PHANTASMS OF THE LIVING.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 7696, 19 March 1887, Page 6

PHANTASMS OF THE LIVING.

CSt. James's Gazette.) The Society for Psychical Researoh have had to enconnter a Rood deal of ri'dioule anil opposition from various quarters. Tho balky work on "Phantasms of the Living," which haR been written for tho most part by Mr Edmund Gumey and recently published by the aociety, haa not oscapod this fate. The ridicule 5s undeserved. The oppositiou, except in so far as it comes from credulous persona who see that an attempt U being made to do away with their Buperatituous hypotheses, is mflstly based on misconception. The origin of the ridiculo bestowed on tho Society for Psychical Research ia easy to ascertain. The phenomena which tho aooiety has undertaken to investigate hove often been asserted to exist on insufficient .ovidonce, and explained by obviously absurd theories. " Gliost" is to some extent a word that conjures ud .feelings of alarm and awo. To a miich larger extent it ia a word that eSDites contempt and soopticism. So ridiculous doon the ordinary " belief in ghosts" appear to sensible mon, (hat tliey are apt to extend tho sentimont of.' ridiculo to anybody whoso subjectmatter is the sitne os that of the ghost-seers. The critics of tho S.P.R. do'nottako the trouble to find out how far the modern investigators of gboHlore share tbo ridiculous attributes of their predecessors, It is enough that a roam's discussing something which others have . discussed ridiculously. Ho at once becomes ridisulous ia thri eyes of tho many critics. MrOurney'a book on " Phantasms of the Living" consists of a very long and elaborate diaousaion of alleged appearances or phautouiß of living people seen or otherwise perceived whnn the pnrsons represented by tho phantasms wero nt a considerable distance from thoso by whom tho phantiiflnis were perceived or wero in soma other wiy inaecssible to the. ordinary opßrationa off thn b uses. Such phantisms are often alleged to have appnarorl whan the person represonted was cither dying or about to die, or In some critical condition, or earnestly thinking of tho person- by whom the phantnsm was perc-'ived. Everybody libb hoard atorias ofthi3 kind, 7>t us lako tho nunplest case." B,dios in Australia, thinking, in his last moments, of A, who is in

