Part 6

But it is unprofitable to consider the failings and absurdities of any occult system in its encounters with actual science and actual fact. It is simply as a real and prominent menace to rationality that these doctrines naturally attract consideration. Regarding them as illustrations of present-day occult beliefs, we are naturally tempted to inquire what measure of (perverted) truth they may contain; but the more worthy question is, How do such perversions come to find so large a company of "supporting listeners"? For to any one who can read and be convinced by the sequence of words of this system, ordinary logic has no power, and to him the world of reality brings no message. No form of the modern occult antagonizes the foundations of science so brusquely as this one. The possibility of science rests on the thorough and absolute distinction between the subjective and the objective. In what measure a man loses the power to draw this distinction clearly, and as other men do, in that measure he becomes irrational or insane. The objective exists; and no amount of thinking it away or thinking it differently will change it. That is what is understood by ultimate scientific truth; something that will endure unmodified by passing ways of viewing it, open to every one's verification who comes equipped with the proper means to verify,--a permanent objective, to be ascertained by careful logical inquiry, not to be determined by subjective opinion. Logic is the language of science; Christian Science and what sane men call science can never communicate because they do not speak the same language.

It would be unfortunate to emphasize the popular preëminence of Christian Science at a cost of the neglect of the significance of the many other forms of "drugless healing," which bid for public favor by appeal to ignorance and to occult and superstitious instincts. Some are allied to Christian Science, and like it assimilate their cult to a religious movement; others are unmistakably the attempts of charlatans to lure the credulous by noisy advertisements of newly discovered and scientifically indorsed systems of "psychic force," or of some personal "ism." For many purposes it would be unjust to group together such various systems, which in the nature of things must include sinner and saint, the misguided sincere, the half-believers who think "there may be something in it," or "that it is worth a trial," along with scheming quacks and adepts in commercial fraud. They illustrate the many and various roads traveled in the search for health, by pilgrims who are dissatisfied with the highways over which medical science pursues its steadfast though it may be devious course. Among them there is plausible exaggeration and ignorant perversion and dishonest libel of the relations that bind together body and mind. Among the several schisms from the "Mother Church of Christian Science" there is one that claims to be the "rational phase of the mental healing doctrine," that acknowledges the reality of disease and the incurability of serious organic disorders, and resents any connection with the "half-fanatical personality worship" (of Mrs. Eddy) as quite as foreign to its tenets as would be the views of the "Free Religious Association" to the "Pope of Rome." "Divine Healing" exhibits its success in one notable instance, in the establishment of a school and college, a bank, a land and investment association, a printing and publishing office, and sundry divine healing homes; and this prosperity is now to be extended by the foundation of a city or colony of converts, who shall be united by the common bond of faith in divine healing as transmitted in the personal power of their leader. The official organ of this movement announces that the personification of their faith "makes her religion a business and conducts herself upon sound business principles;" their leader publicly boasts of his vast financial returns. With emphatic protest on the part of each that he alone holds the key to salvation, and that his system is quite original and unlike any other, comes the procession of Metaphysical Healer and Mind-Curist and Viticulturist and Magnetic Healer and Astrological Health Guide and Phrenopathist and Medical Clairvoyant and Esoteric Vibrationist and Psychic Scientist and Mesmerist and Occultist. Some use or abuse the manipulations of hypnotism; others claim the power to concentrate the magnetism of the air and to excite the vital fluids by arousing the proper mental vibrations, or by some equally lucid and demonstrable procedure; some advertise magnetic cups, and positive and negative powders, and absent treatment by outputs of "psychic force," and countless other imposing devices. In truth, they form a motley crew, and with their "Colleges of Fine Forces," and "Psychic Research Companies," offering diplomas and degrees for a three weeks' course of study or the reading of a book, represent the slums of the occult. An account of their methods is likely to be of as much interest to the student of fraud as to the student of opinion.

There can be no doubt that many of these systems have been stimulated into life or into renewed vigor by the success of Christian Science; this is particularly noticeable in the introduction of absent treatment as a plank in their diverse platforms. This ingenious method of restoring the health of their patients and their own exchequers appealed to all the band of healing occultists from Spiritualist to Vibrationist, as easily adaptable to their several systems. In much the same way Mesmer, more than a hundred years ago, administered to the practice which had exhausted the capacity of his personal attention, by magnetizing trees and selling magnetized water. The absent treatment represents the occult extension movement; and unencumbered by the hampering restrictions of physical forces, superior even to wireless telegraphy, carries its influence into the remotest homes. From ocean to ocean, and from North to South, these absent healers set apart some hour of the day, when they mentally convey their healing word to the scattered members of their flock. On the payment of a small fee you are made acquainted with the "soul-communion time-table" for your longitude, and may know when to meet the healing vibrations as they pass by. Others disdain any such temporal details and assure a cure merely on payment of the fee; the healer will know sympathetically when and how to transmit the curative impulses. Poverty and bad habits as well as disease readily succumb to the magic of the absent treatment. Such an hysterical edict as this is hardly extreme or unusual: "Join the Success Circle.... The Centre of that Circle is my omnipotent WORD. Daily I speak it. Its vibrations radiate more and more powerfully day by day.... As the sun sends out vibrations ... so my WORD radiates Success to 10,000 lives as easily as to one."

