SPIRITUALISAM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XI, Issue 4048, 3 November 1874, Page 1 (Supplement)

SPIRITUALISAM.

Iu the year 1870, Dr. Crookes, the editor of the Quarterly journal of Science, made some very remarkable investigations into tho nature of what is vulgarly reputed to be " Spiritualism." It has long been surmised by thoughtful scientific men the charlatanism and ignorant superstition which that name implied might have a basis of truth, and point to something yet unknown to science. But the very credyility and trickery by which, in the hands of impostors, the whole things was encircled, placed it outside the pale of scientific or condemned it absolutely before inquiry was made. Dr. Crookes, however, had seen much that induced him to make further investigation. This he did, under what seemed extreamely careful conditions ; and as a physicist and chemist in the very front rank of investigators and discoverers, he appeared to possess the requisite abilities and gifts for such a scrutiny. It was pursued with Mr. D. Home as the medium, and with a series of apparatus scientifically prepared, with the nature or existence of which the medium was unacquainted. The experiments were conducted by Dr. Crookes in his own house, in the presence of a group of men of science ; and the results were such as to convince A Dr. Crookes of the existence —not of spiritualistic operations — but of the presence of an energy —a '' force in some human beings which seiencc ought more fully to study ; and which for the time he called " Psychic force."

For the publication of these investigations, as may be readily supposed, a certain section of the scientific world fiercely attacked the author. The substance of the attack was that ho had been deceived—the phenomena asserted to have been seen were declared impossible. In the interval, however, Dr. Crookes has been quietly pursuing the inquiry, and has now determined to give the l ull results in a forthcoming volume ; but he has drawn up in a scientific form a summary of the more marked results. In this he says that the phenomena which he attests "are so extraordinary and so directly oppose the most firmly rooted articles of scientific beliefc —amongst oiliers the übiquity and invariable action of the law of gra\ Itation— that even now on reea"iug the details of what I witnessed there is an antagonism in my mind between reaoon which pronounces it to be scientifically impossible, and the consciousness that my sen..2s both of touch and sight—and these corroborated as they were by the senses of all who were present— are not lying witnesses when they testify against my preconceptions." The supposition that a sort of simultaneous mania or delusion attacks a whole roomful of witnesses is liekl to be more difficult of belief tliit.ii even the facts such witnesses attest ; while the difficulties of the investigation are fully stated. Not the least of these is the jealousy with which the believers in " spiritualism " guard their " mediums ;" thus excluding the possibility of research. But Dr. Crookes has succeeded in securing the aid of two sufficiently remarkable instances, and has conducted the inquiry on tlie strictest scientific principles. He asserts that it is an error, —and this we presume applies only to honest instances, —to suppose that darkness is in any way essential to the phenomena. With the exception of those in which darkness was necessary to disclose luminous appearances and so foi th, all his test cases were given in the lit;ht. Equally erroneous is the supposition that these manifestations only take placc at certain times and in certain places.

The great majority of the remarkable eases Dr. Crookes attests, he affirms took place in his own house, and under circumstances that made the simplest instrumental aid impossible. While the idea that only the friends and associates of the medium must be present is declared to be equally invalid : for Dr. Crookes chose his own witnesses, and often his own conditions. The first of the classified phenomena investigated was the movement of heavy bodies with contact, but without mechanical exertion. This is said to be the simplest form of manifestation ; anil m.-vy- vary from the vibration of a room to the raising of a heavy body when the hand is placed upon it. "These movements, and, indeed, most of the phenomena, arc preceded by a peculiar cold air, sometimes amounting to a decided wind sufficient to blow a sheet of paper about tlie room, and cause the lowering of the thermometer several degrees." The second class of phenomena took the form of percussive and other allied sounds, from delicate ticks as with the point of a pin, to a cascade of sharp sounds as from an iduction coil in full work, or detonations in the air. And " with a full knowledge" of the various ways in winch explanation has been sought to be given of these phenomena, Dr. Crookes declares that after fully testing them, there was no cscape from the conviction that they were true objective occurrences, not produced by trickery or mechanical means.

The third class of cases investigated were those in which the actual weight of bodies was altered ; similar, indeed, to those of which Dr. Crookes had given so many examples in 1872, and lie next details instances of the movements of heavy substances when at a distance from the medium, such as the change of position in heavy chairs and tables without visible contact ; while the fifth class records the raising of heavy weights, such as large tables, for very considerable distances from the floor, where the contact or mechanical action of the medium were declared simply impossible. After this, we have a description of the levitation of human beings ; and the test conditions under which these took place were, it is said, in the utmost degree satisfactory. Several instances were seen by Dr. Crookes, but the most remarkable were in the case of Mr. Home. "On three separate occasions," says Dr. Crookes, " I have seen him raised completely from the floor of the room. Once sitting in an easy chair, once kneeling 011 his cliair, and once standing up. On each occasion, I had full opportunity of watching the occurrence as it was taking place." While lie further declares that the Karl of Dunraven, Lord Lindsey, and Captain C. Wynne attest together similar remarkable instances. The next class of experiments appears

still more remarkable : for although they are said to have occurred under conditions that render trickery " impossible," they certainly must at present be classed with the marvellous. Dr. Crookes seems with great justicc to insist that a medium walking into his diningroom, could not, while seated in one part of the room with a number of -persons keenly watching him, by trickery make an accordion play in his (Dr. Crookes') own hand when he held its keys downwards, or cause the same accordion to float about the room playing all the time (!). Yet this was said to be done, and in the presence of this veteran man of science! " Further," says Dr. Crookes, "he (the medium) cannot introduce machinery which will wave window curtains, or pull up Venetian blinds eight feet off ; tie a knot in a handkerchief and place it in a far corner of the room ; sound notes on a distant piano ; cause a eard-plate to float about the room ; raise a water bottle and tumbler from tlie table ; make a coral necklace rise on end ; cause a fan to move about and fan the company ; or set in motion a pendulum when enclosed in a glass case firmly cemented to the wall." Yet all these things tlie stern | student of science declares that he has seen under circumstances which render deception inconceivable. Then follows a class of luminous appearances ; to see which darkness is needful. But Dr. Crookes declares them to be lights such as he has "tried to imitate artificially but cannot." He says, "under the strictest test conditions, I have seen a solid selfluminous body, the size and nearly the shape of a turkey's egg, float noiselessly about the room .... it was visible for in ore than ten minutes, and before it faded away it struck the table three times with a sound like that of a hard, solid body. During this time the medium was lying back apparently in-

sensible ill an eaßy chair." Then we have instances of the appearance of veritable hands seen by Dr. Croolte3 and his witnesses in broad daylight, and positively grasped until they seemed to resolve into vapour and fade away ! Then we are told of pencils recording certain statements without hands ! of phantom forms and faces, and many other equally extraordinary phenomena.

Now let it be remembered that this is given in a prominent position in one of the leading scientific Quarterlies in the world— by its .editor —himself a man of high repute as an investigator, and by his severe analyi.es a discoverer in what at the time was a most abstruse region of physics and chemistry ; that he has been subjecting these phenomena to criticism of the most scientific and severe kind for four years ; and yet, risking his whole scientific reputation upon it, sustained by other men of science equally Illustrious in their own departments, he makes the remarkable assertions we have simply outlined above !

To admit the existence of a residuum of truth in the charlatanic fabric of ignorance and superstition called '' spiritualism" is not difficult : to admit it even to the extent claimed by Dr. Crookes" # former investigations seems just possible to liberal thought ; but before the editor of the Quarterly Journal of Science and the Chemical News can be fully accredited in all the " facts" he now adduces, he must in his promised volume given evidence equivalent in weight to that which eventually compelled the defiant riests to see with Galileo that the world did revolve upon its axis.