CAN TELEPATHY EXPLAIN ALL.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume I, Issue 16, 31 December 1910, Page 1 (Supplement)

CAN TELEPATHY EXPLAIN ALL.

BY W. T. STEAD. (From the “Contemporary Review.”; Imagine a village in the depths of Sherwood Forest many years before the Roman Conquest of Britain. To the rustics comes one day a stranger, who tells them curious, things of an Imperial City in a far-off land, of which they had never beard. He speaks of th- wealth, the splendour, the luxury, aiid the power of Ancient Rome. He tells of its roads which stretch out to the ends *jf the earth, of the Romans, of their invincible legions, of their great trirc nes, of their science, their art, their literature. To the villagers ho is a man babbling in an unknown tongue, of a people tlrny had never heard of, inhabiting a country which they do not believe exists. Tn vain, by the use of simple comparisons and hemely metaphors, does he try to explain to ilmm what a legion is, how a l a’ace is built, or how a galley is Lwnclnd and propelled. His bearers understand none of these things. They know of no land lint their forest and th-- surrounding countrv. The ocean ■♦hey hav • never seen. Hence, the most part of the stranger's ta'k is unintelligilde, the fraction they can understand is incredible. Wearied with his attemp’s to make them understand, they ref use to listen, or cover him with ridicul ■ and abuse.

“What profit.” thev snv, “is it; to listen tr .such fables? This land we know, and our fathers knew it before iu. But ns for this Rome of which the stranger speaks, wc- know not whether there may be any such place, and even if there be. it is so far aWay fr is noflrng to us. It is folly and v. aste of time to speak of such matters.” So the years pas-ed ami * the? strangers arrived makin" similar strange statement* concerning the cam'tal of iho wor'd. But as the storms of those travellers' did not agree in all de*'>ils ■ nd n= no one. would undertake to show the v'll-igers th’s alleged citv of Romo, the rust'cs dwe’t s cure s?d about in invincib'e ignorance, convinc-

cd that the Forest and the country round about was the world, and beside it there was none other. But as the years passed and the legions drew ever nearer am! nearer the North of Gaul, rumours of their comm- pcmetiated even the fastnesses of the English midlands, and the m ire intellig -nt of th? itisties, recalling the travellers’ tales which they had di-missed with scorn, begin to admit that perhaps after all “there might be something in it.” One oi two of the bolder spirits even venture to inquire of the d. spired strangers how to find out if there were really any foundation for all “that nonsense about tb.e- Imperial City in an unknown land.” Being directed to travel southward until they came to the sea, and then to cross over to the other side, they at first object on the ground that they have never had any proof there was smh a thing as the Sea. Iflti-

i ir.ntely they think better of it and go. | When they reach the sou shore, they I admit the fact that the sea exists, I but they s"e no other side. ’[Tie evi- | deuce that there is another side all comes from the sen its -lf. Tire sailors win bring cargoes info port do not agree as to whence these cargoes come. Some say one thing, some say .another. Sinne refuse to sav anvthing, pr.-ferring to have it believed they brought their wares from the.sen itself. Admittedly | 111" boatloads of fish were caught in ; tie sea, and not lrs> obviously iminv i cargoes were shipped from English

ports along the const. Moreover, most, : of them r-?.n spook no English. Many ! are men of loose, life and doubtful chari actor, whom no one would rcrept as j credible witnesses upon any question, j let alone one of momentous import- | unco. And further, one and all are dependent for tl.eir livelihood upon the deliver;- of goods alleged to come from unknown lands. Oi’ those who can talk there is a conspicuous leadiness to say ■ what they think will be pleasing to [ their interl cut >i esu cmllv if they can I thereby, secure food or drink or the i wherewithal to bnv ihe same.

I There i« ab-o i a. n't•> bel'cvo that the calling of ini o-ito"s is fraught. I «ith much d pg i t> Hto "nd limb, i Jf.iny who have gone out have never re’urr.'-d. Tluis" >r.q’>irers wbo against their better judgment adventured thoni<clvos for :• brief seraon upon the. waters of the sea are mvsfor-’onsly snbi if ct io strange torments, which render clear thinking ami c’os l ' oto".-"."fton I imnresilfle. nrd th'-e.Men to turn the '■ body inside cut. All evidence proceod- | ing from «uch a source must be reI g.a’ded with; gi-ivc sumicion. Ou the I, wlio'e. +Lo rustic inqnir. rs from Sherj wood Fo’-'ef. 1 e'ng shrewd folk and b.-. ■r]l . " ] 1 v it’i'd. ■ ” 1 inclined io rel port that there is nothing whatever to ’ ’n-t’fv the story that tke-e was any 1 land bevoi'd the sea. T f there be—of