It is impossible to appreciate fully the extravagances of these occult healers unless one makes a sufficient sacrifice of time and patience to read over a considerable sample of the periodical publications with which American occultism fairly teems. And when one has accomplished this task he is still at sea to account for the readers and believers who support these various systems, so undreamt of in our philosophy. It would really seem that there is no combination of ideas too absurd to fail entirely of a following. Carlyle, without special provocation, concluded that there were about forty million persons in England, mostly fools; what would have been his comment in the face of this vast and universal array of human folly! If it be urged in rejoinder that beneath all this rubbish heap a true jewel lies buried, that the wonderful cures and the practical success of these various systems indicate their dependence upon an essential and valuable factor in the cure of disease and the formation of habits, it is possible with reservation to assent, and with emphasis to demur. Such success, in so far as it is rightly reported, exemplifies the truly remarkable function of the mental factor in the control of normal as of disordered physiological functions. This truth has been recognized and utilized in unobtrusive ways for many generations, and within recent years has received substantial elaboration from carefully conducted experiments and observations. Specifically, the therapeutic action of suggestion, both in its more usual forms and as hypnotic suggestion, has shown to what unexpected extent such action may proceed in susceptible individuals. The well-informed and capable physician requires no instruction on this point; his medical education furnishes him with the means of determining the symptoms of true organic disorder, of functional derangement, and of the modifications of these under the more or less unconscious interference of an unfortunate nervous system. It is quite as human for the physician as for other mortals to err; and there is doubtless as wide a range among them, as among other pursuits, of ability, tact, and insight. "But when all is said and done," the fundamental fact remains that the utilization of the mental factor in the alleviation of disease will be best administered by those who are specifically trained in the knowledge of bodily and of mental symptoms of disease. Such application of an established scientific principle may prove to be a jewel of worth in the hands of him who knows how to cut and set it. The difference between truth and error, between science and superstition, between what is beneficent to mankind and what is pernicious, frequently lies in the interpretation and the spirit as much as, or more than, in the fact. The utilization of mental influences in health and disease becomes the one or the other according to the wisdom and the truth and the insight into the real relations of things, that guide its application. As far removed as chemistry from alchemy, as astronomy from astrology, as the doctrine of the localization of function in the brain from phrenology, as hypnotic suggestion from animal magnetism, are the crude and perverse notions of Christian Scientist or Metaphysical Healer removed from the rational application of the influence of the mind over the body.

The growth and development of the occult presents an interesting problem in the psychology of belief. The motives that induce the will to believe in the several doctrines that have been passed in review are certainly not more easy to detect and to describe than would be the case in reference to the many other general problems--philosophical, scientific, religious, social, political, or educational--on which the right to an opinion is accepted as an inalienable heritage of humanity or at least of democracy. Professor James tells us that often "our faith is faith in some one else's faith, and in the greatest matters this is most the case." Certainly the waves of popularity of one cult and another reflect the potent influence of contagion in the formation of opinion and the guidance of conduct. When we look upon the popular delusions of the past through the achromatic glasses which historical remoteness from present conditions enables us to adjust to our eyes, we marvel that good and great men could have been so grossly misled, that obvious relations and fallacies could have been so stupidly overlooked, that worthless and prejudiced evidence could have been accepted as sound and significant. But the opinions to which we incline are all colored o'er with the deep tinge of emotional reality, which is the living expression of our interest in them or our inclination toward them. What they require is a more vigorous infusion of the pale cast of thought; for the problem of the occult and the temptations to belief which it holds out are such as can be met only by a sturdy application of a critical logic. Only as logical thoroughness comes to prevail over superficial plausibility, as beliefs come to be formed and evidence estimated according to their intrinsic value rather than according to their emotional acceptability, will the propagandum of the occult meet with greater resistance and aversion.

The fixation of belief proceeds under the influence both of general and of special forces; the formation of a belief is at once a personal and a social reaction--a reaction to the evidence which recorded and personal experiences present, and to the current beliefs of our environment. To an equal extent is the reaction determined by the temperament of the reagent. And although the resulting individual beliefs, however complex, are not matters of chance nor are their causes altogether past finding out, yet some of their contributing factors are so vague and so inaccessible that they are most profitably considered as specific results of more or less clearly discerned general principles; and in many respects there is more valid interest in the general principles than in the particular results. It is interesting, and it may be profitable, to investigate why this area is wooded with oak and that with maple, but it is somewhat idle to speculate why this particular tree happens to be a maple rather than an oak, even if it chances to stand on our own property, and to have an interest to us beyond all other trees.

