the survival of man - a study in unrecognised human faculty by sir oliver lodge frs (1909)

8/13/2019 The Survival of Man - A Study in Unrecognised Human Faculty by Sir Oliver Lodge FRS (1909)

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THESURVIVAL OF MANA STUDY IN UNRECOGNISED

HUMAN FACULTYBY

SIR OLIVER LODGE, F.R.S.


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First Published in igog


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IT is mere dogmatism to assert that we do not survive death, and mereprejudice or inertia to assert that it is impossible to discover whether we door no. We in the West have hardly even begun to inquire into the matter ;and scientific method and critical faculty were never devoted to it, so far asI am aware, previous to the foundation, some quarter of a century ago, ofthe Society for Psychical Research. . . . Alleged facts suggesting primd fade the survival of death ... arenow at last being systematically and deliberately explored by men andwomen of intelligence and good faith bent on ascertaining the truth, . . .

I am asking you to take seriously a branch of scientific inquiry whichmay have results more important than any other that is being pursued inour time.G. LOWES DICKINSON

Ingenoll Lecture on Immortality at Harvard^ 1908And assuredly the religious implications of all these phenomena are

worthy of any man's most serious thought. Those who most feel theimportance of the ethical superstructure are at the same time most plainlybound to treat the establishment of the facts at the foundation as no merepersonal search for a faith, to be dropped when private conviction has beenattained, but as a serious, a continuous, public duty. And the more con-vinced they are that their faith is sound, the more ready should they beto face distrust


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PREFACETHE author's conviction of man's survival of bodilydeath a conviction based on a large range of

natural facts is well known ; and in this volumesome Idea can be gained as to the most direct andimmediate kind of foundation on which in the future heconsiders that this belief will In due course be scien-tifically established.The author gives an account of many of his in-vestigations Into matters connected with psychicalresearch during the last quarter of a century, with anabridgement of contemporary records. His inquiry,following the lines of the Society for Psychical Research,began with experimental telepathy; but the largestsection of the book treats of automatic trance


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TABLE OF CONTENTSSECTION 1

AIMS AND OBJECTS OF PSYCHICAL RESEARCH;HAP. PAGE

I. THE ORIGIN OF THE SOCIETY FOR PSYCHICAL RESEARCH i-II. PRACTICAL WORK OF THE SOCIETY . , . .11

SECTION IIEXPERIMENTAL TELEPATHY OR THOUGHT-

TRANSFERENCEIII. SOME EARLY EXPERIMENTS IN THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 38IV. FURTHER EXPERIMENTS IN TELEPATHY , . 58V. SPONTANEOUS CASES OF THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE . 73VI. APPLIED TELEPATHY ...... 78

SECTION III


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x THE SURVIVAL OF MANCHAP. PAG3SXIV. PROFESSOR WILLIAM JAMES'S EARLY TESTIMONY . . 193XV. THE AUTHOR'S FIRST REPORT ON MRS. PIPER . . 199XVI. EXTRACTS FROM PIPER SITTINGS . . - ^209XVIL DISCUSSION OF PIPER SITTINGS . . . .235XVIII. SUMMARY OF DR. HODGSON'S VIEWS . . .242XIX. RECENT PIPER SITTINGS. GENERAL INFORMATION . 255XX. THE ISAAC THOMPSON CONTROL . . . .266XXI. GENERAL REMARKS ON THE PIPER SITTINGS . . 277

* XXII. THE MYERS CONTROL . . . . .284,. XXIII. THE MYERS AND HODGSON CONTROLS IN RECENT

PIPER SITTINGS . . . . . -308XXIV. BRIEF SUMMARY OF OTHER EXPERIENCES AND COMMENT

THEREUPON . . . . . .316XXV. INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF CROSS-CORRE-SPONDENCE . . . . , .324

XXVI. TENTATIVE CONCLUSION , . . . * 335


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THE SURVIVAL OF MAN


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THE OFSECTION I

AND OBJECTS OP PSYCHICALRESEARCHCHAPTER I

THE ORIGIN OF THE SOCIETY FORPSYCHICAL RESEARCH

and weird occurrences have beenvouched for among all nations and in every age.It is possible to relegate a good many assertedoccurrences to the domain of superstition, but it is notpossible thus to eliminate all Nor is it that


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- AIMS AND OBJECTS [SECT, i


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CHAP, i] ORIGIN OF THE SOCIETY ' 3general attention, but have rather notably roused theinterest of careful and responsible students, both in thedomain of science and in that of letters.