turn to their native forest, and pluming themselves upon their superior wisd’om, to their inquiring neighbours tliev report on their return, “We content ourselves with recording what we have seen and felt and touched. At o can testify that there really is a sea. It actually exists, those who denied the p.;ssil>illty of its existence , were quite wrong. But there we stop. There is no need to waste time in squandering energies in sillv talk about Rome and lands beyond the sea. The proper thing to do is to investigate the sea and its sailors. There is nothing in all that they tell us to prove that there is anv other land except that in which we stand. All that they bring' into our ports they have obtained from the sea itself, like the fish or gorids from other English towns. It is true that the sailors often deny this. But who would believe a sailor’s yarn? No two of them agree and you can get any tale you like for a glass of grog. ’ And so they remain reren-ely confident in having solved the question, until one fine day when the Romans, driving no.thward their great highways, summarily compel every able-bodied man in the forests, under stern task masters, to lahnur at making one of the roads which, smarting from the Forum, carried the log-ons to th" uttermost verge of the known world. ARGUMENTS AGAINST THE SPI RITUAL H Y BOTH ESIS.

This imaginary sketch of the natural attitude of the' insular and parochial mind, when suddenly confronted with statements of facts which transcend the ranee of its own limited observation. exact.lv follows the lines of thought with which we are so familiar in tho voluminous writings of those who, after Tong denving the exigence of psychic nhenomena, are now busy explaining thorn away bv referring them all to the sub-conscious• self. What the sea was to the rustics from Sherwood Forest in my apologue tho subliminal consciousness is to Mr. Adolphe Smith, end tho school which ho represents. Thev mav now. at a 1! events, be congratulated up m having discovered tho .-on. In time, nerhans, thev may make tho further d'scove-y that th"re are

lands beyond the sea. But at present Mr. Smith is precisely in the position of our imaginary rustic. He thinks the sva, or in other words, the vast imperlectly explored region of the subliminal self, is quite sufficient to account for all the messages which we receive as to the existence of another world, and l.e is amazed that .everyone does not .see that it is “a waste of time studying anything beyond the latent forces of tlie human mind,” even although the tistimon.y of these latent forces points as directly to the existence of another world as the cargoes brought into British harbours point to the existence of ports of .shipment on the other side of the sea. MR. I’ODMORE AND ADOLPHE SMITH.

I do not propose to dc-al in detail either with Mr. Adolphe Smith’s essay in the last number of firs Review or with Mr. Podtnore’s posthumous work, ‘Tim Newer Spiritualism.” It would Pe <-t waste of time. What is useful is to quote their evidence as to the reality of the phenomena which it is still the fashion in some belated quarters to deny. Mr. Smith says:—■ “After twelve years of constant practical experimentation, I am convinced that we possess many faculties other than what are usually a‘tributod to the five senses. . . . Though some of my friends we-e spiritists we suggested no spirits and we had no spirits, hue we had nil manner of revelations, of vistons, of clnirvovance, anti of elairandicnee. Still more incredible and impossible to explain. wc had prophecies, c-nrefullv noted at the time, and fulfilled afterwards.'’ Tn like wise testifieth Air. Podnimv when speaking of the latest evidence supplied by Cress Correspondences. “No person who carefully studies the records would think it possib’o to attribute all these numerous and welLotte’t-d eoiiK’i-.lences to fraudulent design cr the mere chance association of ideas,” They both ag ,- eo in regarding the studv of the origin of the'-e phenomena ■-*5 of th” first importance, and—be it noted--neither of them denies the possibility that the Spiritistic hypothesis may b? true. Mr. Smith admits that—“though suggestion telepathy oi thought rending explains almost all the genn’ne phenomena, it does not rreclud'. th-? r-ossibi'ity that there may also b< telepathy between th” spirits cf the dead and the spirits of the living.”

of this world, there are finer forces of nature waiting to be developed, and this promises to be the next and the most fruitful phase of human evolution.” !:• like manner Mr. Podmore, speaking of telepathy, declares in the closing words of Ins last book. “The establishment of such a faculty, if only as th- vestige of a primitive mode of sensibility now snp’rscded by articulate speech would surety be a result worth all ths labour spent in the vineyard ; a fruitage which would go far to compensate for the loss of that, pethaps. visionary gold.” JULIA’S BUREAU. Alter quoting those credentials from such unwilli.-ig witnesses as to tne genfineness of psychic phenomena and t-ae momentous conclusions, which on one hypothesis or another may be drawn from their occurrence, I proceed to .-trite as briefly as po.--s.ble what has been attempted and what has been realised by the agency which popularly known as “Julia's Bureau.” Jnb'a’s Bureau is simply an office, founded —on suggestions written automatically by mv hand—for the purpose of testing the question whether or not it m posslb’e to put those .who mourn their dead into communication with the spirits of their decoastd friend- and relatives. Mr. Adolphe Smith attributes the suggestion to my subconsciousness. He may be r.ght. But. ii he is. then my subconscious self, for the last sixteen years, has been playing with the utmost persistency an apparently.useless game for the purpose oi deceiving my conscious self. Why my ,subconscious self should lie like a trooper all these years nv relv to h-fool the conscious M»lf to which he is permanently attached, I leave Mr. Smith to explain. All that I knew mvs-lf is that my right haul, bring, as it were, temporarily disconnected from mv volition, and left entirely passive for th" n«s of ot'k-'V intelfi'>'onee than my own. v rites messages which are characteristic of the persons from whom they profess to come. These messages—