Among the more tangible tendencies that in various ways lead to the occult there is distinguishable what may be termed the intensely personal temperament,--the mental attitude that absorbs knowledge only when dissolved in an all-pervading personal medium; the attitude that finds a paramount significance in the personal interpretation of experiences, and reacts to massive and extensive generalizations most vaguely and impotently; the attitude that offers a weak and verbal assent to scientific principles and to the realities of nature, but inwardly cherishes an intense belief in the personal purport of the order of events, and earnestly seeks for a precise explanation of individual happenings. "The chronic belief of mankind," says Professor James, "that events may happen for the sake of their personal significance is an abomination." It is this chronic mental habit that broods upon the problem of subjective experiences, and is ready to recognize in signs and omens the guiding principle of rationality; not that this is always done designedly and superstitiously, but the underlying bent obscures the consideration of experience in any other than a personal light, and obstructs that illumination of the concrete by the generic, which constitutes an indispensable factor in the growth of wholesome thought. The victim of this unfortunate habit will remain logically unfit to survive the struggle against the occult. Only in so far as he succeeds in getting away from his personal perspective will he be able to appreciate the true status of the problem which enlists his interest. Above all is it necessary to subordinate explicit individual explanations to the general illumination of well-established principles. It may be interesting to note that the partaking of mince-pie at evening induces bad dreams, but it is hardly profitable to speculate deeply why my dream took the form of a leering demon with the impolite habit of squatting on my chest. The stuff that dreams are made of is not susceptible of that type of analysis. The most generous allowance must be made for coincidences and irrelevancies, and it must be constantly remembered that the obscure phenomena of psychology, and, indeed, the phenomena of more thoroughly established and intrinsically more definite sciences, cannot be expected to pass the test of detailed and concrete combinations of circumstances. In other classes of knowledge the temptation to demand such explicit explanations of observations and experiences is not so strong, because of the absence of an equally strong personal interest; but clearly this does not affect the logical status of the problem.

The reply to this argument I can readily anticipate; and I confess that my admiration of Hamlet is somewhat dulled by reason of that ill-advised remark to Horatio about there being more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophies. The occultist always seizes upon that citation to refute the scientist. He prints it as his motto on his books and journals, and regards it as a slow poison that will in time effect the destruction of the rabble of scientists, and reveal the truth of his own Psycho-Harmonic Science or Heliocentric Astrology. It is one thing to be open-minded, and to realize the incompleteness of scientific knowledge, and to appreciate how often what was ignored by one generation has become the science of the next; and it is a very different thing to be impressed with coincidences and dreams and premonitions, and to regard them as giving the keynote to the conceptions of nature and reality, and to look upon science as a misdirected effort. Such differences of attitude depend frequently upon a difference of temperament as well as upon intellectual discernment. The man or the woman who flies to the things not dreamt of in our philosophy quite commonly does not understand the things which our philosophy very creditably explains. The two types of mind are different, and, as Professor James expresses it, "the scientific-academic mind and the feminine-mystical mind shy from each other's facts just as they fly from each other's temper and spirit."

Certain special influences combine with these fundamental differences of attitude to favor the spread of belief in the occult; and of these the character of the beliefs as of the believers furnishes some evidence. At various stages of the discussion I have referred to the deceptive nature of the argument by analogy; to the dominating sympathy with a conclusion, and the resulting assimilation and overestimation of apparent evidence in its favor; to the frequent failure to understand that the formation of valid opinion and the interpretation of evidence in any field of inquiry require somewhat of expert training and special aptitude, obviously so in technical matters, but only moderately less so in matters misleadingly regarded as general; to bias and superstition, to the weakness that bends easily to the influences of contagion, to unfortunate educational limitations and perversions, and, not the least, to a defective grounding in the nature of scientific fact and proof. The mystery attaching to the behavior of the magnet led Mesmer to call his curative influence "animal magnetism,"--a conception that still prevails among latter-day occultists. The principle of sympathetic vibration, in obedience to which a tuning-fork takes up the vibrations of another in unison with it, is violently transferred to imaginary brain vibrations and to still more imaginary telepathic currents. The X-ray and wireless telegraphy are certain to be utilized in corroboration of unproven modes of mental action, and will be regarded as furnishing the key to clairvoyance and rapport; just as well-known electrical phenomena have given rise to the notions of positive and negative temperaments and mediumistic polar attraction and repulsion. All this results from the unwarranted and absurd application of analogies; for analogies, even when appropriate, are little more than suggestive or corroborative of relations or conceptions which owe their main support to other and more sturdy evidence. Analogy under careful supervision may make a useful apprentice, but endless havoc results when the servant plays the part of the master.

