D. D. Home, who once more visited England in 1859.

Home was treated respectfully, not to say generously, by the bulk of the press and by the public, and admitted to the highest grades of society. Another American medium who practised about the same time was J. R. M. Squire, whose manifestations were vouched for by Dr. Lockhart Robert- son. Other mediums there were, however, such as Colches- ter and Foster, who practised trickery so openly that the spiritualists themselves exposed their fraud, though main- taining that at times the manifestations even of these mediums were genuine. After Home, the most famous American mediums were the brothers Davenport, who practised various forms of physical mediumship. They took their places in a small cabinet, bound hand and foot to the satisfaction of the sitters. When the lights were lowered, musical instruments were thrown about the room and played upon and other physical phenomena were apparent. When the seance was over and the lights once more raised, the brothers Davenport were found securely fastened in their cabinet. The manifestations were so
skilfully produced that many people hesitated whether to- regard them as clever conjuring or spirit phenomena. At length, however, the Davenports were exposed through the agency of a secret knot called the " Tom Fool's knot," which they were unable to untie, and which rendered the necessary escape from their bonds impossible. Their career' in Britain was at an end. Shortly afterwards the conjuring performances of Maskelyne and Cook, in emulation of the Davenport Brothers, drove the spiritualists to conclude that they also must be renegade mediums. Native medium- ship developed much more slowly in England than that of the American spiritualists. Mrs. Marshall was for a time practically the only professional medium of standing in the country, though private mediums were less rare. Notable among the latter were Mrs. Everitt, Mr. Edward Child, and Miss Nichol, afterwards the second wife of Mr. Guppy, who became a famous medium. During this period poltergeistic disturbances were still recorded in which all the familiar- phenomena reappeared, but they were explained on spiritualist lines. Crystal vision was practised and auras were commonly seen by the medium round the heads of his friends. Automatic writing, speaking, and drawing con- tinued, and inspirational addresses, etc., were published. In 1869 a new impulse was given to spiritualism by the- appearance of several public mediums, chief among them being F. Heme, who devoted his talents to the production. of physical manifestations, and in connection with whom we first see the phenomenon of "elongation" (q.v.). Within a few years a number of other English mediums sprang up — Eglinton, Monck, Rita, and many more, while Dr. Slade, Annie Eva Fay, and Kate Fox (who afterwards married an English barrister named Jencken) came over from America. In 1870 the Rev. W. Stainton Moses (" M. A. Oxon,") destined to be one of the greatest of English mediums, devoted himself to private mediumship. -In 1872 there was introduced into England, through the- agency of the Guppys, the practice of Spirit Photography (q.v.), which had originated ten years earlier in America. To very many people a photograph containing, in addition to the sitter's portrait, a vague splotch of white, was con- clusive evidence of the materialisation of spirits. After numerous exposures the craze for spirit photography declined and of late years little has been heard of it, though in spasmodic fashion it sometimes shows evidence of life- Slate-writing (q.v.) was a favourite mode of "direct" writing and one extensively practised. Sittings were generally held in the dark, and the sitters were enjoined to talk or sing, or perhaps a musical box was played. Most of the records of these earlier seances are singularly suggestive of fraud. In 1874 Mrs. Jencken (Kate Fox) was staying at Brighton with her baby, aged about six months, and "it is- related that the baby became a writing medium. A facsimile of its writing was published in the Medium and, Daybreak of May 8th, 1874. In the same year came Mrs. Annie Eva Fay whose feats resembled those of the Daven- ports. Another celebrated medium was David Duguid, of Glasgow, who painted " under control." In 1876 Henry Slade came from America, and turned his attention chiefly to slate-writing. A few months after his appearance in. Britain Professor Ray Lankester detected him in fraud, prosecuted him, and finally obliged him to leave the country. But the crowning manifestation, the climax of spiritual phenomena and apparently the most difficult of achievement, was materialisation (q.v.) It began with the materialisation of heads, hands, and arms, and pro- ceeded to full materialisation. In 1872 Mrs. Guppy attempted this form of manifestation, but with no con- spicuous success. The mediums Heme and Williams also included it in their repertory, but a new and successful medium made her appearance — Florence Cook, who-
Spiritualism
384
Spiritualism
