The science of life : fully illustrated in tone and line and including many diagrams

BOOK 8

all Nature’s devices, has to be protected. At certain stages in evolution, telepathic faculty might easily prove a hindrance rather than a help to survival, and the opacity of the normal human skull to “ thoughtwaves” may be a necessary condition for efficient action and intercourse, blinding us to some very exciting possibilities. It may

have been an essential part in that separation and enhancement of individuality which has certainly gone on in the vertebrata and other animal phyla.

Eusapia Paladino.

(From Lombroso’s ‘‘ Fenomeni ipnotici e spiritici.” Tipografico-Editrice Torinese.)

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Clairvoyance, Table-tapping, and Telekinests

Closely associated with this experimentation upon mental reactions by unknown means at a distance, is another body of alleged phenomena of a much more questionable type. For the experiments and the generalizations arising from them Professor Richet, in 1905, adopted the word ‘‘ Metapsychics,” which is now in general use. It had previously been suggested by Mr. Lutoslawsky in 1902. The human mind is a necessary factor in these experiments and they demand concessions and limiting conditions known in no other field of

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THE SCIENCE OF LIFE

Fig. 328. Flashlight photograph showing levitation of a heavy wooden table during a séance with the medium

Unione

CHAPTER 9

research. They are admittedly associated with a network of deception and deliberate fraud. That is the misfortune rather than the fault of these inquirers. Their general procedure can be burlesqued or imitated by impostors with the greatest ease.

Possibly these ‘“‘ psychic phenomena ”’ are obtainable from all of us, but it is only a limited number of people who can produce them at such a level of vividness and emphasis as to yield observable and recordable results. These special types, when they are induced to develop their peculiarities systematically, are called mediums. We have already had something to say of this class in § 10 of Chapter 7.

** Mediums,” says Richet, “are more or less neuropaths, liable to headaches, insomnia, and dyspepsia... . The facility with which their consciousness suffers dissociation indicates a certain mental instability and their responsibility while in a state of trance is diminished. . . . A powerful medium is a very delicate instrument of whose secret springs we know nothing, and clumsy handling may easily disorganize its working.”

Geley insists that the medium must be in good health, in a good temper and not distressed by the experimenters. In italics he writes: “ The phenomena are the results of a subconscious psycho-physiological collaboration between the medium and the experimenter.’ Not every sceptic may be admitted to these investigations. Im a séance the observer is part of the exhibit.

Manifestly, in view of these considerations, ‘“‘séances’’? demand a very special sort of inquirer; we need to combine the qualifications of the sympathetic alienist, the criminologist, and the professional conjurer with those of the psychologist, physiologist, and physicist, and to blend faith with criticism in a remarkable way, if we are to approach the experimental part of this work with a reasonable hope of competent observation. The ordinary citizen who plunges untrained into psychic and metapsychic experimentation is as likely to make a useful contribution to science and to profit by his self-confidence, as if he set himself without any special preparation to trying out new types of aeroplane or the investigation of high explosives. It is to be regretted that so many unqualified people, often people gifted and experienced in other directions, have lacked the modesty needed