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A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook
Title:
The History of Spiritualism Vol II (1926)
Author:
Arthur Conan Doyle
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1
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English
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A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook
Title:
Author:
The History of Spiritualism Vol II (1926)
Arthur Conan Doyle
THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM
BY
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE, M.D., LL.D.
PRESIDENT D'HONNEUR DE LA FEDERATION SPIRITE INTERNATIONALE
PRESIDENT OF THE LONDON SPIRITUALIST ALLIANCE
PRESIDENT OF THE BRITISH COLLEGE OF PSYCHIC SCIENCE
VOLUME TWO
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. The Career of Eusapia Palladino
II. Great Mediums from 1870 to 1900:
Charles H. Foster-Madame d'Esperance-Eglinton-Stainton Moses
III. The Society for Psychical Research
IV. Ectoplasm
V. Spirit Photography
VI. Voice Mediumship and Moulds
VII. French, German, and Italian Spiritualism
VIII. Some Great Modern Mediums
IX. Spiritualism and the War
X. The Religious Aspect of Spiritualism
XI. The After-Life as Seen by Spiritualists
Appendix
Index
ILLUSTRATIONS
(not included in this eBook)
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Oliver Lodge
Rev. W. Stainton Moses
Madame Juliette Bisson
Dr. Gustave Geley
The Experiment at the Institut Metapsychique, Paris
Plaster Cast of Ectoplasmic Hand
Allan Kardec
CHAPTER I
THE CAREER OF EUSAPIA PALLADINO
The mediumship of Eusapia Palladino marks an important stage in the
history of psychical research, because she was the first medium for
physical phenomena to be examined by a large number of eminent men of
science. The chief manifestations that occurred with her were the
movement of objects without contact, the levitation of a table and other
objects, the levitation of the medium, the appearance of materialized
hands and faces, lights, and the playing of musical instruments without
human contact. All these phenomena took place, as we have seen, at a much
earlier date with the medium D. D. Home, but when Sir William Crookes
invited his scientific brethren to come and examine them they declined.
Now for the first time these strange facts were the subject of prolonged
investigation by men of European reputation. Needless to say, these
experimenters were at first sceptical in the highest degree, and
so-called "tests" (those often silly precautions which may defeat the
very object aimed at) were the order of the day. No medium in the whole
world has been more rigidly tested than this one, and since she was able
to convince the vast majority of her sitters, it is clear that her
mediumship was of no ordinary type. It is little use pointing out that no
psychic researcher should be admitted to the seance room without at least
some elementary knowledge of the complexities of mediumship and the right
conditions for its unfoldment, or without, for instance, an understanding
of the basic truth that it is not the medium alone, but the sitters
equally, who are factors in the success of the experiment. Not one
scientific man in a thousand recognizes this, and the fact that Eusapia
triumphed in spite of such a tremendous handicap is an eloquent tribute
to her powers.
The mediumistic career of this humble, illiterate Neapolitan woman, of
surpassing interest as well as of extreme importance in its results,
supplies yet another instance of the lowly being used as the instrument
to shatter the sophistries of the learned. Eusapia was born on January
21, 1854, and died in 1918. Her mediumship began to manifest itself when
she was about fourteen years of age. Her mother died at her birth, and
her father when she was twelve years old. At the house of friends with
whom she went to stay she was persuaded to sit at a table with others. At
the end of ten minutes the table was levitated, the chairs began to
dance, the curtains in the room to swell, and glasses and bottles to move
about. Each sitter was tested in turn to discover who was responsible for
the movements, and in the end it was decided that Eusapia was the medium.
She took no interest in the proceedings, and only consented to have
further sittings to please her hosts and prevent herself from being sent
to a convent. It was not until her twenty-second or twenty-third year
that her Spiritualistic education began, and then, according to M.
Flammarion, it was directed by an ardent Spiritualist, Signor Damiani.
In connexion with this period Eusapia relates a singular incident. At
Naples an English lady who had become the wife of Signor Damiani was told
at a table seance by a spirit, giving the name of John King, to seek out
a woman named Eusapia, the street and the number of the house being
specified. He said she was a powerful medium through whom he intended to
manifest. Madame Damiani went to the address indicated and found Eusapia
Palladino, of whom she had not previously heard. The two women held a
seance and John King controlled the medium, whose guide or control he
continued ever after to be.