No better illustrations could be desired of the effects of mental prepossession and the resulting distortion of evidence and of logical insight than those afforded by the career of Spiritualism and that of Christian Science. In both these movements the assimilation of a religious trend has been of inestimable importance to their dissemination. Surely it is not merely or mainly the evidences obtainable in the séance chamber, nor the irresistible accumulation of cures by argument and thought-healings, that account for the organized gatherings of Spiritualists and the costly temples and thriving congregations of Christ Scientist. It is the presentation of a practical doctrine of immortality and of the spiritual nature of disease in conjunction with an accepted religious system, that is responsible for these vast results. The "Key to the Scriptures" has immeasurably reinforced the "Science and Health," and brought believers to a new form of Christianity who never would have been converted to a new system of medicine presented on purely intellectual grounds. Rationality is doubtless a characteristic tendency of humanity, but logicality is an acquired possession, and one by no means firmly established in the race at large. So long as we are reproved by the discipline of nature, and that rather promptly, we tend to act in accordance with the established relations of things; that is rationality. But the recognition of the more remote connections between antecedent and consequent, and the development of habits of thought which shall lead to reliable conclusions in complex situations; and again, the ability to distinguish between the plausible and the true, the firmness to support principle in the face of paradox and seeming nonconformity, to think clearly and consistently in the absence of the practical reproof of nature--that is logicality. It is only as the result of a prolonged and conscientious training, aided by an extensive experience and by a knowledge of the historical experience of the race, that the inherent rational tendencies develop into established logical habits and principles of belief. For many this development remains stunted or arrested; and they continue as children of a larger growth, leaning much on others, rarely venturing abroad alone, and wisely confining their excursions to familiar ground. When they become possessed with the desire to travel among other cultures, their lack of appreciation of the sights which their journeys bring before them gives to their reports the same degree of reliability and value as attaches to the much ridiculed comments of the philistine nouveaux riches.

The survey of the modern occult makes it seem quite utopian to look forward to the day when the occult shall have disappeared, and the lion and the lamb shall feed and grow strong on the same nourishment. Doubtless new forms and phases of the occult will arise to take the place of the old as their popularity declines; and the world will be the more interesting and more characteristically a human dwelling-place for containing all sorts and conditions of minds. None the less, it is the plain duty and privilege of each generation to utilize every opportunity to dispel error and superstition, and to oppose the dissemination of irrational beliefs. It is particularly the obligation of the torch-bearers of science to illuminate the path of progress, and to transmit the light to their successors with undiminished power and brilliancy; the flame must burn both as a beacon-light to guide the wayfarer along the highways of advance, and as a warning against the will-o'-the-wisps that shine seductively in the by-ways. The safest and most efficient antidote to the spread of the pernicious tendencies inherent in the occult lies in the cultivation of a wholesome and whole-souled interest in the genuine and profitable problems of nature and of life, and in the cultivation with it of a steadfast adherence to common sense, that results in a right perspective of the significance and value of things. These qualities, fortunately for our forefathers, were not reserved to be the exclusive prerogative of the modern; and, fortunately for posterity, are likely to remain characteristic of the scientific and antagonistic to the occult.

FOOTNOTES:

Spiritualism is here considered only in its general bearings upon modern conceptions of the occult; any consideration of the special phenomena presented under its auspices or of the influences which contribute to a belief in its tenets would lead too far afield. The topic is separately considered from a different point of view in a later essay.

To prevent misunderstanding it is well to repeat that I am speaking of the general average of thorough-going Spiritualists. The fact that a few mediums have engaged the attention of scientifically minded investigators has no bearing on the motives which lead most persons to make a professional call on a medium, or to join a circle. The further fact that these investigators have at times found themselves baffled by the medium's performances and that a few of them have announced their readiness to accept the spiritualistic hypothesis, is of importance in some aspects, but does not determine the general trend of the spiritualistic movement in the direction in which it is considered in the present discussion.