materialised the spirits of " John " and " Katie King." When, during a seance. Miss Cook was seized by Mr. Volckman while impersonating a spirit, the exposure drew from Sir William Crookes several letters testifying to the honesty of the medium, With whom he had experimented, and rather helped the cause of spiritualism than otherwise. Other private mediums also gave materialisation seances, and from them the contagion spread to their professional brethren, among whom the most successful was undoubtedly William Eglinton. Miss Lottie Fowler also attained to fame as a medium about the same time — the decade 1870- 80. These open seances offered a better opportunity to the investigator, and though even in them some care was doubtless exercised to prevent the intrusion of " adverse influences," there were a good many instances where a sceptic ventured to grasp the spirit, and when this occurred spirit and medium were always fround to be one and the same. By way of apology for these untoward happenings the Spiritualist suggested that the spirit was composed of emanations from the medium, and that when it was grasped by the sitter spirit and medium would unite, the form possessing most of the medium's force rejoining the other. Another explanation, especially applicable to physical manifestations, was that genuine mediums, giving pro- fessional seances, and forced to produce the phenomena on all occasions, would sometimes resort to fraud when their mediumistic powers temporarily failed them. This per- fectly plausible excuse was always ready to meet a charge of fraud. The subjective phenomena, as time advanced became less in favour with investigators, who began really to understand its subjective nature, but with spiritualists it remained the most important form of manifestation The trance utterances of Home (q.v.), Stainton Moses, and Miss Lottie Fowler were highly valued. David Duguid, the celebrated painting medium, was controlled by a new spirit, Hafed, Prince of Persia, whose life and adventures were delivered through the medium. Prominent inspira- tional speakers were Mrs. Emma Hardinge Britten, J. J. Morse, and Mrs. Cora L. V. Tappan-Richmond. Among English periodicals devoted to spiritualism were Human Nature, first issued in 1867 ; the Medium and Daybreak, founded a few years later ; the Spiritual Magazine ; and the Spiritualist (1867), edited by Mr. W. H. Harrison, and treating the subject in a scientific manner. A still more recent paper, Light, dates from 1881, and still remains one of the principal organs of the movement. One of the earliest investigators was Sir William Crookes, whose experiences with D. D. Home are not to be lightly passed by. In 1863 Professor de Morgan, in a preface to Mrs. de Morgan's book, From Matter to Spirit, suggests the agency of some mysterious force, though he did not become a spiritualist until afterwards. In 1868 Cromwell Varley, the electrician, testified to the phenomena of Home. In the following year the London Dialectical Society appointed a Committee to enquire into the matter, whose members included Alfred Russel Wallace (q.v.), Charles Bradlaugh, and Sergeant Cox. The report of the committee stated that the subject was " worthy of more serious and careful investigation than it has hitherto received." Cromwell Varley, and the Research Committee of the British Nationa 1 Association of Spiritualists carried out various electrical and other tests, but as these have since been proved to be inadequate, it is not necessary to consider them in detail. On the other hand Faraday and Tyndall, Huxley and Carpenter, refused to have anything to do with the psychic phenomena, and opposed the spiritualistic movement in a spirit of intolerance which contrasted unfavourably with the attitude of its scientific protagonists. Meanwhile the • old rationalist school of believers in magnetic or odylic emanations still lingered and were represented by the
Psychological Society (founded in 1875, and came to an end in 1879), the writings of its president, Sergeant Cox, and those of the well-known spiritualist, Mr. Samuel Guppy. One other scientific man of the period is deserving of mention in this connection. In 1876 Professor Barrett (now Sir William), lecturing before the British Association, declared that hyperesthesia and suggestion were not alone capable of explaining the phenomena, and urged the necessity for appointing a committee to investigate. How- ever, his suggestion was not acted upon, and in 1882 he called a conference to consider the question. The direct result of this conference was the founding of the Society for Psychical Research. ^Up to this point the English movement differed from the American less in kind than in degree, for it was altogether weaker and more restricted. Indeed, the difference in the traditions of the two countries, and in the general temper of their people, rendered it impossible that the movement should spread here as rapidly as it had done in America, or that it should be embraced with such fervour. It was not — probably for the same reason — inimical to Christianity in England, but rather supplementary to it, and there were those who claimed to be converted to Christianity through its means.
