OCCULTISM AND COMMON-SENSE

CONTENTS


INTRODUCTION VII

I. SCIENCE'S ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE "SUPERNATURAL"

II. THE HYPNOTIC STATE

III. PHANTASMS OF THE LIVING

IV. DREAMS

V. HALLUCINATIONS

VI. PHANTASMS OF THE DEAD

VII. ON "HAUNTINGS" AND KINDRED PHENOMENA

VIII. THE DOWSING OR DIVINING ROD

IX. MEDIUMISTIC PHENOMENA

X. MORE PHYSICAL PHENOMENA

XI. THE MATERIALISATION OF "GHOSTS"

XII. SPIRIT-PHOTOGRAPHY

XIII. CLAIRVOYANCE

XIV. MRS PIPER'S TRANCE UTTERANCES

AFTERWORD




NOTE


The following chapters, together with Professor Barrett's comment
thereupon, which now figures as an Introduction, originally appeared in
the columns of _The Westminster Gazette_.




INTRODUCTION

_By Professor W. F. Barrett, F.R.S._


_Those of us who took part in the foundation of the Society for
Psychical Research were convinced from personal investigation and from
the testimony of competent witnesses that, amidst much illusion and
deception, there existed an important body of facts, hitherto
unrecognised by science, which, if incontestably established, would be
of supreme interest and importance._

_It was hoped that by applying scientific methods to their systematic
investigation these obscure phenomena might eventually be rescued from
the disorderly mystery of ignorance; (but we recognised that this would
be a work, not of one generation but of many.) Hence to preserve
continuity of effort it was necessary to form a society, the aim of
which should be, as we stated at the outset, to bring to bear on these
obscure questions the same spirit of exact and unimpassioned inquiry
which has enabled science to solve so many problems once not less
obscure nor less hotly debated. And such success as the society has
achieved is in no small measure due to the wise counsel and ungrudging
expenditure both of time and means which the late Professor Henry
Sidgwick gave, and which Mrs Sidgwick continues to give, to all the
details of its work._

_Turning now to the author of the following pages, everyone must
recognise the industry he has shown and the fairness of spirit he has
endeavoured to maintain. With different groups of phenomena, the
evidential value varies enormously. The testimony of honest and even
careful witnesses requires to be received with caution, owing to the
intrusion of two sources of error to which untrained observers are very
liable. These are unconscious_ mal-observation _and unintentional_
mis-description. _I cannot here enter into the proof of this statement,
but it is fully established. Oddly enough, not only a credulous observer
but a cynical or ferocious sceptic is singularly prone to these errors
when, for the first time, he is induced to investigate psychical
phenomena which, in the pride of his superior intelligence, he has
hitherto scorned. I could give some amusing illustrations of this within
my own knowledge. For instance, a clever but critical friend who had
frequently scoffed at the evidence for thought-transference published in
the "Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research," one day
seriously informed me he had been converted to a belief in
thought-transference by some conclusive experiments he had witnessed.
Upon inquiring where these experiments took place I found it was at a
public performance of a very inferior Zancig who was then touring
through the provinces!_

_Mr Beckles Willson frankly tells us that "the light heart and open
mind" with which he set forth on his inquiry deserted him before he drew
his labours to a close. For, entering upon the subject as a novice, he
found himself unexpectedly confronted by the mass of evidence and the
numerous and profoundly difficult problems which the Psychical Society
have had to face. His conclusions are derived from a study of the
available evidence, and this study has convinced him--as it has
convinced, so far as I know, every other painstaking and honest
inquirer--that no theories based on fraud, illusion, nor even on
telepathy, are adequate to account for the whole of the phenomena he has
reviewed. Contrary to his prepossessions, Mr Willson tells us that he
has been led to the conclusion that the only satisfactory explanation of
these phenomena is the action of discarnate human beings--that is to
say, the Spiritualistic hypothesis._

_I can hardly suppose he means to apply this statement to more than the
small residue of phenomena which he finds inexplicable on any other
hypothesis. Assuming this restricted view to be meant, the question
arises,