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

"It is incontestable that beings of gigantic size do appear from time to time.... Giants are men whose development, instead of pursuing a normal course, has undergone a morbid deviation, and whose nutrition has become perverted. They are dystrophic. Their great stature shows that one part has gained at the loss of another. It is a symptom of their inferiority in the struggle for existence. Their condition is not only a variation from the ordinary conditions of development—that is to say, they are 'congenital monsters,' the study of which belongs to the science of teratology—but it is a variation also from a state of health, physically and normally sound. In other words, they are diseased, and fall within the domain of the pathologist. Here then, as Brissaud says, you have your giants despoiled of their ancient and favourite prestige. Mythology yields the place to pathology."

The causes of gigantism and of dwarfs are now well known. In the brain there is a tiny gland known as the pituitary gland, weighing little more than half a gram, and divided into two portions—the "anterior" and the "posterior" lobes. Hypertrophy of the anterior lobe causes gigantism. The bones grow to an exaggerated length; the hands, feet, and bones of the face grow enormous. When, on the contrary, the secretions of the anterior lobe are insufficient, the body remains small, undergrown and delicate. The secretions of the posterior lobe, on the other hand, insure the undue accumulation of fat, and disturb the functional activities. Other ductless glands in the body also affect the mental and physiological functions of the whole organism.

Nevertheless it is realized that beings have existed from time to time far larger and more powerful in every way than the ordinary human being, and the mythopoeic tendency of the human mind has doubtless supplied the rest, and accredited to them marvellous powers which they did not in reality possess.

In not a few fairy tales we read that the plates and dishes, which were upon the fairy's table, ran of their own accord to the kitchen, washed themselves, and came back to the table; that a cake was cut by a knife held by no visible hand; a decanter of water, of its own accord, moved about from place to place on the table, refilling the glasses of the guests; and in various other ways duties were performed which we are accustomed to consider as necessarily performed by ourselves. All this was accomplished by the objects without any external assistance, and of their own accord. Incredible as such accounts may appear, they are, nevertheless, not so extraordinary, viewed in the light of some newer researches—which in fact, if proved to be true, render phenomena of this sort quite credible. During séances held with Eusapia Palladino, objects were moved from place to place in the room without visible contact, and apparently of their own accord. They were also lifted from place to place and floated about in the air without visible support. These phenomena have been observed for a number of years by scientific men on the Continent, and they are unanimous in asserting that manifestations of this character do in fact take place, and that they are not due to any force or forces known to physical science. On one occasion, for example, a glass decanter was seen to be moved from the sideboard on which it stood on to the séance table, and thence rise and float around the room, no one touching it—there being no possibility of any connection between it and any object in the room. Finally, the glass bottle held itself, or was held by invisible hands, to Eusapia's mouth, and she thereupon drank some of the water it contained. The same thing happened to an investigator, another member of the circle. The glass decanter was then transported back to the sideboard, and a pile of dishes and other objects were moved on to the table.[49] Similar phenomena are said to have occurred in the presence, or through the mediumship, of D.D. Home. Sir William Crookes informs us that on several occasions a bunch of flowers was carried from one end of the table to the other, and then held to the noses of various investigators in turn, for them to smell. Some of those present at the séance saw a white hand, visible as far as the wrist, carrying the bouquet. Others saw merely a whitish cloud-like mass connected with the bunch of flowers. Still others saw nothing—save that the flowers themselves were transported through space without visible means of support.

Here, then, we have phenomena, attested by scientific men, all happening within the past few years, rivalling any of a like nature that are reported to have occurred in fairy stories! If invisible beings, possessing intelligence, constantly move about us, and are capable, at times, of affecting the material world, surely there should be no objection to many of these fairy stories, since the difference in the facts is one merely of degree and not of kind; and this would be true even were the phenomena proved to be due only to the action of some force or forces (under more or less intelligent control) within ourselves, producing the phenomena.

Other extraordinary narratives will doubtless occur to the mind. The bean-stalk which grew overnight, might be referred to; and it is possible to compare this with cases of electrically or artificially forced vegetation. But, of course, the majority of the wonders reported in fairy stories find their probable interpretation in those tricks of the imagination which have now been duplicated by artificial means, and which science is beginning to understand and interpret according to well-known psychological laws. Fairy stories may thus present (in many instances) the germ of a truth, which it has taken many centuries to elaborate and comprehend in detail.