The Society for Psychical Research. — The history of the criticism of occult phenomena in Great Britain from 1882 to the present time is intimately connected with the Society for Psychical Research, and there is no development worthy of record which its members have not investigated. It was the first body to make a united and organised attempt to deal with what was called, for want of a better name, psychic phenomena, in a purely scientific and impartial spirit, free from the bias of preconceived ideas on the subject. It was, indeed, expressly stated in their prospec- tus that the members in no wise bound themselves to accept any one explanation, or to recognise in the phenom- ena the working of any non-physical agency. The first president of the Society was Professor Henry Sidgwick, and the Council numbered among its members Edmund Gurney, Frank Podmore, Frederic W. H. Myers, and Professor Barrett ; and the Rev. W. Stainton Moses, Morell Theobald, Dr. George Wild, and Dawson Rogers, the latter four being spiritualists. It may be mentioned, however, that the avowedly spiritualistic members of the Society gradually dropped off. Other presidents of the Society were, Professor Balfour Stewart, the Rt. Hon. A. J. Balfour, Professor William James, Sir William Crookes, Sir Oliver Lodge, and Professor Barrett, several of these being among the original members. The scope of the Psychical Research Society was defined by the appointment of six committees, as follows : — (1) Committee on Thought Transference ; (2) Committee on Hypnotism ; (3) Com- mittee on Reichenbach's Experiments ; (4) Committee on Apparitions ; (5) Committee on Physical (spiritualistic) Phenomena ; and (6) a Committee to consider the history and existing literature of the subject. The field of the Society was thus a wide one, and it was still 'further en- larged in later years, when a committee, headed by Dr. Richard Hodgson, conducted an enquiry into Theosophy (q.v.). And the methods of psychic research were applied to other matters also, which were outside of the Society's original scope. In order to find an explanation for the spiritualistic phenomena, its members journeyed into the domain of psychology, and studied automatism, hallucina- tions, and thought transference, one or other of which has been proved to have an important bearing on much of the spiritualistic phenomena, if not on all. They were also instrumental in detecting a great deal of fraud in connec- tion with mediumistic performances, especially in such phenomena as slate-writing (q.v.) and other " physical " manifestations. The explanation of these, in fact, formed
The Brothers Ira & W* Davenport.
These were the earliest exponents of manifestations, but their methods were later exposed as of the nature of trickery.
Cha? Foster and a Spirit
One of the earliest spirit-photographs in
existence, bearing but little resemblance
to the later type of photographic
materializations.
The three Fox Sisters, the first exponents of ' Table-tapping
EARLY HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM
[face p. 384
A snep-shot photo of a child as seen clairvoyantly by Dr. Hooper
The first spirit-photo of Archdeacon CoHey, with a few lines addressed to the Crewe 'circle' at Mr. Hope's house
** ** r:," *S*
.r..y^ t* 5lS5 «•» V» *** ;l >.
1 ■'. '->
V
vi'
>rX
»n«^"*^
•w
A typical spint-photograph
A psychograph (negative, i.e, reversed). A portion of the
outermost line is erased: this was probably due to the ' tablet
being too broad for ' precipitating ' on to the photographic
plate. The dots below are meaningless additions.
