Part 6 (2/2)
If there were in the universe a lot of diffuse soul-stuff, unable of itself to get into consistent personal form, or to take permanent possession of an organism, yet always craving to do so, it might get its head into the air, parasitically, so to speak, by profiting by weak spots in the armor of human minds, and slipping in and stirring up there the sleeping tendency to personate. It would induce habits in the subconscious region of the mind it used thus, and would seek above all things to prolong its social opportunities by making itself agreeable and plausible. It would drag stray sc.r.a.ps of truth with it from the wider environment, but would betray its mental inferiority by knowing little how to weave them into any important or significant story. This, I say, is the dramatic view which my mind spontaneously takes, and it has the advantage of falling into line with ancient human traditions. The views of others are just as dramatic, _for the phenomenon is actuated by will of some sort anyhow_, and wills give rise to dramas. The spiritist view, as held by Messrs. Hyslop and Hodgson, sees a ”will to communicate,” struggling through inconceivable layers of obstruction in the conditions. I have heard Hodgson liken the difficulties to those of two persons who on earth should have only dead-drunk servants to use as their messengers. The scientist, for his part, sees a ”will to deceive,” watching its chance in all of us, and able (possibly?) to use ”telepathy” in its service.
Which kind of will, and how many kinds of will are most inherently probable? Who can say with certainty? The only certainty is that the phenomena are enormously complex, especially if one includes in them such intellectual flights of mediums.h.i.+p as Swedenborg's, and if one tries in any way to work the physical phenomena in. That is why I personally am as yet neither a convinced believer in parasitic demons, nor a spiritist, nor a scientist, but still remain a psychical researcher waiting for more facts before concluding.
Out of my experience, such as it is (and it is limited enough) one fixed conclusion dogmatically emerges, and that is this, that we with our lives are like islands in the sea, or like trees in the forest.
The maple and the pine may whisper to each other with their leaves, and Conanicut and Newport hear each other's fog-horns. But the trees also commingle their roots in the darkness underground, and the islands also hang together through the ocean's bottom. Just so there is a continuum of cosmic consciousness, against which our individuality builds but accidental fences, and into which our several minds plunge as into a mother-sea or reservoir. Our ”normal” consciousness is circ.u.mscribed for adaptation to our external earthly environment, but the fence is weak in spots, and fitful influences from beyond leak in, showing the otherwise unverifiable common connection. Not only psychic research, but metaphysical philosophy, and speculative biology are led in their own ways to look with favor on some such ”panpsychic” view of the universe as this. a.s.suming this common reservoir of consciousness to exist, this bank upon which we all draw, and in which so many of earth's memories must in some way be stored, or mediums would not get at them as they do, the question is, What is its own structure? What is its inner topography? This question, first squarely formulated by Myers, deserves to be called ”Myers' problem” by scientific men hereafter. What are the conditions of individuation or insulation in this mother-sea? To what tracts, to what active systems functioning separately in it, do personalities correspond? Are individual ”spirits” const.i.tuted there? How numerous, and of how many hierarchic orders may these then be? How permanent? How transient? And how confluent with one another may they become?
What again, are the relations between the cosmic consciousness and matter? Are there subtler forms of matter which upon occasion may enter into functional connection with the individuations in the psychic sea, and then, and then only, show themselves?--So that our ordinary human experience, on its material as well as on its mental side, would appear to be only an extract from the larger psycho-physical world?
Vast, indeed, and difficult is the inquirer's prospect here, and the most significant data for his purpose will probably be just these dingy little mediumistic facts which the Huxleyan minds of our time find so unworthy of their attention. But when was not the science of the future stirred to its conquering activities by the little rebellious exceptions to the science of the present? Hardly, as yet, has the surface of the facts called ”psychic” begun to be scratched for scientific purposes. It is through following these facts, I am persuaded, that the greatest scientific conquests of the coming generation will be achieved. _Kuhn ist das Muhen, herrlich der Lohn!_
[1] Published under the t.i.tle ”Confidences of a Psychical Researcher”
in the _American Magazine_, October, 1909. For a more complete and less popular statement of some theories suggested in this article see the last pages of a ”Report on Mrs. Piper's Hodgson-Control” in _Proceedings of the [Eng.] Society for Psychical Research_, 1909, 470; also printed in _Proc. of Am. Soc. for Psychical Research_ for the same year.
[2] T. H. Huxley, ”Life and Letters,” I, 240.
IX
ON SOME MENTAL EFFECTS OF THE EARTHQUAKE[1]
When I departed from Harvard for Stanford University last December, almost the last good-by I got was that of my old Californian friend B: ”I hope they'll give you a touch of earthquake while you 're there, so that you may also become acquainted with that Californian inst.i.tution.”
Accordingly, when, lying awake at about half past five on the morning of April 18 in my little ”flat” on the campus of Stanford, I felt the bed begin to waggle, my first consciousness was one of gleeful recognition of the nature of the movement. ”By Jove,” I said to myself, ”here's B'ssold [Transcriber's note: 'B's old'?] earthquake, after all!” And then, as it went _crescendo_. ”And a jolly good one it is, too!” I said.