THE PROBLEMS OF PSYCHICAL RESEARCH

The division of the sciences reflects the diversity of human interests; it represents the economical adaptation of organized thought to the conditions of reality; and it likewise recognizes the intrinsically and objectively distinct realms and aspects, in which and under which phenomena occur. It is obvious that the sciences were shaped by human needs; that physics and chemistry and geology and biology and psychology do not constitute independent departments of nature's régime, but only so many aspects of complex natural activities; that a cross-section of the composite happenings of a cosmic moment would reveal an endlessly heterogeneous concomitance of diverse forms of energy acting upon diverse types of material; that, as we confine our attention somewhat arbitrarily to one or another component of the aggregate, we become physicists, or chemists, or geologists, or biologists, or psychologists; that, indeed, Nature is all things to all men. There is, furthermore, a community of spirit between the several sciences, as there is a logical unity of method and purpose within the realm of each. However ignorant they may be of one another's facts, the chemist and the psychologist readily appreciate one another's purposes, and find a bond of sympathy in the pursuit of a commonly inspired though differently applied method. The search for objective truth, the extension of the realm of law and regularity, the expansion and organization of the army of facts constantly marshaled and reviewed and made ready for service, the ever widening development of principles and the furthering of a deeper insight into their significance,--these are ideals for the advancement of science, far easier of expression than of execution, but the clear and accepted formulation of which itself attests a highly developed stage of accurate thought. A clear-cut conception of the purposes and methods of scientific investigation and of the scope of the several sciences is a dearly bought product of generations of well-directed, as also of misdirected, effort. The path of progress leading to this achievement has been tortuous and indirect; there has been much expenditure of energy that resulted merely in marking time, in going through the movements of locomotion but with no advance, in following a false trail, or, through a loss of the sense of direction, in coming back after a circuitous march to an earlier starting-point. It is easy, when a certain height is reached, to look down and back, and see how much more readily the ascent might have been accomplished; but it is a very different matter to form a successful plan for attaining the next higher commanding point. It is inevitable that there shall be differences of opinion as to course and manœuvre, and errors of judgment of commission and omission; but such diversity is quite consistent with an underlying coöperation and singleness of purpose. It is in the inspiration and in the execution of that purpose that science becomes differentiated from the unscientific and non-scientific.

Between the organized effort and well-recognized plan of action of science and the chaotic movements of the untutored mind, there is a marked contrast. The savage, like the child, constantly meets with the unexpected; every experience lying outside his narrow beaten track stirs him with a shock and often fills him with fear--the handmaid of ignorance. He is apt to picture nature as a fearful monster, and to people the world with tyrannical beings. Step by step the region of the known expands, and suggests the nature of the unknown; men expect, they foresee, they predict. The apparent chaos of mutually inimical forces gives way to the profound harmony of unifying law. And yet the unknown and the borderland that separates it from the known are always near by, to tempt curiosity and the spirit of adventure.

The problem here to be considered relates to the attitude which may most properly and profitably be taken with regard to the outlying phenomena of the mind. Are they outcasts, to be treated in a spirit of charity and forbearance? Are they the true owners of the land, driven off, like the Indian before the white man, by the relentless march of civilization to a prescribed reservation? Are they the unjustly deposed and rightful heirs, soon to be restored to their kingdom by a fairer and more searching examination of their title? Or are they, gypsy-like, of obscure origin, surviving in a civilization which they are in but not of, attempting to eke out an uncertain existence by peddling relics of antiquated lore to the curious and the credulous?

The current usage of the term "Psychical Research" takes its meaning from the Society for Psychical Research, founded in England in 1882. The original programme of the society involved a systematic investigation of "that large group of debatable phenomena designated by such terms as mesmeric, psychical, and Spiritualistic." "From the recorded testimony of many competent witnesses," it is urged, "there appears to be, amidst much delusion and deception, an important body of remarkable phenomena, which are prima facie inexplicable on any generally recognized hypothesis, and which, if incontestably established, would be of the highest possible value." The work of investigation of these "residual phenomena" was intrusted to six committees, who were to inquire severally into "the nature and extent of any influence which may be exerted by one mind upon another, apart from any generally recognized mode of perception;" into hypnotism, the so-called mesmeric trance, clairvoyance, and other allied phenomena; to undertake a revision of Reichenbach's researches with reference to discovering whether his "sensitives" possessed "any power of perception beyond a highly exalted sensibility of the recognized sensory organs;" to investigate the reports of apparitions at the moment of death, and of houses reputed to be haunted; to inquire into the causes and general laws of the phenomena of Spiritualism; and to collect material relative to the history of these subjects. It is the investigation of these topics from the point of view prevalent in the publications of this Society that constitutes the definition of Psychical Research. This phrase, which has come into prominence within less than a score of years, has no simple or familiar synonym; it must not be interpreted by the combined connotation of its component words, but must be accepted as the technical equivalent of the trend and content of a certain type of investigation of obscure phenomena or alleged phenomena, in most of which psychological factors are prominent.