PHOTOGRAPHS OF SPIRITUALISTIC MATERIALIZATIONS
(from Rev. G. Henslow's The Proofs of the Truths of Spiritualism)
Two ladies sitting ; one almost entirely spint-cloud.
[face p. 385
Spiritualism
385
Spiritualism
one of the chief aims of the Society. Though at the time of its founding public mediumship seemed to have de- clined ; there was still more than enough phenomena for the Society to investigate, and the testimony of Sir William Crookes and others of standing and intellectual strength indicated that the matter was at least a fit subject for investigation. In connection with slate-writing, which many persons declared to be genuine and so simple that fraud was impossible, Mr. S. J. Davey, a member of the Society, gave a number of pseudo-seances. .Having been himself deceived for a time by the performances in that line of the well-known medium, William Eglinton, and having at length discovered the modus of his slate-writing feats, Mr. Davey set himself to emulate the medium's " manifestations." In the interests of psychic research he undertook to give sittings, which were carefully recorded by Dr. Hodgson. So well were the devices of the pro- fessional mediums reproduced that none of the sitters were able to detect the modus operandi of Davey's performances, even though they were assured beforehand that it was simply a conjuring trick. Such a demonstration could not fail to do more than any amount of argument to expose the "phenomenon" of slate-writing. (See article on Slate-writing.) Excellent work was done by the Society in the collection of evidence relating to apparitions of the dead and the living, many of which are embodied in Phan- tasms of the living, by Messrs. Myers, Podmore and Gurney. A statistical enquiry on a large scale was undertaken by a Committee of the Society in 1889. Some 17,000 cases of apparitions were collected by the committee and its assistants. The main object in taking such a census was to obtain evidence for the working of telepathy in veridical or coincidental apparitions, and in order to make such evidence of scientific vahie, the utmost care was taken to insure the impartiality and responsible character of all who took part in the enquiry. The result was, that after every precaution had been taken the apparitions coinciding with a death or other crisis were found greatly to exceed the number which could be ascribed to chance alone. (See also Fsychical Research.) But the most fruitful of the Society's researches were those concerning telepathy (q.v.), or thought-transference, and it was through the influence of its members that the doctrine of thought-transference, so long known to the vague speculations of the old mag- netists and mesmerists, was first placed on a definite basis as a problem wcrthy of scientific enquiry. Investigations into this matter are still progressing, and trustworthy proof of such a mode of communication would affect the scientific view of spiritualism to a remarkable degree. Among the individual efforts of members of the Society for Psychical Research the most complete and the most success- ful were those conducted by Professor and Mrs. Sidgwick in 1889-91. (See Telepathy.) At the same time there was much to encourage the belief in some " supernormal " agency, especially in the last decade of the nineteenth century. The two mediums whose manifestations led many able men in this country, in America, and on the Continent, to conclude that the spirits of the dead were concerned in their phenomena were the Italian medium Eusapia Palladino (q.v.) and the American Mrs. Piper. In 1885 Professor James, of Harvard, studied the case of Mrs. Piper (q.v.), and a few years later Dr. Richard Hodgson of the American Society for Psychical Research also investi- gated her case, the latter commencing his investigations in an entirely sceptical spirit. Of all the trance mediums she offers the best evidence for a supernatural agency. Dr. Hodgson himself declared his belief that the spirits of the dead spoke through the lips of the medium, and among others who held ±hat fraud alone would not account for the revelations given by Mrs. Piper in the trance state were
