the psychic-force hypothesis, I have been anxious to do justice to every slightest indication of such abnormal power in the speculations and experiences of Catholic writers. For this reason, I have spoken of projection, although I am not aware that any attempt has been made by the advocates of psychic force so to explain it. Whilst reiterating my belief that the mind has many mysterious powers capable of being brought into active operation by various influences, and that these are, in all probability, operative in several of the phenomena of spiritualism; granting, moreover, that it is hardly possible to define precisely the extent of the soul's co-operation in the production of these phenomena, I contend, notwithstanding, that the psychic-force hypothesis is the result of a non-natural and inadequate analysis of the phenomena of spiritualism. For, 1st, in the form in which it has been presented, it is indubitably obnoxious to the charge of being an expedient to escape a recognition of spiritual influence, which recognition, in a XIXth-century man of science, would be so very unsportsmanlike, to say the least of it. 2d. It wholly ignores the sense of personal dualism in spiritual experience, to which the history of spiritualism in all ages bears consistent witness. As the idealist would convince us that there is no external world distinct from the phenomena of sensation, so the advocate of psychic force would persuade spiritualists that they have been merely conversing with their own shadows, as with real beings who could hear and answer their questions, and have attributed to these, as independent agents, feats which they were themselves performing. 3d. So far as we have any indication of a thaumaturgic element in the mind, it manifests itself in the supreme efforts of the imagination, kindled by emotion, and abstracted and concentrated by expectation; whereas, in the mass of spiritualistic experiences, imagination in those concerned seems distinctly to fall short of its highest stages.
The third hypothesis remains for consideration; but, in order to do it justice, I shall have to enter at some length into the church notion of magic and direct diabolical interference; and this will form the subject of my second chapter.
FOOTNOTES:
[49] Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by Rev. I. T. Hecker, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.
[50] Scientific Scraps.
[51] Hist. of Rat., chap. i.
[52] Pref. to From Matter to Spirit.
[53] Lib. iv. dist. 34, art. 2.