Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical ResearchSage, Michael
Religion
Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research
Sage, Michael
Mediums -- Practice -- Great Britain; Parapsychology -- Investigation -- Great Britain; Piper, Leonora, 1859-1950; Spiritualism
Another well-observed fact, opposed to the telepathic theory, is the
selection made amongst incidents by the communicator. If we were dealing
with telepathy, the secondary personalities of the medium would
sometimes be mistaken, make blunders, record facts which the so-called
communicator could never have known, but which the sitter alone knows
well. Now this never happens. The reported facts are always common to at
least two consciousnesses, that of the communicator and that of the
sitter, or that of the communicator and that of a distant person. The
inaccuracies prove nothing against this argument; if they are wilful
falsehoods they simply prove that the communicator is a liar, and not
that he is a secondary personality of Mrs Piper. If the reported facts
are unverifiable, this does not prove that they are inexact.
If the telepathic theory expresses the truth, we must grant an almost
infinite power to telepathy. This supposition is indispensable to
account for the facts. Then how shall we understand the errors and
confusions of the communicators? How can an infinite power seem at times
so limited, so finite, when the conditions remain unchanged? On the
other hand, the lapses of memory and confusions are quite explicable on
the spiritualistic theory; we cannot reasonably think that a change so
great as death should not induce some disturbance of mind, at least
temporarily, or should not greatly weaken certain groups of memories
which, in the new surroundings, have no longer any practical use.
A change of communicators has always been frequent, but was especially
so in Professor Hyslop's sittings. Mr Robert Hyslop constantly says to
his son, "James, I am getting weak; wait for me, I am coming back." And
then another communicator appears on the spot. The telepathic hypothesis
cannot explain this fact; it would seem quite natural that the
communicator should be always the same. To explain it, another
hypothesis--that of suggestion on the part of the sitter--must be added
to the telepathic hypothesis. But the spiritualistic hypothesis, on the
other hand, explains this perfectly well, even though we may be
compelled to reckon with the complications which the admission of the
existence of another world may introduce.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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