Sitting up involuntarily, and taking a kneeling position, I was thrown down on my face as it went _fortior_ shaking the room exactly as a terrier shakes a rat. Then everything that was on anything else slid off to the floor, over went bureau and chiffonier with a crash, as the _fortissimo_ was reached; plaster cracked, an awful roaring noise seemed to fill the outer air, and in an instant all was still again, save the soft babble of human voices from far and near that soon began to make itself heard, as the inhabitants in costumes _negliges_ in various degrees sought the greater safety of the street and yielded to the pa.s.sionate desire for sympathetic communication.
The thing was over, as I understand the Lick Observatory to have declared, in forty-eight seconds. To me it felt as if about that length of time, although I have heard others say that it seemed to them longer. In my case, sensation and emotion were so strong that little thought, and no reflection or volition, were possible in the short time consumed by the phenomenon.
The emotion consisted wholly of glee and admiration; glee at the vividness which such an abstract idea or verbal term as ”earthquake”
could put on when translated into sensible reality and verified concretely; and admiration at the way in which the frail little wooden house could hold itself together in spite of such a shaking. I felt no trace whatever of fear; it was pure delight and welcome.
”_Go_ it,” I almost cried aloud, ”and go it _stronger_!”
I ran into my wife's room, and found that she, although awakened from sound sleep, had felt no fear, either. Of all the persons whom I later interrogated, very few had felt any fear while the shaking lasted, although many had had a ”turn,” as they realized their narrow escapes from bookcases or bricks from chimney-b.r.e.a.s.t.s falling on their beds and pillows an instant after they had left them.
As soon as I could think, I discerned retrospectively certain peculiar ways in which my consciousness had taken in the phenomenon. These ways were quite spontaneous, and, so to speak, inevitable and irresistible.
First, I personified the earthquake as a permanent individual ent.i.ty.
It was _the_ earthquake of my friend B's augury, which had been lying low and holding itself back during all the intervening months, in order, on that l.u.s.trous April morning, to invade my room, and energize the more intensely and triumphantly. It came, moreover, directly to _me_. It stole in behind my back, and once inside the room, had me all to itself, and could manifest itself convincingly. Animus and intent were never more present in any human action, nor did any human activity ever more definitely point back to a living agent as its source and origin.
All whom I consulted on the point agreed as to this feature in their experience. ”It expressed intention,” ”It was vicious,” ”It was bent on destruction,” ”It wanted to show its power,” or what not. To me, it wanted simply to manifest the full meaning of its name. But what was this ”It”? To some, apparently, a vague demonic power; to me an individualized being, B's earthquake, namely.
One informant interpreted it as the end of the world and the beginning of the final judgment. This was a lady in a San Francisco hotel, who did not think of its being an earthquake till after she had got into the street and some one had explained it to her. She told me that the theological interpretation had kept fear from her mind, and made her take the shaking calmly. For ”science,” when the tensions in the earth's crust reach the breaking-point, and strata fall into an altered equilibrium, earthquake is simply the collective _name_ of all the cracks and shakings and disturbances that happen. They _are_ the earthquake. But for me _the_ earthquake was the _cause_ of the disturbances, and the perception of it as a living agent was irresistible. It had an overpowering dramatic convincingness.
I realize now better than ever how inevitable were men's earlier mythologic versions of such catastrophes, and how artificial and against the grain of our spontaneous perceiving are the later habits into which science educates us. It was simply impossible for untutored men to take earthquakes into their minds as anything but supernatural warnings or retributions.
A good instance of the way in which the tremendousness of a catastrophe may banish fear was given me by a Stanford student. He was in the fourth story of Encina Hall, an immense stone dormitory building.
Awakened from sleep, he recognized what the disturbance was, and sprang from the bed, but was thrown off his feet in a moment, while his books and furniture fell round him. Then with an awful, sinister, grinding roar, everything gave way, and with chimneys, floor-beams, walls and all, he descended through the three lower stories of the building into the bas.e.m.e.nt. ”This is my end, this is my death,” he felt; but all the while no trace of fear. The experience was too overwhelming for anything but pa.s.sive surrender to it. (Certain heavy chimneys had fallen in, carrying the whole centre of the building with them.)
Arrived at the bottom, he found himself with rafters and _debris_ round him, but not pinned in or crushed. He saw daylight, and crept toward it through the obstacles. Then, realizing that he was in his nightgown, and feeling no pain anywhere, his first thought was to get back to his room and find some more presentable clothing. The stairways at Encina Hall are at the ends of the building. He made his way to one of them, and went up the four flights, only to find his room no longer extant. Then he noticed pain in his feet, which had been injured, and came down the stairs with difficulty. When he talked with me ten days later he had been in hospital a week, was very thin and pale, and went on crutches, and was dressed in borrowed clothing.
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