If the term may at all be brought within the circle of the sciences, it certainly there assumes a somewhat unique position. It naturally becomes the analogue, or it may be the rival of Psychology; yet its precise status and its logical relations to other departments of scientific research are far from obvious. The modern conception of Psychology is generously comprehensive; it encompasses the endlessly variable and complex processes of human mentality; it pursues with enthusiasm the study of developmental processes of intelligence in childhood, in the animal world, in the unfoldment of the race; it studies, for their own value, the aberrant and pathological forms of mental action, and brings these into relation with, and thus illuminates the comprehension of the normal. It forms affiliations with physiology and biology and medicine, with philosophy and logic and ethics, with anthropology and sociology and folk-lore; it borrows freely from their materials, and attempts to interpret the materials thus borrowed from the psychological point of view and to infuse into them its distinctive spirit. Surely Psychical Research should be able to find a nook in so commodious a home; if the problems of Psychical Research are legitimate members of the psychological family, some provision should be possible for their reception within the old homestead. Nor does this group of problems represent a difference of school, in some such way as the homœopathists represent a secession from the regular school of medicine; nor can it be regarded as the special study of the unusual and the abnormal in the sphere of mind, and thus stand in the relation which teratology or pathology bears to physiology and anatomy: for in that event it would constitute a simple division of Abnormal Psychology, and although Psychical Research has close alliance with the latter, it cannot be, and is unwilling to be regarded as a subordinate portion of that domain.

From a survey of the literature of Psychical Research one might readily draw the inference that whereas Psychology studies the recognized and explicable phases of mental phenomena, Psychical Research is occupied with the disputed and mysterious. One might also conclude that whereas Psychology is concerned with the phenomena commonly associated with mental activities and their variation under normal as also under unusual and pathological circumstances, Psychical Research is interested in the demonstration of supernormal faculties, and in the establishment of forms of mentality that diverge from and transcend those with which every-day humanity is permitted to become familiar; and that, moreover, in some of its excursions Psychical Research does not limit itself to mental manifestations, but investigates undiscovered forms of physical energy, and seriously considers whether behind and beyond the world of phenomena there is another and a different world, in which the established order and the mental and material laws of this planet do not obtain. But the unwarranted character, not to say absurdity, of such a differentiation or classification is at once apparent, if we attempt to carry it over into other departments of science. Speculations in regard to the constitution of the earth's centre or as to the future of our planet, if legitimate in character, are as readily incorporable into geology as the consideration of more definite and better known phenomena; biologists recognize that there are mythical as well as anomalous portions of their domain, but do not consider that freaks of nature either destroy the validity of anatomical and physiological principles, or demand a totally distinct and transcendent organization or method for their study. The chemist may become interested in the examination of what was really done when it was supposed that other metals were converted into gold; the physicist may become interested in the applications of electricity and magnetism, of optical reflections and images in the production of stage illusions; but the conception of chemistry and of physics naturally embraces considerations of the growth, the errors, and the applications of these sciences. And while these comparisons do not furnish a complete parallel to the relation that seems to pertain between Psychology and Psychical Research, yet it is as true in the one case as in the others, that the differentiation of a group of problems on the basis of unusualness of occurrence, of mysteriousness of origin, of doubtful authenticity, or of apparent paradoxical or transcendent character, is as illogical as it is unnecessary. The legitimate problems of Psychical Research are equally and necessarily genuine problems of Psychology, that require no special designation. They need not be especially important, nor interesting, nor profitable, nor well comprehended problems of Psychology, but they belong there if they are scientific problems at all. The objection to Psychical Research is not a verbal one; it is an objection to the separation of a class of problems from their natural habitat, an objection to the violent transplanting of a growth from its own environment. It is a protest against the notion that while the psychologist may be listened to with respect and authority in one portion of his topic, the layman and the member of the Society for Psychical Research are equally or more competent to pronounce judgments in a closely allied field. It is a protest against the view that for the comprehension of such processes as sensation and perception a course in Psychology may be useful, but that telepathy may be established by any moderately intelligent but not specially informed percipient and agent; or that the study of hallucinations is indeed a complex and difficult subject, but haunted houses, and phantasms of the living, offer a proper occupation for a leisure hour. All this is wrong and absurd; and yet it is hardly an exaggeration to declare that a majority of those who profess a deep interest in, and express an opinion about the one group of topics, would be surprised to have demanded of them a familiarity with the data of Psychology as a prerequisite to an intelligent coöperation in Psychical Research. If the problems of Psychical Research, or that portion of the problems in which investigation seems profitable, are ever to be illuminated and exhibited in an intelligible form, it will only come about when they are investigated by the same methods and in the same spirit as are other psychological problems, when they are studied in connection with and as a part of other general problems of normal and abnormal Psychology. Whether this is done under the auspices of a society or in the psychological laboratories of universities is, of course, a detail of no importance. It is important, however, what the trend, and the spirit, and the method, and the purpose of the investigation may be; as it is equally important, what may be the training, and the capabilities, and the resources, and the originality, and the scholarship of the investigators.

