We now come to a third group of experiments in which an entirely new element enters into play. Whereas hitherto we have seen things revealed in the magic mirror which were demonstrably or presumably already present in the brain of the operator, or, where this was not the case, in any event possessed no external significance, we now hear of experiments in which unknown events are said to have been presented. I should take no notice whatever of this class of reports regarding clairvoyance in space and time, if our informant did not give the impression of being thoroughly conscientious and scientific. The English lady possesses, as I believe I have discerned from our correspondence, a highly critical mind, and is well acquainted with the common sources of error in this department of investigation, and her testimony is in my opinion more valuable than that of all the early authors together. It were indeed more acceptable if the results of recent investigations had been to show that all the phenomena of crystallomancy were referable to the hitherto misunderstood dominance of the soul of the individual gazing; but since a number of cases remain that will not fit into this explanation, we must as honest people openly acknowledge the fact. Accordingly, without attempting any detailed explanation, I shall select a few cases as illustrations, leaving it to the reader to discard them as "accidental" or to retain them as worthy of consideration:
"On Saturday, March 9th, I had written a somewhat impatient note to a friend, accusing her of having, on her return from a two months' absence on the Continent, spent ten days in London without paying me a visit. I was not, therefore, surprised, when on Sunday evening she appeared before me in the Crystal, but could not understand why she should hold up, with an air of deprecation, what appeared to be a music portfolio. On Monday I received an answer, written the previous day, pleading guilty to my charge, but urging, in excuse, that she was attending the Royal Academy of Music, and was engaged there during the greater part of every day. This intelligence was to the last degree unexpected, for my friend is a married woman, who has never studied music in any but amateur style, and who, according to the standard of most ladies of fashion, had "finished her education" some years ago. I have since ascertained that she, in fact, carries a portfolio corresponding with the sketch I made of that seen in the vision." (No. 64.)
The simplest explanation of this case would be the assumption that our informant had at some time or other cursorily heard of her friend having again taken up music. The whole thing would then be a revived memory; and the agreement in appearance of the portfolio seen with the real portfolio, an accidental coincidence. But this presumption being excluded, psychologists who believe in the possibility of telepathic communication might propose a different explanation. In this way. The lady's friend, in writing her note of excuse, is vividly thinking of her work, which is to her to a certain extent represented by her portfolio, and conveys this picture to the receptive sub-consciousness of the other lady. There the image lies latent until it is translated into sensory life through the agency of the magic mirror—the very process with which we have at a previous place become acquainted, and will more exactly explain further on. The question, therefore, is reduced simply to the truth of the premise first assumed—namely, telepathic communication; and all that we can at present say, is, that it is considered as an actual fact, upon the basis of personal experience, by many prominent investigators, but is rejected by the majority as undemonstrated. For our part, we admit that an hypothesis of this kind would prove to be very useful, since reports similar to the last mentioned one, have recently been published in great numbers. We select as an illustration the following note by Mrs. L. M., from the Proceedings of the American Society for Psychical Research:
"I was anxious to see a Mr. H., but was uncertain on what day he would call. On the 19th [July, 1887] I was called out of the office, and, before going out, I put on the door a card having these words on it, 'Will return soon.' I was absent about an hour. On my return I came upstairs, but did not ask the elevator boy if any one had called; nor did he tell me any one had done so. As I came within a short distance of the door, I saw some characters written upon the card I had left, and just below the printed words 'Will return soon,' I stooped down and read, 'Mr. H. has been here, and will return.' As I looked the words faded away. I entered the office, and in a very short time Mr. H. came in. He had left no name or message. He had impressed my face upon his mind very strongly, with the intention of seeing if I would be in any way affected by it, or conscious of his approach."
If the fact of accident, intensified by the strained expectation of Mrs. M., cannot be accepted as a satisfactory explanation, it is to be considered that the white surface of the card in this case acted in the same externalising manner as the crystal in the instance given just above. The remotely-operative excitation penetrated the soul unobserved, and was first translated into a conscious image at the moment when the glance at the card favored the formation of hallucinations.
Finally a number of other cases are to be mentioned, in which even these suppositions seem insufficient; and for the reason that the events seen were not to happen until some future time. But that which has not yet happened, and which is not to be foreseen in detail, can neither originate in the repositories of memory, nor from the telepathic influence exercised by another person. We should in that case be obliged to accept some hypothesis of clairvoyance in time—granting of course that all sources of error are excluded. The reader may judge for himself:
"In January last I saw in the Crystal the figure of a man crouching at a small window, and looking into the room from the outside. I could not see his features, which appeared to be muffled, but the Crystal was particularly dark that evening, and the picture being an unpleasant one, I did not persevere. I concluded the vision to be a result of a discussion in my presence of the many stories of burglary with which the newspapers had lately abounded, and reflected with a passing satisfaction, that the only windows in the house divided into four panes as were those of the Crystal-picture, were in the front attic and almost inaccessible. Three days later a fire broke out in that very room, which had to be entered from outside through the window, the face of the fireman being covered with a wet cloth, as a protection from the smoke which rendered access through the door impossible." (No. 36.)
Is this a case of prevision? Granting that the agreement of the facts with the vision is not due to mere accident, the possibility yet remains of a falsification of memory; that is, the possibility that a vision originally similar to the event afterwards observed, was subsequently taken to be the same as that event. Such obscurations and falsifications of memory are very frequent. Indeed they get to be epidemic, the moment a second factor, that of expectation, is added. We need only have a foreboding that something will eventually happen, and we shall inevitably form certain indefinite notions of its particular character. If now the event actually happens, our obliging memory is at once at hand with the lie, 'Exactly as I knew before.' 'I told you so,' is the assertion. And it is therefore no accident that in the literature of clairvoyance, the arrival of letters of this or that tenor plays so great a part; for expectation has a broad and acceptable arena in this very connection. The extent to which the falsification of memory and intense expectation take part in the observation which we shall now cite, it would be hardly possible to determine accurately:
"On the evening of March 11th, being tired, I was about to go early to my room, when it occurred to me to wait for the last post, already late, that I might not be again disturbed by having the letters brought to my room. I took up the Crystal rather to pass the time than with much expectation of seeing anything; for as a rule, when one is tired, the concentration of attention necessary to Crystal-vision is somewhat difficult to attain. However, I perceived a white object on a dark ground, soon becoming more clearly defined as a letter in a very large envelope torn at the edges, as if not sufficiently strong to hold its contents. Another envelope, of ordinary size, lying at the top, concealed the address, and the writing on the smaller one was too much blurred to decipher. The vision was momentary only, or I might have applied the test of the magnifying glass, which is sometimes, though not always, of use in such cases. I thought it possible that the vision might be merely the result of expectation, but it seemed at least worth while, after making a note of the fact,—my invariable rule whenever possible,—to test its significance. As a matter of fact, the letters were lying on a seat in the hall, showing white against the dark polished wood—placed there possibly by some one leaving the house who had met the postman before he had time to ring. The letters were two,—the lower one, which had burst the envelope, was the size of a sheet of letter-paper not folded, and was for myself, the upper one, the usual size of a note, and not for me, which may have accounted for my inability to read the address." (No. 66.)
I repeat it—with accounts of this character, though in the highest degree acceptable, science cannot at present deal; and in proceeding now to attempt an explanation of the phenomena illustrated by the experiments of the English communication mentioned, I shall entirely leave out of consideration the cases that point to telepathic causes or clairvoyance in time and space.