which emanate as often as not from persons sun incainale who subsequently verily the accuracy of comuiunicaiions registered, olten at a distance or Hundreds ot mnes, by my automatic hand —often eoinniunica.e information which was not previously in my puss'. tsion. and in some eases contain predienoii.s concerning ev.nts months bolero they take place.

Shortly after my friend. Miss Julia A. Ames, died, in Boston, her spirit or ghost or phantom, call it what you bill, twice appeared visibly .to her most intimate friend in accordance with a promise made before death. Ou the second occasion, 1 happened to be staying in E-istnor Castle, where Miss Aines s appnnfoa appeared. At her tiiend’s request, 1 placed my automatic hand at the disposal of this visitant from the other world. She used it tr> such purpose that I subsequently was able to publish a volume made up from hc-r communications under the title '•Letters from Julia,” or “Light From Beyond the Grave.” In one of the trrliest of these communications, Miss Ames expressed her earnest wish that I would try ‘o found a bureau or central office, which would undertake the duty of bringing together, th rough the agency of sensitives, psychics, mediums, oi’ persons possessing the sixth sense, the pirits of the departed with those whom they had loved on earth. I was loth to undertake-'such a task for many reasons, some of which are obvious enough. But last year I made the attempt some sixteen, years after flic suggestion had first been made from the other side. EIGHTEEN MONTHS' WORK. It may interest the icad>r w descnbe lhe results, attained after eig-ht-cen months experience of the working o’ the Bureau. W” have now had through our hand,, about 400 <,e A < ■> e L , an application made bv some j t -> i who _si’.rns a form st ■t< > > _ th it ho or she is. bona fide, promut d l y a s ncero desire to oht■•in coinmiinn-ati'i’i with S’-me Im t.d one (nnmodi on th' other <ode. Mr. Adolphe Smith speaks of our ’ingenious exolanatlon” tb”t the plmnomo m are uiobu-ed l, v spirit li’orn the other side pud assorts V”Kind’y that no ignore euoa’lv o--ult tradition :>ml rhe teaching b -w-d un<>i modern scientific *xn. r »’cnt ,so tor from this b.m g *h’ ci e tin f f ou'•ircle nu> trained niimkuu n Jir l ther '• is ncth'Hg ’n morlm-n + o t .- exrwriwonr ilii>* •« ig.’orefl m ovr proceodin.gs. V’e J-, not t i . »' o sp fj l< in c os' it to "'Xii ’-’m ilio fnr<hnre. Tho hvr.or.lmsis of =u’rif rehtrn mov he to, or ;+ n .., y I<s j ; f , unrl _ I’d At It r-, n 1,.. p-.-)!-,, g, . ’.j.

Me. of Julia's Bureau, are each and all convinced by personal experiments carried on for levera! years that while telepathy and suggestion will account fur many things, there is a large residue oi phenomena winch can only be accounted for on the hypothesis of sfiirit" return. To us, Mr. Adolphe Smith’s naive suggestion that everything comes _ from the subconscious mind is stiic.iy on a par with the theory _( f tho 8h Tweed forester, wm» was quite certain that all cargoes came cut of the sea, or along the coast. But so.far from dogmatically asserting that spirits are the sole source of these phenomena. we treat each case independently as an opportunity of putting the various hypothesis of telepathy, suggestion and spirit return to 'a siiTupie t. st Instead of discrediting the tele-' pathic theory, we invnrial.lv <■ dl the applicant’s attention to it,' and suggest, to him methods for t 'sting 17s truth, positive and negative. It. is admitted as common ground that messages may bo telepathic from the livtng; tho qticsHon is how can we best discriminate between such messages and suni’ar communications that mar be received from the so-cnl’ed dead . air method, which wo are quilo willing ' .... any moire: t to rcv.se and amend, happens to be the very mode put forward by Air. Aclolnhe Sri’ih is ‘■’■h-. niost conclusive method of denmnstrating this faculty ” i.e.. of telepathy. . Ac ask t] le npuheant io fill nn a printed form srecifymg in minute detail vha(. messages h ? would re"ard as provmg that he had Icen lr mdit into communm.ifmn with h's frond'on (he other sule-y.f the Imnotlmsis of tele-? 7 : ' I VvT’’, K!cd ” ohvibus’v ad- : Tint-, that if the sensitive 01-.'-nins iiothmg but the tests thou d,t of 1 efore the' tfo ’< Place, the telepathic by-, potheo's would offer a possible alterna-' Put H rf sp ’ r ’ t "Uirn., -11 in '' l ' wr Frn wlrnthor thaiP possuJe alternabve is the real s nillTion a iurtlier nega+ive was suggested The apoheanf ;s raq-.0-dod -t some Ume during the sitf.'ng to fix his mind as ' some person, pUc. name or thing, which Ims nothurn(whatever to do whh his decXj: fi.ic-ud. and to nofe tlm result. Obii 'iou»]y jf all these messages are mere.' tcim of the submet matter of tho IW ( T' 1S i?" :e , ln duced'’ and another Either he would get both things, names “•♦d o’<at difficulty m getting annlicants to make the negative'test but luat is not our fault. Still, they de d m, many instances. What is the reTELEPATHIC HYPOTHESIS FAILS:

