The Problems of Psychical Research, Hereward Carrington [book club suggestions txt] 📗

Miss Johnson's discussion of Home's famous levitation out of one window and in at another is surely masterly, and is precisely the kind of criticism which psychic research needs. After reading her account, I can only say that were this case an isolated incident, unsupported by any similar eases of a like nature, it would be so far "explained away" as to lose all evidential value. At the same time I think that Count Solovovo sums the whole argument up when he says that none of Home's phenomena were ever proved to be hallucinatory; all that has been done by the discussion is to show that some of them might possibly have been so. And there is a great difference between the two. There is a natural tendency in many minds to assume and take for granted that because a given phenomenon might possibly have been produced by fraud, it was unquestionably produced in that manner. That is quite an unwarranted supposition, and fraud should be clearly proved in every given instance before a medium be charged with trickery. This is a rule far too seldom observed by sceptical investigators, but an important one nevertheless.

Leaving aside this particular case of Home's levitation, however, it may be said that there are others on record far more conclusive in character, and against which many of Miss Johnson's criticisms could not be levelled. Taken singly, it is probable that no single case of any class of phenomena would prove convincing to a sceptic; sufficient objections could be raised, and sufficient discrepancies in the records pointed out, to invalidate any evidence whatever. Quite apart from any a priori objections, any single incident can almost invariably be "explained away." It is the weight of a great mass of cumulative evidence which tells the tale. The most expert and exact description of the fall of a meteor would not have forced an acceptance from the scientific world; the relative improbability of the whole of the past experience of the human race would have been so much greater than the fact that the latter would have been discredited. Gradually it would have receded in the mind, and even the original witness might ultimately be persuaded that he had not in reality seen a meteor at all!

And so it is with psychic research; and so it is with the theory under discussion. No single incident, taken by itself, can be said to prove anything; only the great mass of facts, taken together, and all pointing in the same direction, can be said to do so. One can quite see how this would be the case, e.g. in Mrs. Piper's automatic utterances or writings. No matter how conclusive any individual "test" might be, it would prove nothing by itself. No matter how well attested an apparition at the moment of death, singly it would indicate no telepathic communication nor other supernormal factor at work. But together these cases form a strand[30] which becomes too strong to be broken, and which, taken together, practically prove telepathic communication at the moment of death—at least so thought Professor Sidgwick's Committee, of which Miss Johnson was one member. (See Proceedings, S.P.R., vol. x. p. 394.)

In Home's case, then, the evidence for his levitation phenomena rests, not on any one case taken by itself, but on the mass of cumulative testimony offered by scores of witnesses. However completely one case might be explained away, the other cases still remain to us—each case standing on its own merits, and many of them excellently observed, if not so well recorded. For example, the cases mentioned by Sir. William Crookes (Journal, S.P.R., vol. vi. p. 342) are certainly far superior, in point of observation, to the famous case so severely criticized by Miss Johnson. And I think that if one is going to offer any hypothesis at all, it must be one that covers all the facts, and not merely one which explains only some of them. The hallucinatory nature of Home's phenomena is certainly not inclusive—it does not include many of the more striking incidents to say nothing of the lesser phenomena. For this reason, it does not appear to me to be conclusive either.

After a brief discussion of Home's fire-tests, which Miss Johnson practically admits are inexplicable by any process either of fraud or of hallucination known to her (p. 498), she passes on to what are called "quasi-hypnotic" effects. To many of the incidents classed by Miss Johnson as due to suggestion, I should be inclined to give an entirely different interpretation. Some of them doubtless resemble hallucinations in a striking degree, but what evidence is there that, e.g., passes made over the heads of the sitters can induce identical hallucinations in all of them; or that, because one of the circle becomes hysterical, the others are thereby rendered susceptible to suggestion? However, I shall defer this question until we come to discuss hallucination in general.

After some wholesome criticisms devoted to the "recognition" of materialized forms, and the very true statement (p. 509) that "a very small error in perception may sometimes lead to a very large error of inference," Miss Johnson ends her remarkably interesting paper with two illustrations—one a hallucination (?)[31] induced by false association of ideas; the other an incident in her own experience, occurring at a séance with Eusapia Palladino. Both of these are of importance, and should be studied carefully.

Count Solovovo on the contrary considers it somewhat in favour of the hallucination theory that hands were found to melt in the sitters' grasp, when they were forcibly retained (p. 441). I cannot agree with this. It is a different thing to say that hallucination might account for the facts, and saying that the facts tell in favour of hallucination. Chance might account for an experimental apparition, but the fact that the apparition occurred does not prove it to be chance. One must be careful to distinguish facts and inferences, in a case of this character. Whether or not the hands were hallucinatory will depend, not upon a priori probability, or the fact they were visible to some, invisible to others, (for all this might just as well be accounted for on the opposing theory), but upon the fact that, so far as we know, there is no analogy whatever between this oft-recorded event and any of the phenomena of suggestion known to us. If we offer a theory to explain certain facts, it must not only explain them in a rational manner, but must dovetail into what we know—into the known. That is the whole method of science. If, therefore, a man advances "hallucination" as an explanation of such facts as those under discussion, he must show how it is that hallucination might be supposed to work: he must bring forward some analogies and examples of somewhat similar instances in order to have a case at all. In science, we cannot speculate in vacuo, but must connect with what is already known, if we wish to be scientific at all. What analogies, then, have we that spirit-hands, similar to those described, can be created by suggestion; and that suggestion can cause a number of investigators, at various times, in various places, to believe that these hands melted in theirs while they were trying to retain them?

I venture to think we have no analogies whatever. It is quite possible that a subject in a hypnotic trance might be induced to believe that he was holding a hand while in fact no hand was there, and, further, that this hand melted away in his grasp while he was holding fast on to it. But I can see practically no resemblance whatever between the two cases. For, in the case we have supposed (i) the hand did not move any material object; (ii) no one but the hypnotized subject saw the hand; and (iii) the illusion was only induced by repeated verbal suggestion to a subject already hypnotized. Where is the analogy in the two cases? Home's hands moved objects; they were seen by several people at once; and, so far as the records prove anything, they prove that constant verbal suggestions of the sort necessary were certainly not given, while there is no evidence whatever that the subjects were hypnotized! On this very subject, speaking of Home's séances, Sir William Crookes has said: