“The Psychic Research Society has a life of a quarter of a century and the results which have been obtained by constant research and close examination are such as should make even the most sceptical to pause in their work of discrediting every phenomenon which, by their limited reasoning and experiment, they are not able to find the truth about. The existence of such curious and startling phenomenon seems to be assured…”
NOVEMBER 11, 1908
Psychical research
SIR OLIVER LODGE IS ONE OF THE FEW SCIENTISTS IN EUROPE who have an open mind regarding psychic and other puzzling phenomena which are too often put down for stupid superstition. Indeed open-mindedness has been through out his characteristic, and his contributions to the study of what are called “psychological supernormalities have horrified not a few of his co-workers in the field of science. His latest on the subject appear in the Harper’s Monthly Magazine for August, and it is an eloquent plea for the recognition of the truth of certain psychic occurrences. The Psychic Research Society was established twenty-five years ago for the purpose of investigating what substance there was in a number of certain strange, weird apparent facts with which most of the distinguished members who joined the Society at its inception had become acquainted. Those that took part in the deliberations of the P.R.S. were eminent men, trained students in Science, Literature and Philosophy. The P.R.S. has a life of a quarter of a century and the results which have been obtained by constant research and close examination are such as should make even the most sceptical to pause in their work of discrediting every phenomenon which, by their limited reasoning and experiment, they are not able to find the truth about. The existence of such curious and startling phenomena seems to be assured, and every student of the voluminous and epoch-making works of Frederic Myers should now be familiar with them. Sir Oliver Lodge states that the first fact established by the Society’s labour was the reality of telepathy – which is described to be the phenomenon of a thought or image or impression or emotion in the mind of one person giving rise to a similar impression in the mind of another person sufficiently sympathetic and sufficiently at leisure to attend and record the impression. But though this is proved nothing is known about how this is caused, about the mechanism which works this effect. The discovery of this fact has served to explain in a way, many phenomena like apparitions, hallucinations, whether of sight, or of hearing or of touch. At the same time it reduced the stories about the clothes and accessories of so called ‘ghosts’ to absurdity. A second phenomenon of immense importance which there is every probability of being accepted as true in the near future is that which is known under various names, and of which the simplest is called ‘automatic writing’ – “that is writing executed independently of the full knowledge and consciousness of the operator – the hand acting in obedience either to some unconscious portion of the operator’s mind, or else responding to some other psychical influence more or less distinct from both his normal and his hypernormal personality.” Sir Oliver Lodge emphatically says that it is ‘useless and merely ignorant’ to deny occurrences of the nature mentioned above. These phenomena occasionally take the form of unconscious speeches and the person who is used as a medium is often himself unconscious for one or two hours together. Whence the information which is given out in writing or speech is obtained, is not known, but Sir Oliver Lodge states that the simplest assumption and one that covers a majority of cases is that the writer’s unconscious intelligence or subliminal self, his dream or genius stratum is at work. Now two hypothesis are being advanced to explain these phenomena. One of them, believed in by Sir Oliver Lodge himself as sufficiently covering very large number of cases, is that telepathy of some kind is occurring from some living person and is influencing the sensitive mind or train of the unconscious or semi-unconscious operator. But there is the other hypothesis which goes further and this is. It is supposed that the surviving intelligence of some of those who have recently lived on this earth, bring to bear a telepathic or telergic influence on the persons who ‘automatically’ write or deliver a speech while under trance. It is stated that a physiological apparatus is utilised by an intelligence to which it does not belong and this is called motor automatism or ‘telergy, or popularly ‘possession’. These two hypothesis may be taken for the purpose of investigation and research with perfect liberty to throw them away if they are proved to be wrong and unsatisfactory. In ordinary life the process involved in speaking and writing is this. An idea is conceived in the mind and for it to get expressed, it must move matter in the material world. A thought belongs to a different order of existence – “whatever it is it is not material; it is neither matter nor force; it has no direct power over matter; directly and unaided it moves matter; in the muscle is contained energy which only requires to be stimulated into activity in order to be transformed into visible motion. Muscles are stimulated by nerve fibres which themselves are excited from a central source of energy such as exists in the cortex or grey matter in the brain. Only thus much is known and understood. But what is it that stimulates the brain? Only in some cases it is mere reflex action. But in the case of a thought conceived in the mind, asks Sir Oliver Lodge, “operating, so to speak, on the will, and determining that there shall be a response in the material world, how does the stimulus get out of the psychical region into the physical and liberate energy from the brain centre?” Sir Oliver says “I have not the remotest idea; nor, I venture to say, has anyone.” Telepathy has suggested that mind can act directly on mind and thereby indirectly operate on the physical world through the organism of another person. But they are all cases where the mind of the second person is left out of account altogether and where only his brain is affected so that some mechanical action is produced in the physical world. And it is these cases which are called “possession” – a telergical effect as it is technically named. If these are true as there is every indication to believe they are, then, Sir Oliver Lodge says they are worth knowing about thoroughly. Now, it is ordinarily said by religiously orthodox people that the connection between ourselves and our organism is only temporary and that at death, the body resolves itself into its original elements, but the psychic entities still persist. In the new state, which occurs after death, we have no means of moving matter, of operating on the physical world. We cannot communicate with friends – no, not unless one of three things happen, says Sir Oliver Lodge. The telepathic power may continue so as to enable us to operate directly on the conscious or unconscious mind of our friends; or a material agency may continue, which it is somewhat difficult to conceive of, or thirdly and more likely a telergic power enabling the physical unit (ourselves after death) to detect and make use of some fully developed physiological medium – not of course belonging to it, for we speak of things happening at the death – ‘so that, during temporary vacation, by the usual possessor, this physiological medium may be utilised for a time and may achieve, in an unpractised and more or less blundering fashion, some desired influence upon the physical world.’ This trying to use other people’s bodies for conveying messages by surviving intelligence may be due to various cases – it may be due to affection of the operator for his friends, or occasionally, in the words of Sir Oliver Lodge it may be a scientific interest surviving from the time in this life when he was a keen and active member of the P. R. S. so that he desires above all things to convey to his friends, engaged on the same quest, some assurance, not only of his continued individual existence – in which on religious grounds, they may imagine that they already believe – but of his retention of a power to communicate indirectly and occasionally with them, and to produce movements even in the material world, by kind permission of an organism, or part of an organism, the temporary use or possession of which has been allowed him for that purpose.” The P.R.S. is now engaged in aiming at evidence to prove the identity of these surviving intelligences. And this is sought to be done by cross-correspondence – the reception of part of a message through one medium and part through another – and by information or criteria characteristic of the supposed intelligence.
Reference:
The First 100
A Selection of Editorials, 1878-1978, THE HINDU, VOLUME I