Twenty-eight years ago, in fact, a special societywith distinguished membership was enrolled in London,with the object of inquiring into the truth of manyof these assertions. It was started by a few men ofletters and of science who for some years had beenacquainted with a number of strange apparent facts-facts so

strange and unusual, and yet so widely believedin among a special coterie of ordinarily sane andsensible people, that it seemed to these pioneers highlydesirable either to incorporate them properly into theprovince of ordered knowledge, or else to extrude themdefinitely as based upon nothing but credulity, imposture,and deceit.


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4 AND [SECT, icareful, as exact, as critical, and as cautious, as anyprofessed student of science. They have even displayedan excess of caution. They have acted as a curb apci arestraint upon the more technically scientific workers,who presumably because their constant business is todeal at first hand with new phenomena of one kind oranother have been willing to accept a fresh variety ofthem upon evidence not much stronger than that towhich they were already well accustomed. Whereassome of the men and women of letters associated withthe society have been invariably extremely m; ;:.:. i;--, lessready to be led by obtrusive and plausible appearances,more suspicious of possibilities and even impossibilitiesof fraud, actually more inventive sometimes of other andquasi-normal methods of explaining iin^lir.-iHr facts,


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CHAP, i] ORIGIN OF SOCIETY 5believers, is to make a sustained and systematic attemptto remove this scandal in one way or another.Jf any one asks me what I mean by, or how I define,sufficient scientific proof of thought- reading, clairvoyance,or the phenomena called Spiritualistic, I should ask tobe allowed to evade the difficulties of determining inthe abstract what constitutes adequate evidence. WhatI mean by sufficient evidence is evidence that willconvince the scientific world, and for that we obviouslyrequire a good deal more than we have so far obtained.I do not mean that some effect in this direction has notbeen produced : if that were so we could not hope todo much. I think that something has been done ; thatthe advocates of obstinate incredulity I mean theincredulity that waives the whole affair aside as un-deserving of any attention from rational beings feeltheir case to be not primd facie so strong now asit was.


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6 AIMS AND fSwT. i pegging away, as Lincoln said ; we must accumulatefact upon fact, and add experiment upon experiment,and, I should say, not wrangle too much with incredulousoutsiders about the conclusiveness of any one, but trustto the mass of evidence for conviction. The highestdegree

of demonstrative force that we can obtain out ofany single record of investigation is, of course, limitedby the trustworthiness of the investigator. We havdone all that we can when the critic has nothing Idt toallege except that the investigator is in the trick. Butwhen he has nothing else left to allege he will allegethat.We shall, 1 hope, make a point of bringing noevidence before the public until we have got it to thispitch of cogency.

To many enthusiasts outside and to some of those


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CHAP, i] ORIGIN OF THE SOCIETY 7tion of every revelation of the kind which was said to bepressing itself upon humanity from the regions of lightand knowledge.

Well, we have had to stand this buffeting, as wellas the more ponderous blows inflicted by the otherside; and it was hardly necessary to turn the cheekto the smiter, since in an attitude of face-forward pro-gress the buffets were sure to come with fair impartiality ;greater frequency on the one side making up for greaterstrength on the other.

REPLY TO RELIGIOUS CRITICSThere is a persistent class of objector, Jaowever,

whose attacks are made more in sorrow than in anger,and whose earnest remonstrances are thus sympathetically


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8 AIMS AND OBJECTS [SECT, iThere are persons who believe themselves to have

certain knowledge on the most Important matters onwhich we are seeking evidence, who do not doubt thatthey have received communications from an unseenworld of spirits, but who think that such communicationsshould be kept as sacred mysteries and not exposed tobe scrutinised in the mood of cold curiosity which theyconceive tb belong to science. Now we do not wishto appear intrusive; at the same time we are anxiousnot to lose through mere misunderstanding any goodopportunities for investigation : and I therefore wishto assure such persons that we do not approach thesematters in any light or trivial spirit, but with an ever-present sense of the vast importance of the issuesinvolved, and with every desire to give reverencewherever reverence is found to be due. But we feelbound to begin by taking these experiences, however


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CHAP, i] ,ORIGIN OF THE SOCIETYPROGRAMME OF THE SOCIETY^From the recorded testimony of many competeniwitnesses, past and present, including observationsrecently made by scientific men of eminence in various

countries, there appears to be, amidst much illusion ancdeception, an important body of remarkable phenomenawhich ^are primd facie inexplicable on any generall)recognised hypothesis, and which, if incontestabl)established, would be of the highest possible value.