Is the "psychical researcher" then merely a psychologist gone astray? Is he a mere dilettante, an amateur collector of curious specimens, or is he something very different from a psychologist? He is doubtless one or the other or all of these. He may be a psychologist in the truest and best sense of the word; and as all psychologists have their special interests, so his may be centred in the group of phenomena which have been unwisely separated from their milieu, and have been inaptly termed "Psychical Research." I am ready not only to admit but to emphasize that a considerable portion of the influential contributors to Psychical Research are animated by as truly scientific motives, and carry on their work with as much devotion and ability, with as careful a logical acumen, with as shrewd comprehension of the dangers and difficulties of their topic, as characterize the labors of any other field of psychological endeavor. But this statement can by no means be extended to all; nor does it at all militate against the opinion that many of those to whom it does apply, subscribe to illogical and pernicious conclusions, and indirectly encourage a most unfortunate attitude in others.

III

Approaching the matter next from a descriptive point of view, it becomes pertinent to inquire what are the actual interests which give vitality to Psychical Research, which support the investigator in his laborious and tedious collection and compilation of cases, which provide the membership for the Society for Psychical Research, and the still wider circle of interested readers, which induce so many correspondents to record long and painstaking accounts of their peculiar "psychical" experiences, which make the discussion of these matters a favorite topic of conversation. That these interests are diverse is obvious; yet they fall naturally into a few groups or types, of which the occult interest is probably the most widespread. This, in its pronounced form, proceeds upon a suppressed or acknowledged conviction that the world which science reveals is but a torso of reality; that its very head--that which gives significance and expression to the whole--may be missing, and can only be restored from isolated fragments, themselves to be found by rare good fortune. The key to the riddle of existence is to be sought in the personal significance of events; in moments of great stress and strain, in critical emergencies when communication between individuals deeply concerned must be established though the heavens fall, it is claimed that the heavens do occasionally fall, that the laws of earth are transcended, and the phantasms of the dying are telepathically wafted to the sentient consciousness of the interested kinsman or friend. Apparitions and presentiments are interpreted as mystic symbols of the order of events, which cast their shadows before or coincidently with them. The intelligence of the departed, likewise, is discerned in these manifestations; and through haunted houses and séance chambers, through the inspired utterances of entranced mediums, messages are revealed that indicate conclusively the impossibility of their transmission through ordinary channels, or, it may be, their unmistakable "spiritual" origin. The supernormal, transcendent, undiscovered world of the occult shines through, though fitfully and visible only to those who have eyes to see, the commonplace, constrained phenomena of earth-bound reality. Variable as may be the formulation and trend of this interest, yet in some form this suspicion or quasi-belief (for which the term "occult" seems appropriate) that there are things undreamt of in our philosophy, that these residual phenomena are profoundly significant and afford a glimpse of the great unknown, as well as of the fallibility and the poverty of scientific conceptions, furnishes a very considerable clientèle of Psychical Research. The why and wherefore of this inclination need not here be discussed; its prevalence is unmistakable. And though it appears now in a crude and superstitious guise, and again in a more refined and critical attitude, and more rarely is unwillingly assumed as the only possible alternative in the face of striking personal and other evidence, yet there is a sufficient community of belief in these several positions to warrant their inclusion in a common though variable type. As applied to Psychical Research, it is important neither to generalize from the worst nor from the best expressions of this occult interest, but to appreciate its range of distribution amid the diversity of temperament and endowment.

As the occult interest recedes to an obscure position in the background, and as the foreground and middle distance come to be suffused with the light of critical discernment and of the scientific spirit of inquiry, the "psychical researcher" approximates to the psychological point of view. This essentially psychological interest is necessarily a strong one in some of the distinctive problems of Psychical Research, and often mingles with other interests to form a curious composite. It may be a morbid, an uninformed, a misguided, a dilettante interest, but its psychological character may be noted without implication of any further comment of approval or disapproval. Favorably interpreted, this psychological interest is an interest in the intrinsic nature and analysis of mental processes,--an interest in tracing the various threads that compose the twisted strands of consciousness, in following the kaleidoscopic transformations wrought by attention and association, in observing the play of habit, the subtle processes of illusion and misinterpretation, the unexpected intrusion of the subconscious, and likewise in the pursuit of these as exemplified in concrete instances; among others, in such alleged phenomena as are commonly described as "mesmeric, psychical, and Spiritualistic."