<n l o, ’ telail ding fact of the pat ent and prolonged experiments condurted last year is that the telepathy lypvJiesis as an explanation of ali phenomena has hopelessly broken clown, •ir ’ , 2®r :at,ve h ;,s fared almost Qi |... Oi ce-ursc, there must necessarPy re some similarity between the appliranis written description of his de emsea fr.-end and the sensitive's a<\ count of how that friend appears t< him in a clairvoyant vision. Two ob servers describing the same object must necessarily give pretty much the sam< account of what they have seen, bui alter that element is allowed for ,thi remarkable fact. remains that of tin half-dozen sensitives employed in con ducting these tests, not one was abl< to reproduce with anything approach ing to exactitude the details of th: tests suggested in the form which th* applicant had filled in before the sit ting and sealed and retained in hii own possession until the sitting is over But although the suggested tests wen in most case not given, other test: were supplied, which, in about half th< number of s’ttrngs, were regarded bj the applicants as conchisive proof tliai they h id been brought into conimiinicAlion with tlieir beloved dead. That q about the proportion when the appli ; cants were able to attend in person. T*i cases where the sensitive had no othtfe clue to the deceased except a lock o hi ir, a fragment of a letter or a trink 'of sent to him, ar. often happens, frnn the uttermost ends of the earth, the proportion of success were much less, But in the cases sent by absent sitter! from a. remote distance’, tho telepathic test faih’d no worse than it d'd when tho applicant was present. Tlie proportion of cases in which the hypothesis of spirit return was vindicated, although less than in those whef» tlie applicant met tho sensitive face io face,. was still more than double that which I had ventured to hops for as a general average. I can best illustrate this by quoting two Ivt-teis u ceiled at th*? Bureau since the iprrinw oIMi Smith’s article. Ihe In-t is da + ed from London, Sept. rnbei 9th. 1910. It runs thus;— “I musf. nt least thank you for the privilege of a mossag" th rough Julia.'s Bureau, and toll you that though (ho m<"s-’gp had no connection with th:? name and questions 1 wrote on the paper sent me to dll' out. it was convincing of the identitj ol niy dep.ii'tod hvsb?nd, and coq tamed rofr-renc.-'s to things knowi only to wo and to him. and of so vorv p rsona! and nriva'o n nature as not t:> intern t. anvon? else.”

This, of course, dors not exclude telepathy, although it shows that while ihi’ te»!s suggested in advance were not given, others even more convincim, were lortheoming. which, .Tthou ’h containing information in the mind of the, sitter, were not snusw-stod Ly him consciously to Iho sensitive. Of course, ifi the informa tian in the mossic” corrcs-j pended io nothing in th” sitter's mind, tl.e sitiing would Ir-ve Ivon re-uirdod as a failure even if th;” contents of' th' uiC'-.we v two qiido o ivt. Tho dilemma, that- if the message L recognis'd as true it is dn” to tTepathv. but that if it contains anvthiim thjrf ; < cur:w of which is not ’i- <1 J>y the siitor it Is toLo. if adr Pul rv i-'-is-irabl ■» well’d of corr o d< finitely < xclnd • tin' ross'hillty of "nv dm-non--t ration of ike trntli of spirit return. F >roo'p ll v i■■ tin's th” case if it bo -fli”it.t =<l that the sensitive eon tan tie nd’-d' not onlv ot there mesont hut of all their a rm ■■in to no '' nr e’-e-i of total s+rnt-grrs who nr>v liawn to I li ri"” ir- Von < -led’ i re- Z-’n ". Bn’ (V ->ii M- Porlnwre .nfTni’to that have ’ittto or no oxm-pi ”■ pn ’aj for telennthv of I’to