The task of examining such residual phenomena haioften been undertaken by individual effort, but neve]hitherto by a scientific society organised on a sufficient }broad basis. As a preliminary step towards this enda Conference, convened by Professor Barrett, was helcin London, on January 6th, 1882, and a Society foPsychical Research was projected. The Society wai


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AIMS AND OBJECTS [SECT, iIng disturbances in houses reputed to behaunted.

5. An inquiry into the various physical phenomenacommonly called Spiritualistic ; with an attemptto discover their causes and general laws.

6. The collection and collation of existing materialsbearing on the history of these subjects.The aim of the Society is to approach _ these

various problems without prejudice or prepossession ofany kind, and in the same spirit of exact and unimpas-sioned inquiry which has enabled Science to solve somany problems, once not less obscure nor less hotlydebated The founders of this Society fully recognisethe exceptional difficulties which surround this branchof research ; but they nevertheless hope that by patientand effort some results of value


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CHAPTER IIPRACTICAL OF SOCIETY

IN the three earliest years of the present century Itfell to my lot to occupy the Presidential Chairof the Society for Psychical Research and to give

an Address each year. One of those Addresses- theone for 1903 dealt with the lines of profitable workwhich seemed at that time to be opening before us ; and,since the general nature of our investigation Is therereferral to in a preliminary manner, it is useful to re-produce it here as an introduction to the more detailedrecords which follow,

Our primary aim is to be a Scientific Society, toconduct our researches and to record our results in anaccurate and scientific manner, so as to set an example

work in where it has been the


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12 AIMS AND OBJECTS [Sacx. ivaluable to the next generation than their partiallytrue generalisations ; and sometimes it turns out, aftera century or so, that mistakes made by early pioneerswere no such thorough errors as had been thought, thatthey had an element of truth in them all the time, as ifdiscoverers were endowed with a kind of propheticinsight whereby they caught a glimpse of theories andtruths which it would take several generations of workersto disencumber and bring clearly to light

Suppose, however, that their errors were real ones,the record of their work is just as important to futurenavigators as it is to have the rocks and shoals of achannel mapped out and buoyed. It is work whichmust be done. The great ship passing straight to itsdestination is enabled to attain this directness and spec 1


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CHAP, o] PRACTICAL WORK * 13Psychology, or History, or any part of a great regionof knowledge which has hitherto been regarded as out-sida the pale of the Natural Sciences.

It is for us to introduce our subjects within that pale,if it turns out that there they properly belong ; and ifnot, it is for us to do pioneer work and take ourplace by the side of that group of Societies whose objectis the recognition and promotion of work in the mental,the psychological, the philosophical direction, until theday for unification shall arrive.Half knowledge sees divisions and emphasisesbarriers, delights in classification into genera and species,affixes labels, and studies things in groups. And allthis work is of the utmost practical value and is essenti-ally necessary. That the day will come when barriersshall be broken when shall be


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CHAP, n] PRACTICAL WORK 15of the Royal Society to pursue their labours unimpededby persecution, and to gain some sort of recognitionevea from general and aristocratic Society.For remember that the term science was not alwaysrespectable. To early ears it sounded almost as theterm witchcraft or magic sounds, it was a thing fromwhich to warn young people ; it led to atheism and tomany other abominations. It was an unholy pryinginto the secrets of Nature which were meant to be hidfrom our eyes, it was a thing against which the Churchresolutely set its face, a thing for which it was readyif need were to torture or to burn those unlucky menof scientific genius who were born before their time. Imean no one Church in particular: I 'mean the religiousworld generally. Science was a thing allied to heresy,a to hold aloof to shudder and