[_ EtiglAlJ&M^'MVVery moment of B'b "duatlimdiio ..ftlTo'wanoe boing mado for tho aiucrcn'cp of longtitnde— an imago 1 of B is perceived by A. What is the courso usually pursued by those to whom stories of this sort are related ? Sometimes tho stories are disb-ilicvod ; Rometimoa tho facts related are attributed to an accidental coincidence; sometimes it is alleged that, owing to tho excsptional circumstances of iho case, the " 3pirit"of B was allowed, 'by a suspension of the natural laws, to liberate itself from Bs body to travorso with extraordinary rapidity tho intervening space, and to present itself, : presumably in the spirit of Bs doilies, to tho distant A. .Mr Gnrnoy rejects I all these three ways of looking at the , matter. Ho says that some stories of . this sort arc true ; that they cannot be explained as accidental oinciJcncis; ami that the upparution was not <luc to any supernatural ctuse, but to n natural erne. Bs spi.it did not quit his body. Tli<>im win no p o' 11 \ I ghost wftii'lerjng about tho world ut all. But Bs mind so operated upon A's mind as to make A imagine that ho saw E. This power of ono mind to affect tho workings of another i 3 alleged by Mt Giunoy to bo a natural power, acting in subjection to laws or causes which it is at present impossible to doterraine with accur-ioy, and probably producing many effects for the cause of which wo have nevor happened to seek ; while it also produocs the apparitions for which supernatural causes have beon so raadily supplied. . The first qupstiou to be askad v whether apparations as havo baen mentioned have frequently been perceived. The sceptic is ready with a number of obj actions, as to the tendency of the human mind to become confused, the readiness of the memory to amplify and adorn faint imprensions, and the disposition of mankind to tell deliberate lies. Wo are reminded that such stork-s are rarely told at first hand ; that a story passing from hand to hand gnius a marvellous detail at GV6ry transmission ; that the toilers of the stories hftvo never been subjoctod to a proper cross-examination ; aud bo forth. But, however ingenious tho sceptic may be, it will be difficult for him to raise a single objection or sug«est a single source of error and confusion in the discovery of which he has not been anticipated by Mr Guruey. Mr Gurney tests tho stories he has collected in a thoroughly soeptical spirit. He rejects second-hand evidence, demands oorroboration, and scents out small inaoouracies of detail with untiring perseverance. He analyses the weakness of _ the human memory, and tho possibilities of an honest belief iv Iho occurrence of things which havo been really imagined, with an acuteneas which few of his cri(ic3 could emulate. Mr Gurnoy refuses to incorporate many excellent stories into his collection, on tho ground of flaws so minute, that less snbtle and experienced observers might well have passed them over. The only poiut upon which his usual seepictisin scorns to slumber is as to the bona fides of his witnessed. Daily oxperii;ncs proves that persons of the highest character, for whose veracity many honest perßona would go bail, sometimes lie grossly and deliberately for very inadequate reasons. It is in aomo respects a disadvantage to Mr Gurney that he has had personal interviews or direct correspondence with most of his informants. It is hard to sußpecfc a man whom you personally know of deliberate mendaoity. It is ouly when it happens that two such men directly coutradiot one another upon an issue where mistake is impossible that the compatibility of mendaoity with respeetubility becomes evidout. This often happpns in law courts and elsewhere; but a man who tells "a ghost story is not often confronted by a man of equal respectability who is anxious to deny it. Lfit us suppose, then, Mr Gurney has oonsiderofbly underrated the mendacity of the human race. It will nevertheless appear from a perusal- of this book, that the stories of " phantasms" whioh have stood the severe tests . invariably applied to them are so numerous that a hundred or so might be knocked off as conscious fabrications, and there would nevertheless remain more than enough to support Mr Guriiey's argument. Assuming the truth of the whole, or (allowiug for lies) of some two-thirds of the first-hand stories whioh receive Mr Gurnoy's conificate of genuineness, we ■ are next met by tho hypothesis of accidental coincidence. Nothing is easier than to say of a single. appaiition that the man happened to see it, and that the other man happened to die at the same moment. People are always dying ; apparitions are often seen. Therefore there must be a coincidence now and then. But this theory, excellent for a single case, breaks down when applied to the large number of cases presented in this book. The S.P.R. have boen at the pains to collect evidence as to tho frequency with which definite hallucinations, mistakable for reality, are seen by sane aud healthy people. Tho percentage of peoplo who have eyor seen such hallucinations is ascertained, aB miwht be expected, to be exceedingly small. It ih then proved, by mathematical reasoning which is absolutely unanswerable, that, if tho apparitions alleged to have been seen nt the timo of the death or mental excitement of tho person represented coincided with such death or excitement by mere accident, hallucinations ought to bo very common— so common that everybody would havo seen one hallucination and most peoplo more than one. If many stories of the appearance of living people, not actually perooptib]e>.l>y those to whom they appear, are proved to be true, and to bo far more numerous thnn thoßo for whioh mere accident could account, soino other cause must be at work to produce them btsides chance and tho occurrence of hallucinations to ordinary people. To this cause the Society for Psychical Research give tho name of Telepathy. Tho point they try to provo is that brain somotimos works upon brain without (ho ordinary mechanism of the senses being used to produce the effest. One man's thought gives a direction to another man's thought, without a word or a sign passing between them. The power by which a man can bo made to think under the influence of another mind may also make him think in that peculiarly vivid form which conelitutcß a dream by night or tho rarer lallucinntion by day. Evidence concerning mesmeric experiments and "thoughtreading " or " thoiigliMrnnsfc>renco " is given, to show that minds do influence mind 3 wi'houfc assistance from tho body. Tho evidence is carefully colleoled, well tested, and cloarly stated. It is truo that some stories ara told, nnd apparently proved, in thin book, which the doctrine of telepathy ia not adequnto to explain. SiilJ, thn chnin of reasoning is a strong one, and the Amount and eoorlness of the evidence are atnrtllne. Tho d priori difficulty in believing in telepathy is no greater thau the d priori difficulty in believing moscveral othor things now fii-mly established as true; and the effect of the main argument in this book, supposing it to be established, is it to rescue a largo part human experience from lli") vngne theories of superstitious giii'siicrs, and to increase tho aroa of na'uanl phenomena nt tho expense of ciiparriiitiiMl hypotheses and ignorant ineredwiliiy. It may be addod that the ljo>>)r, Ih»u/lilong and somotimos noees- ! sirily wearisome, is olovorly nnd brightly tvritton ; and that tho views of tho society are urgi-d in a ppirit of moderation and fairness towards those whom it may fail to oonrlnce,