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Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research by Michael Sage

VI Phinuit--His probable origin--His character--What he says of himself--His French--His medical diagnosis--Is he merely a secondary personality of Mrs Piper?

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However, if Dr Phinuit is good-hearted, he is also occasionally deplorably trivial. His language is rarely elevated, and his expressions are almost always vulgar. On occasion he does not dislike a joke or a touch of humour. Thus we have seen that he mischievously persisted in addressing Professor Lodge as "Captain." On another occasion he is a long time in finding a person's name--Theodora. Then he adds, mockingly, "Hum! it is a fine name once one has got hold of it." This does not prevent Phinuit from altering Theodora into Theosophy, and calling the person in question Theosophy! I could easily give other examples of Phinuit's wit. But on this point I must remark that the word "Theosophy" astonishes me in Phinuit's mouth, even when he is making a joking use of it. Evidently Mrs Piper knows the name and the thing well. But at the time when Dr Phinuit attended his contemporaries in flesh and blood, there was, I believe, no question of Theosophy, nor of its foundress, Madame Blavatsky. There was indeed a sect of Theosophists at the end of the eighteenth century, but it was very obscure.

Dr Phinuit is, besides, very proud of his exploits. He likes to make people believe that he knows and sees everything. Indeed, perhaps it is because he likes to seem not to be ignorant of anything that he sometimes asserts so many controverted facts. And this is to be deplored; for how much more useful service he would render if his facts were not doubtful! Unluckily, this is far from being the case. Phinuit occasionally seems to tell falsehoods deliberately. This has been made evident when he has been asked to prove his identity by giving details of his terrestrial life.

In December 1889,[32] he replies to Professor Alfred Lodge, the brother of Professor Oliver Lodge,--

"I have been from thirty to thirty-five years in spirit, I think. I died when I was seventy, of leprosy; very disagreeable. I had been to Australia and Switzerland. My wife's name was Mary Latimer. I had a sister Josephine. John was my father's name. I studied medicine at Metz, where I took my degree at thirty years old, married at thirty-five. Look up the town of ----, also the Hôtel Dieu in Paris. I was born at Marseilles, am a Southern French gentleman. Find out a woman named Carey. Irish. Mother Irish; father French. I had compassion on her in the hospital. My name is John Phinuit Schlevelle (or Clavelle), but I was always called Dr Phinuit. Do you know Dr Clinton Perry? Find him at Dupuytren, and this woman at the Hôtel Dieu. There's a street named Dupuytren, a great street for doctors.... This is my business now, to communicate with those in the body, and make them believe our existence."

I think a bad choice was made of Dr Phinuit to fill this part. The information he here gives us about himself does not bear marks of absolute sincerity. We might say he was an Englishman or American trying to pass himself off for a Frenchman to his fellow-countrymen, and having a very small acquaintance with France and French affairs. And if he had even stopped there! But no. He has often contradicted himself. He tells Dr Hodgson[33] that his name is Jean Phinuit Scliville. He could not tell the date of his birth or death. But, on comparing the facts he gives, we might conclude that he was born in 1790, and that he died in 1860. He tells Dr Hodgson that he studied medicine in Paris, at a college called _Merciana_ or _Meerschaum_, he does not know exactly which. He adds that he also studied medicine at "Metz in Germany." It is no longer he who had a sister named Josephine; it is his wife. "Josephine," he says, "was a sweetheart of mine at first, but I went back on her, and married Marie after all." This Marie Latimer is supposed to have been thirty when she married Dr Phinuit, and to have died at fifty. He asks Dr Hodgson, "Do you know where the Hospital of God is (Hospital de Dieu)?" "Yes, it is at Paris." "Do you remember old Dyruputia (Dupuytren)?" "He was the head of the hospital, and there is a street named for him." Phinuit asserts that he went to London, and from London to Belgium, and travelled a great deal, when his health broke down.