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16 AIMS AND OBJECTS [SECT, ihad accustomed scholars and literary men to the possi-bilities and prerogatives of scientific inquiry, he hademphasised the importance and the dignity of experi-ment, and It Is to his writings that the rapid spread ofscientific Ideas, discovered as always by a few, becameacceptable to and spread among the many.Do not let us suppose, howevers that the recognitionof science was immediate and universal Dislike of it,and mistrust of the consequences of scientific Inquiryespecially In geology and anthropology, persisted wellinto the Victorian era, and is not wholly extinct at thepresent day. Quite apart from antipathy to InvestigationInto affairs of the mind which is unpopular and mis-trusted still, so that good people are still found who willattribute anything unusual to the devil, and warn young


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CHAP, n] PRACTICAL WORK I?always had too many, and must be content to be liter-ally or metaphorically put to death, as part of the processof the regeneration of the world.The dislike and mistrust and disbelief in the validityor legitimacy of psychical inquiry is familiar: thedislike of the Natural Sciences is almost defunct. Itsurvives, undoubtedly they are not liked, though theyare tolerated and I am bound to say that part of thesurviving dislike is due not alone to heredity and imbibedideas, but to the

hasty and intolerant and exuberantattitude of some men of science, who, knowing them-selves to be reformers, feeling that they have a grainof seed-corn to plant and water, have not always beencontent to go about their business in a calm and con-ciliatory spirit, but have sought to hurry things on by arough-shod method of which


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1 8 AIMS AND OBJECTS [SECT, ithe parallel too close. It may be that posterity willregard Myers as much more than that, as a philo-sophic pioneer who has not only secured recognitionfor, but has himself formulated some of the philosophicunification of, a mass of obscure and barely recog-nised human faculty, thereby throwing a light on themeaning of personality which may survive the testof time. It may be so, but that is for no one living tosay. Posterity alone, by aid of the experience andfurther knowledge which time brings, is able to makea judgment of real value on such a topic as that.Meanwhile it is for us to see that time does bringthis greater knowledge and experience. For time aloneis impotent Millions

of years passed on this planet,during which the amount of knowledge acquired was


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CHAP, ii] PRACTICAL WORK rpNEED FOR QUALIFIED INVESTIGATORS

Realising this to be our duty, and perceiving thatwe have a long period of danger and difficulty beforeus, it has become evident to persons of clear vision thatthe Society must be established on a sound and per-manent basis, and must endeavour to initiate an attitudeof regarding the psychical sciences as affording the samesort of

scope to a career, the same sort of opportunitiesof earning a livelihood, as do the longer recognisedsciences, those which are more specifically denominated natural, because of the way they fit into our idea ofthe scheme of nature as by us at present recognised, orat any rate because they deal with facts to which wehave


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so ATMS AND OBJECTS [SECT, isuch questions as salary never even momentarilypass. We shall always have need of services such astheirs. In the more orthodox sciences, In Physics forinstance, it has been notorious that throughout lastcentury the best work has often been done by peoplewho having the means of living otherwise secured tothem were able to devote their time, and often con-siderable means too, to the prosecution of research.There has been no rule either way. Some of theleaders have been

paida small salary, like Faraday;others have had independent means, like Cavendish and

Joule. Always I say we shall depend upon and begrateful for the spontaneous work and help of people ofmeans ; but we must not depend solely upon that, elsewill young people of genius be diverted by sheer forceof circumstance into other and our nascent


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22 AND [SECT- 'spirit, in some form or other, is inseparably associatedwith all true and worthy knowledge. Think of a manwho, having made a discovery in Astronomy, seen anew planet,* or worked out a new law, should keep itto himself and gloat over it in private. It would ^beinhuman and detestable miserliness; even in

a thinglike that, of no manifest Importance to mankind. Therewould be some excuse for a man who lived so much inadvance of his time that, like Galileo with his newlyinvented and applied telescope, he ran a danger of rebuffsand persecution for the publication of discoveries. Buteven so, it is his business to brave this and tell outwhat he knows ; still more is it his business so to actupon the mind of his generation as to convert itgradually to the truth, and lead his fellows to accept whatnow they reject.


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CHAP, n] PEACTICAL WORK 23ARGUMENTUM AD DIGNITATEM

Still however there are persons who urge that astudy of occult phenomena is beneath the dignity ofscience, and that nothing will be gained of any use tomankind by inquisitiveness regarding the unusual andthe lawless, or by gravely attending to the freaks of theunconscious or semi-conscious mind.

