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

XVII Some considerations which strongly support the spiritualistic hypothesis--Consciousness and character remain unchanged--Dramatic play--Errors and confusions.

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On April 30, 1894, Mr James Mitchell has a sitting.[85] Phinuit begins by giving him appropriate advice about his health. He ends by saying, "You worry, too." Then he adds, "There's a voice I hear as plainly as you would a bell rung, and she says, 'That's right, doctor, tell him not to worry, because he always did so--my dear husband--I want him to enjoy his remaining days in the body. Tell him I am Margaret Mitchell, and I will be with him to the end of eternity, spiritually.'"

The communicators often ask one or more of those present to go out of the room, and they give one or other of the following reasons, according to circumstances. The first is that very private information is about to be given. I have quoted an example in speaking of George Pelham, when James Howard asked him to tell something which only they two knew. George Pelham, preparing to do so, begins by asking Dr Hodgson to leave the room. How oddly discreet for secondary personalities! On other occasions certain persons are asked to go out temporarily, because, say the controls, "You have relations and friends who want very much to communicate with you, and they prevent all communication by their insistence and their efforts."

On a certain occasion Professor Hyslop rises and goes to the other end of the room, passing Mrs Piper, upon which George Pelham, apparently offended, writes, "He has passed in front of Imperator! Why does he do that?"

It would need a volume to recount all the little analogous incidents which telepathy does not explain. These will do as examples. Will it be said that these small dramas resemble the creations of the same kind which occur in delirium or dreams? But in the first place, in delirium and dreams, the spectator does not realise, as he does here, the presence of persons who have given many details tending to prove their identity. Again, the real cause of these creations of dream and delirium is unknown to us. We might assert, without being fanciful, that sickness is only their opportunity and not their cause. Lastly, a third group of facts, which strongly militates in favour of the spiritualist hypothesis, consists of the mistakes and confusions. This would probably not be the opinion of a superficial observer; many take these errors and confusions as a reason for entirely rejecting the spiritualist hypothesis; generally because they have a strange notion of a "spirit," without any analogy in nature. Deceived by absurd and antiquated theological teaching, they imagine that the most pitiable drunkard, for example, becomes a being of ideal beauty and omniscience from the day he is disincarnated. It cannot be so. Our spirits, if we have them, must progress slowly. When they leap into the great unknown they do not at the same time leap into perfection; they were finite and limited, and do not become immediately infinite. Disincarnated man, like incarnated man, has lapses of intelligence, memory and morality. The existence of these lapses very well explains the greater part of the mistakes in the communications. I have no room to develop this idea, but the reader can do it easily. I will only quote one example of lapse of memory. Mr Robert Hyslop said he had a penknife with a brown handle, which he carried first in his waistcoat pocket and afterwards in his coat. On inquiry, it was discovered that he was mistaken, and that he really carried it in his trousers pocket. What man living has not made a hundred such mistakes? In order to explain the phenomena we are studying by the telepathic hypothesis, we must suppose that telepathy has infinite power with which no obstacle can interfere. Then why does it make mistakes? And why does it make just the mistakes that an imperfect, finite spirit would make? Must we suppose that Dame Telepathy is a mere incarnation of the demon of fraud and deceit?

FOOTNOTES:

[84] Evidently addressing George Pelham.

[85] _Proc. of S.P.R._, vol. xiii. p. 519.