While this interest may be combined with the occult interest, the two are not really congenial and are in essence antagonistic. We are all rational only in spots; and many a "psychical researcher" pursues some of his investigations under the guidance of a scientifically psychological interest, while in other directions the occult interest takes the helm. The analysis of the contrast between the two may be helpful in realizing more fully the divergences of Psychology and Psychical Research. The "psychical researcher" wishes to prove or to disprove something; with regard to this or that phenomenon he wishes to know "what there is in it," and is accordingly attracted to phenomena which seem to have something mysterious in them. As soon as he succeeds in finding a consistent and commonplace explanation for a group of phenomena, his main curiosity is satisfied, and he takes to pastures new. When once he has shown that theosophic marvels are the result of trickery and collusion, then the physical appearances of Theosophy have been explained. It has been demonstrated that there is "nothing in them," that is, nothing transcendental. The verdict is given, and the court passes on to the next case. But the psychologist's interest in how Mme. Blavatsky performed her astral manifestations was always a very subordinate and incidental one; the logical scientist, whether he happened to be physicist or biologist or psychologist, was quite convinced that Mme. Blavatsky had not discovered the means of carrying ponderables by unseen agencies from "China to Peru" (which, by the way, would, if possible, be a matter for the physicist and not at all for the psychologist to investigate), any more than she had been able to discover the secret of immortality (which would in turn be a biological discovery), or had been able to leave her body in New York, while her "astral" soul inspected what was going on in India (which might indeed be regarded as a psychological feat). The psychological problem of Theosophy, so far as there is one, is of a different type; it takes up the inquiry as to how such marvelous pretensions come to be believed, by what influences conviction is formed and doctrines spread. It contributes an incident or an apt illustration to the psychology of belief, or to the social psychology of contagion. The psychologist is interested in the illustration which such a movement affords of the action of certain mental processes and influences; and his interest persists, whether there is presumably "something in it," or not. The resulting difference in attitude between the psychologist and the "psychical researcher" is indeed fundamental, and even more so in principle than in practical issue.

It is desirable but not easy to find parallel illustrations of this difference in attitude in other than psychological discussions; but perhaps the following may be pertinent. If the widespread interest in the North Pole were merely that in the possibility of its furnishing the key to the mystery of the northward-turning magnet, and were at once to disappear upon the removal of the mystery, such an interest would be quite parallel to that of the "psychic researcher;" but the interest of the true physicist in any physical phenomenon which in the future may be demonstrated to exist at the North Pole would be a persistent one, and one depending for its value on the illustration thus revealed, not of mystery but of recognized physical principles. Furthermore, be it observed that however valuable may be the physical facts obtainable by a polar expedition, there is no overwhelming obligation resting upon every physicist to desert his laboratory and embark for the farthest north; but that such expeditions are decided by considerations of general interest, expediency, and importance. There is no obligation resting upon the physicist any more than upon the psychologist to make large sacrifices for the pursuit of ill-defined residual phenomena, and certainly not for the refutal of far-fetched theories and suggested supernatural notions. Physicist and psychologist alike contribute most to the advancement of their science by an open-minded but systematic pursuit of definite, significant, and logically fashioned problems.

Let it not be inferred from the emphasis placed upon this contrast that Psychical Research is in itself to be condemned or to be regarded as useless. Not at all; only in many aspects it is not psychological, and the psychologist is under no obligation to find an interest in, nor to occupy himself with, this aspect of things, if his general trend does not happen to point that way. The physicist may be called upon with equal propriety to aid in many inquiries which the Society for Psychical Research has undertaken. Among the early records of the Society appears an account of a man who presented himself with an iron ring on his arm, far too small to have been slipped over his hand, and who seemed to imply that possibly the spirits put it there, or that it came on through some supernatural agency. This was regarded as a proper case for the Society for Psychical Research to examine. If it could have been demonstrated that the ring reached its position through the exercise of the will of some living persons or spirits, the phenomenon, I suppose, would in some sense be psychological; if it were demonstrated that it came transported through the fourth dimension of space, it might be termed physical. But in reality it was probably physiological, for there was evidence that it was by the effects of etherization that the hand was contracted and that the ring was forced over it. Surely it is most absurd to designate such an inquiry, however interesting and proper it may be regarded, Psychical Research. It certainly is a highly commendable function for a society to take upon itself the investigation of such claims as theosophy or spiritualism put forward, whenever movements of this type are likely to develop into psychic epidemics or to prove a social menace. Any authoritative body that will exhibit the absurdity of such claims, and expose the true modus operandi of the manifestations, will perform an important civic function. Such a function was performed by the Royal Commission of 1784, in exposing the vain pretensions and the insidious dangers of animal magnetism; Mr. Hodgson's investigations of theosophy, the Seybert Commission's report on spiritualism, are both able and useful contributions of the same type; and, at present, an authoritative statement regarding the theoretical absurdity and the practical dangers of Christian Science might prove efficacious. Such special investigations represent the practical application of science to concrete conditions and problems; they are woefully misnamed, and their significance is likely to be misinterpreted, when they are presented as Psychical Research, and are grouped along with other problems of a totally different nature.