Her first introduction to the European scientific world came through
Professor Chiaia, of Naples, who in 1888 published in a journal issued in
Rome a letter to Professor Lombroso, detailing his experiences and
inviting this celebrated alienist to investigate the medium for himself.
It was not until 1891 that Lombroso accepted this invitation, and in
February of that year he had two sittings with Eusapia in Naples. He was
converted, and wrote: "I am filled with confusion and regret that I
combated with so much persistence the possibility of the facts called
Spiritualistic." His conversion led many important scientific men in
Europe to investigate, and from now onward Madame Palladino was kept busy
for many years with test sittings.
Lombroso's Naples sittings in 1891 were followed by the Milan Commission
in 1892, which included Professor Schiaparelli, Director of the
Observatory of Milan; Professor Gerosa, Chair of Physics; Ermacora,
Doctor of Natural Philosophy; M. Aksakof, Councillor of State to the
Emperor of Russia; Charles du Prel, Doctor of Philosophy in Munich; and
Professor Charles Richet, of the University of Paris. Seventeen sittings
were held. Then came investigations in Naples in 1893; in Rome, 1893-4;
in Warsaw, and France, in 1894-the latter under the direction of
Professor Richet, Sir Oliver Lodge, Mr. F. W. H. Myers, and Dr.
Ochorowicz; in 1895 at Naples; and in the same year in England, at
Cambridge, in the house of Mr. F. W. H. Myers, in the presence of
Professor and Mrs. Sidgwick, Sir Oliver Lodge and Dr. Richard Hodgson.
They were continued in 1895 in France at the house of Colonel de Rochas;
in 1896 at Tremezzo, at Auteuil, and at Choisy Yvrac; in 1897 at Naples,
Rome, Paris, Montfort, and Bordeaux; in Paris in November, 1898, in the
presence of a scientific committee composed of MM. Flammarion, Charles
Richet, A. de Rochas, Victorien Sardou, Jules Claretie, Adolphe Bisson,
G. Delanne, G. de Fontenay, and others; also in 1901 at the Minerva Club
in Geneva, in the presence of Professors Porro, Morselli, Bozzano,
Venzano, Lombroso, Vassalo, and others. There were many other
experimental sittings with scientific men, both in Europe and in America.
Professor Chiaia, in his letter to Professor Lombroso already referred
to, gave this picturesque description of the phenomena occurring with
Eusapia. He invited him to observe a special case which he considers
worthy of the serious attention of the mind of a Lombroso, and continues:
The case I allude to is that of an invalid woman who belongs to the
humblest class of society. She is nearly thirty years old and very
ignorant; her look is neither fascinating nor endowed with the power
which modern criminologists call irresistible; but when she wishes, be it
by day or by night, she can divert a curious group for an hour or so with
the most surprising phenomena. Either bound to a seat or firmly held by
the hands of the curious, she attracts to her the articles of furniture
which surround her, lifts them up, holds them suspended in the air like
Mahomet's coffin, and makes them come down again with undulatory
movements, as if they were obeying her will. She increases their weight
or lessens it according to her pleasure. She raps or taps upon the walls,
the ceiling, the floor, with fine rhythm and cadence. In response to the
requests of the spectators, something like flashes of electricity shoot
forth from her body, and envelop her or enwrap the spectators of these
marvellous scenes. She draws upon cards that you hold out, everything
that you want-figures, signatures, numbers, sentences-by just stretching
out her hand toward the indicated place.
If you place in the corner of the room a vessel containing a layer of
soft clay, you find after some moments the imprint in it of a small or a
large hand, the image of a face (front view or profile) from which a
plaster cast can be taken. In this way portraits of a face taken at
different angles have been preserved, and those who desire so to do can
thus make serious and important studies.
This woman rises in the air, no matter what bands tie her down. She seems
to be upon the empty air, as on a couch, contrary to all the laws of
gravity; she plays on musical instruments-organs, bells, tambourines-as
if they had been touched by her hands or moved by the breath of invisible
gnomes. This woman at times can increase her stature by more than four
inches.
Professor Lombroso, as we have seen, was interested enough by this
graphic account to investigate, with the result that he was converted.
The Milan Committee (1892), the next to experiment, say in their report:
It is impossible to count the number of times that a hand appeared and
was touched by one of us. Suffice it to say that doubt was no longer
possible. It was indeed a living human hand which we saw and touched,
while at the same time the bust and arms of the medium remained visible,
and her hands were held by those on either side of her.

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