But as Myers and Gurney said long ago inPhantasms of the Living it is needful to point outyet once more, how plausible the reasons for discourag-ing some novel research have often seemed to be, whileyet the advance of knowledge has rapidly shown thefutility and folly of such discouragement,It was the Father of Science himself who was thefirst to circumscribe her Socrates ,


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24 AIMS AND OBJECTS [SECT, iI need not say that Comte's prohibition has been

altogether neglected. No frontier of scientific demarca-tion has been established between Neptune and Sirius,between Uranus and Aldebaran. Our knowledge ofthe fixed stars increases yearly ; and it would be rash tomaintain that human conduct is not already influencedby the conception thus gained of the unity and im-mensity of the heavens.

The criticisms which have met us? from the sidesometimes of scientific, sometimes of religious ortho-doxy, have embodied, in modernised phraseology,nearly every well-worn form of timid protest, or obscur-antist demurrer, with which the historians of sciencehave been accustomed to give piquancy to their longtale of discovery and achievement.Sometimes we are told that we are the old

'

'


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CHAP, n] PRACTICAL WORK 2$catastrophe, when so many have already been collectedin Phantasms of the Living, and when careful scrutiny-has proved that they cannot be the result of chancecoincidence? 1 There is a quite definite answer tothis question an answer at which I have alreadyhinted which I wish to commend to the considerationof those who feel this difficulty or ask this sort ofquestion.The business of Science is not belief but investiga-tion. Belief is both the prelude to and the outcomeof knowledge. If a fact or a theory has had a primdfacie case made out for it, subsequent investigation isnecessary to examine and extend it

Effective knowledge concerning anything can only bethe result of long-continued investigation ; belief in the 335Hyslop, Professor, 238, 240, 288

Identity, 169, I73> *$2> 23^ 240> 338Image, 97Imperator, 310Infinity, 351Influence of Sitter, 319Inspiration, 109, 322Inspiration, Vicarious, 323Investigation, Object of, 25Isaac Thompson, 218Isaac Thompson case, 269, 273James, Professor William, 186, 193, 288,

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Navvies, 337Nelly Control, 286, 305Newton, Tycho, and Kepler, 26, 28Nineteenth Century, 27Novum Organon% 17Old Master,94Opposition to S.P.R., 6

Pain and Taste experiments, 74Paquet case, 102Pelham, George, 247, 267, 271Percipient, Agent and, 44Phantasms, 99, 101, 103Phantasms of the Living, 88, 100Phinuit, in, 203, 257, 262, 309, 320Phinuitcase, 147Photographs, Recognition of, 317Photography, 97Physical phenomena, 98, 172


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Johnson, Miss, 326Joy of the Lord,304

Piddington, Mr., 265, 332Piper, Mrs., Ill, 184, 192, 256, 261,

INDEX 357Religion, Influence ons 36Religious objectors, 7, 302Kendall, Dr., 210Rich, Mr., 219Richet, Professor, 186, 289, 296Robbins, Miss, 253Royal Society, 12Ruskin, Mr., 75

Savant, Archbishop or, 303Science, Dislike of, 16Scylla and Charybdis, 18Semaphore, 92Service, Future, 303Severn case, 75Sharpe, Mr., 132Shears, Dr., 46Sidgwick, Prof. Henry, 3, 161, 240,

341Sidgwick, Mrs., 314, 333Sitter, Influence of, 319

306,

Taste and Pain experiments, 74Telegraphy and Telepathy, 89, 91

125Telephones, So, 238, 304Telergy, 164, 170, 172Tennyson, 288, 295, 343Tests, 238, 280Thompson, Mr. Edwin, 267Thompson, Isaac, 218Thompson, Mrs., 285, 291, 301, 306,327Thought - Transference, Double Object

for, 41, 48, 51Time, Myers on, 159Trance, 323Trevelyan, G. M., 77Trevelyan, Sir George, 287Trifles, 239, 241Trifles and Relics, 281, 283Tunnel, 337Tycho, Kepler, and Newton, 26, 28


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Sitting, Preparations for, 256Snap in head, 275, 276Socrates and Comte, 23 Uncle Jerry case, 223

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the survival of man - a study in unrecognised human faculty by sir oliver lodge frs (1909)

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