Professor James, Sir Oliver Lodge, Mr. Myers and Professor J. H. Hyslop. On the other hand, Mr. Podmore, while not admitting any supernormal agency, suggests that telepathy may help to explain the matter, probably aided by skilful observation and carefully-conducted enquiries concerning the affairs of prospective sitters. Mrs. Sidgwick, again, suggested that probably Mrs. Piper received telepathic com- munications from the spirits of the dead, which she repro- duced in her automatic speaking and writing. The other medium was Eusapia Palladino, who, after attracting considerable attention from Professors Lombroso, Richet, Flammarion, and others on the Continent, came to Britain in 1895. Several English scientific men had already witnessed her telergic powers on the Continent, at the invitation of Professor Charles Richet — Sir Oliver Lodge, Mr. Myers, and others — and of these Sir Oliver Lodge, at least, had expressed himself as satisfied that no known agency was responsible for her remarkable manifestations. The English sittings were held at Cambridge, and as it was proved conclusively that the medium made use of fraud, the majority of the investigators ascribed her " manifesta- tions " entirely to that. Later, however, in 1898, a further series of seances were held at Paris, and so success- fully that Richet, Myers, and Sir O. Lodge once more declared themselves satisfied of the genuineness of the phenomena. A further account of this medium will be found under a separate heading. Perhaps the most con- vincing evidence for the working of some supernormal agency, however, is to be found in the famous cross-corres- pondence experiments conducted in recent years. Mr. Myers had suggested before he died that if a control were to give the same message to two or more mediums, it would go. far to establish the independent existence of such con- trol. On the death of Professor Sidgwick (in August, 1900) and of Mr. Myers (in January, 1 901) it was thought that if mediums were controlled by these, some agreement might be looked for in the scripts. The first correspondences were found in the script of Mrs. Thomson and Miss Rawson, the former in London, the latter in the south of France. The Sidgwick control appeared for the first time to these ladies on the same day, January nth, 1901. On the 8th of May, 1901 the Myers control appeared in the script of Mrs. Thompson and Mrs. Verrall, and later in that of Mrs. Piper and others. So remarkable were the correspondences obtained in some cases where there could not possibly be collusion between the mediums, that it is difficult to believe that some discarnate intelligence was not responsible for some, at least of the scripts. (See also Cross-Correspon- dences.)
See also the biographies of the various eminent spiritual- ists, mediums, and investigators dealt with in this work, and the articles on Telepathy, Hallucination, Table-turning, etc. Also the articles on the various countries of Europe.
M.J.
By far the most extraordinary experiments in connection with psychic phenomena were those undertaken by Sir William Crookes. Working under the most stringent con- ditions he and his fellow experimenters assured themselves that entrance or exit to the room in which their seances were held was impossible. Yet he succeeded by the aid of a medium in obtaining the best possible evidence of the presence of spirits or other entities in the apartment. These were of a tangible nature and were actually weighed by Sir William, who on one occasion even succeeded in obtaining a portion of the protoplasmic matter from which these entities were built up, which he kept in a box for several days. These entities emerged from the body of the medium or from that of one of the sitters, walked about, spoke, and even debated loudly and noisily with Sir William and the other sitters on many different topics over
AA
Spiritualism
386
Spiritualism
a prolonged space of time. They frequently vanished through the floor. Sir William found their average weight to be about one-third of that of a human being. These phenomena were witnessed by numerous persons of the highest intelligence and probity, among them, it is under- stood, some of exalted rank. A full statement regarding the phenomena in all their details may be found in Mr. Gambier Bolton's interesting little volume Ghosts in Solid Form.
No work of recent times furnishes the student of psychic research with such a masterly conspectus of the subject as Sir William F. Barrett's On the Threshold of the Unseen (1917). Expanded from an address on the phenomena of spiritualism delivered some twenty years ago, it covers the whole history of psychical research during that period and a notice of it may well serve to complete this article and furnish the reader with data concerning psychical research during the present century. The introductory chapter briefly reviews the work of eminent scientists and provides a frank statement of the present position of psychi- cal research. Public opinion regarding the quest, and the conflicting objections of science and religion are briefly reviewed in chapters II. and III., and are followed by an essay on the physical phenomena of spiritualism, which contains little that is not noticed in the present article.