We see what brilliantly colored creations tradition and fiction have woven about the magic mirror. It is now the duty of science to cull from these shining husks, by sober investigation, the kernels of truth; and that, it will be seen, can be done only by experiment. Unfortunately I myself am unable to report any successful experiments; for, despite repeated attempts, I have been unsuccessful in obtaining any images whatever from mirrors, or crystals, or reflecting surfaces of any kind. Similarly several members of the Berlin Society of Experimental Psychology have only had exclusively negative results to recount. But on the other hand, a member of the English Society for Psychical Research has been enabled to report a great number of pertinent observations. And although to my regret I am not permitted to publish the name of the lady[29] in question, yet every doubt as to the truth of her utterances is excluded, and the material she has furnished forms a valuable enrichment of psychological literature. I shall, accordingly, collect from the communications of this lady, who is a friend of Professor and Mrs. Henry Sidgwick, several cases which appear to me especially adapted to throw light upon the nature of the strange phenomena we are examining.
[29] I afterwards received permission to publish her name: it is Miss A. Goodrich of London.
The lady made more than seventy experiments of her own, of which—a fact of the greatest value for passing upon their exactness—she always made notes at once, or at the most never more than an hour afterwards. She employed various means for the production of the hallucinations. At first she used the colored balls that are hung upon Christmas trees, or the back of a gold watch; but it turned out that both these objects tried the eyes by their strong brilliancy and grotesquely distorted the visions that were evoked. A glass filled with water proved to be inconvenient to handle, especially in the dark; while mirrors also possessed many disturbing peculiarities. A magnifying glass set on a dark background proved to be very effective, especially by daylight; as did also a black-framed photograph placed upon the wall of the room opposite the light. The gaze and the attention, however, were best concentrated upon a well-polished rock-crystal. The method of procedure—since happily all the appurtenances of mysticism were discarded—was very simple. The lady draped the crystal in black, placed it where none of the surrounding objects could be reflected in it, and waited for whatever might happen.
What occurred? The simplest instance is perhaps No. 7, which we here introduce:
"I find in the Crystal a bit of dark wall, covered with white jessamine, and I ask myself, 'Where have I walked to-day?' I have no recollection of such a sight, not a common one in the London streets, but to-morrow I will repeat my walk of this morning, with a careful regard for creeper-covered walls. To-morrow solves the mystery. I find the very spot, and the sight brings with it the further recollection that at the moment we passed this spot I was engaged in absorbing conversation with my companion, and my voluntary attention was preoccupied."
This is a very simple case. A visual image, recently yet unconsciously received, springs up from the subterranean strata of the soul into which it had sunk. No. 68 affords a similar instance:
"I had carelessly destroyed a letter without preserving the address of my correspondent. I knew the county, and searching in a map, recognised the name of the town, one unfamiliar to me, but which I was sure I should know when I saw it. But I had no clue to the name of the house or street, till at last it struck me to test the value of the crystal as a means of recalling forgotten knowledge. A very short inspection supplied me with 'Hibbs House' in grey letters on a white ground, and having nothing better to suggest from any other source, I risked posting my letter to the address so strangely supplied.
"A day or two brought me an answer, headed 'Hibbs House' in grey letters on a white ground."
Tricks of the memory like these appear still more strange when they are due merely to an indirect excitation. It may happen that one is suddenly reminded of a friend who is long since dead, by the accidental sight of his favorite dish. No direct excitation is here presented, but the image of the friend remembered is indirectly revived through a certain concatenation of ideas. This we find in the eleventh experiment:
"One of my earliest experiences was of a picture, perplexing and wholly unexpected—a quaint oak chair, an old hand, a worn black coat-sleeve resting on the arm of the chair,—slowly recognised as a recollection of a room in a country vicarage, which I had not entered and but seldom recalled since I was a child of ten. But whence came this vision, what association has conjured up this picture? What have I done to-day?… At length the clue is found. I have to-day been reading Dante, first enjoyed with the help of our dear old vicar many a year ago."