The case against spiritualism

The Society for Psychical Research has for many years given close attention to the subject of automatic writing. This has been defined as “the faculty possessed by certain people of holding a pencil over a sheet of paper and writing coherent and intelligible sentences without any conscious volition.” Sometimes the medium sits entranced with averted face, and the circle looks on while “the moving finger writes.” The script, in most cases, purports to emanate from a human being who has passed into the Unseen.

I
STAINTON MOSES

The most remarkable automatist of the Victorian period was the Rev. William Stainton Moses (“M.A., Oxon”), whose “Spirit Teachings” are still widely read, and whose character was regarded with admiration by men like F. W. H. Myers and Sir W. F. Barrett. Mr. Moses, who was a clergyman of the Church of England, and a master at University College School, revealed to a curious world the existence of a group of “spirits,” who concealed their identity, for the most part, under such pseudonyms as “Imperator,” “Rector,” “Mentor,” and “Doctor.” It has often been pointed out that the messages of “Imperator,” who was a spirit of a highly didactic and clerical turn of mind, were very much what the curate William Stainton Moses might have written of his own volition. Their main purpose appears to have been the inculcation of Broad Church theology.

Mr. Podmore considered that Stainton Moses was “perhaps the most remarkable private medium of the last generation,” but of his trance utterances this critic said: “They contain no evidence of supernormal faculty.”

Mr. Arthur E. Waite, in a passage on automatic script, refers to “that dark border-line of mystery where deception and self-deception meet and join hands.”

“It is, indeed, open to question,” he says, “whether under some aspects ‘the spirit teachings,’ for example, obtained through the mediumship of the Rev. Stainton Moses are not, on the whole, more hopeless than the quality of the trance address delivered in a back street on a Saturday night before a circle of mechanics, for the simple reason that from the normal gifts of the medium we had fair reason to look for better.”

The revelations conveyed through “Spirit Teachings” suggest to this experienced occultist that “if the dead have spoken at any time since the beginning of the Rochester knockings they have said nothing to arrest our attention or to warrant a continued communication.” Mr. Podmore, in “Modern Spiritualism,” mentions that “Imperator” and his associates were supposed to represent personages of some importance on earth. Their real names were revealed by Stainton Moses to one or two friends. After the migration of these “controls” to Mrs. Piper, “they more than once professed, as a proof of identity, to give their names, but their guesses have been incorrect.”

Mr. Podmore thought that the clue to the enigma of Stainton Moses’ life “must be sought in the annals of morbid psychology.” In justice to the medium it should be added that, while working as a curate in the Isle of Man, he showed remarkable courage and zeal during an outbreak of smallpox, helping to nurse sick and bury the dead. In the various positions he held as parish clergyman and schoolmaster he was liked and respected by all. The physical phenomena of his mediumship were always said to be secondary; his own wish was to emphasise the religious teaching he promulgated through automatic writing.

Spiritualists of to-day reject entirely the notion that the phenomena associated with Stainton Moses were produced by fraud, but as Mr. Hill says, “Whether they were due to spirits is another question, not to be finally settled until we know the extent of our subliminal self’s hidden powers.”

II

If doubts are felt by Spiritualists themselves with regard to the origin of such a standard work as “Spirit Teachings,” can we wonder that all but the most credulous reject great masses of ordinary automatic writing and concentrate their attention on a possibly valuable “residuum”? As Sir William Barrett recognises, the automatist, even when absolutely above suspicion, may unconsciously guide the pencil or the indicator of the “ouija board.” May not the explanation of surprising communications, when such occur, be found in “thought-transference from those who are sitting with the medium, or telepathy from other living persons who may know some of the facts that are automatically written?”[23]

Sir William Barrett asks the question, though he does not consider that an affirmative answer covers the facts. Honest-minded Spiritualists are groping after a natural explanation of the phenomena. The best of them, we are sure, would agree with Dr. Barnes that automatic writing, taken as a whole, has no evidential value in favour of the theory that it is possible to communicate with the dead. As the “table phenomena” point to dimly realised extensions of man’s physical powers, so the unexplained facts of automatic writing find their probable explanation in thought-transference, or in that mysterious realm where experts talk of “the dissociation of the personality.”

Mr. Gerald Balfour, whose writings on Psychical Research deserve the closest and most attentive study, discussed in the Hibbert Journal ten years ago the problem of dissociation, “whereby an element of the normal self may be supposed to become in a lesser or greater degree divided off from that self, and to acquire, for the time being, a certain measure of independence.”

“It would appear to be with this secondary self (or selves, if there be more than one of them) that we have to reckon in dealing with the facts of automatism rather than with the normal self: a deduction drawn from the consciousness or unconsciousness of the latter may be altogether inapplicable to the former. How ready these second selves are to act a part, and how cleverly they often do so, the experience of hypnotism is there to show.”

III

“Nearly every woman,” writes Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in “The New Revelation,” “is an undeveloped medium. Let her try her own powers of automatic writing.” Doctors have cried out against this dangerous advice given by one of the medical fraternity, and we have not found it supported by any leading authority in the ranks of Spiritualism. We are able to state, on excellent authority, that the late Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace strongly deprecated any similar attempts by amateurs. In private conversation he used to tell of a man who, having practised automatic writing, became absolutely incapable of writing the simplest note without his hand being used by other agencies. He was not able to hinder this by his own will, and in order to effect a cure he was obliged to abstain for years from using a pencil at all. Dr. Russel Wallace had a strong belief in the existence and activity of malignant low-grade spirits who seek to gain control over men.

Sir William Barrett, in a very grave passage, discourages “young persons and those who have little to interest their time and thoughts” from “making any experiments in this perplexing region.” Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has never known “a blasphemous, an unkind, or an obscene message” to be transmitted ostensibly from the other side. Sir W. F. Barrett has been less fortunate in his experience. “It not infrequently happens,” writes this great authority, “as some friends of mine found, that after some interesting and veridical messages and answers to questions had been given, mischievous and deceptive communications took place, interspersed with profane and occasionally obscene language. How far the sitters’ subliminal self is responsible for this, it is difficult to say; they were naturally disquieted and alarmed, as the ideas and words were wholly foreign to their thoughts, and they threw up the whole matter in disgust.”[24]

Sir Oliver Lodge, in “Raymond” (p. 225), warns his readers against the misapplication of psychic power. His paragraph headed “Warning” gleams like a sea-light over sunken rocks. It was with a deep sense of responsibility, we may be sure, and with a consciousness of surrounding danger, that the world-famed scientist wrote these words: “Self-control is more important than any other form of control, and whoever possesses the power of receiving communications in any form should see to it that he remains master of the situation. To give up your own judgment and depend solely on adventitious aid is a grave blunder, and may in the long run have disastrous consequences. Moderation and common sense are required in those who try to utilise powers which neither they nor any fully understand, and a dominating occupation in mundane affairs is a wholesome safeguard.”

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, we believe, stands alone among leading Spiritualistic teachers in his advice that all and sundry should practise planchette-writing. “Such practices,” as Dr. Barnes remarks, “do little harm to men and women whose minds are healthy; but there is a danger that through them persons whose minds are unstable may develop fixed illusions.”[25]