Lo! Page 7

  Maybe there are experimenters who have learned to do such things, teleportatively. I’d see some sport in it, myself, if it wouldn’t cost too much.

  There was a piker with pennies, in London, several years ago. New York Evening World, Jan. 18, 1928—flows of copper coins and chunks of coal, in a house in Battersea, London, occupied by a family named Robinson. “The Robinsons are educated people, and scout the idea of a supernatural agency. However they are completely baffled, and declare the phenomena take place in closed rooms, thus precluding the possibility of objects being thrown from outside.”

  There’s small chance of such phenomena being understood, just at present, because everybody’s a logician. Almost everybody reasons: “There are not supernatural occurrences: therefore these alleged phenomena did not occur.” However through some closed skulls, mostly independently of eyes and ears and noses, which tell mostly only what they should tell, is penetrating the idea that flows of coins and chunks of coal may be as natural as the flows of rivers. Those of us who have taken this degree of our initiation may now go on to a more advanced stage of whatever may be the matter with us.

  Aug. 30, 1919—Swanton Novers Rectory, near Melton Constable, Norfolk, England—oil “spurting” from walls and ceilings. It was thought that the house was over an oil well, the liquid percolating and precipitating, but it was not crude oil that was falling: the liquids were paraffin and petrol. Then came showers of water. Oil was falling from one of the appearing-points, at a rate of a quart in ten minutes. Methylated spirits and sandalwood oil were falling. In an account, dated September 2nd, it is said that receptacles had been placed under appearing-points, and that about fifty gallons of oil had been caught. Of thirteen showers, upon September 1st, two were of water.

  The circumstance that is of most importance in this story is that such quantities of oils and water appeared here that the Rector, the Rev. Hugh Guy, had been driven out, and had moved his furniture to another house.

  London Times, September 9—“Norfolk Mystery Solved.” We are told that Mr. Oswald Williams, the “illusionist,” or the stage magician, and his wife, who were investigating, had seen the housemaid, aged fifteen, enter the house, which for several days had been unoccupied, and throw a glass of water, which they had salted, to a ceiling, then crying that another shower had occurred. They had shut off the water supply, in the house, and had placed around glasses and pails of water, salted so that it could be identified.

  As Mr. and Mrs. Williams told it, they, in hiding, saw the girl throw the salted water, and rushed out of their hiding place and accused her. Conceivably all for the sake of science, and conceivably with not a thought of publicity values, Mr. Williams told newspaper reporters of his successful stratagem, and put completeness into his triumph, by telling that the girl had confessed. “She admitted that she had done it, and finally she broke down and made a clean breast of it.”

  Times, September 12—girl interviewed by a representative of a Norwich newspaper—denied that she had confessed—denied that she had played tricks of any kind—denied that the Williamses had been in hiding—told that she had gone to the house, with Mr. and Mrs. Williams, and that a wet spot had appeared upon a ceiling, and that she had been wrongfully accused of having thrown water.

  “According to the little girl’s statement, she was at no time alone in the kitchen” (London Daily News, September 10). “She insists that she was the victim of a trick, and that great pressure was put upon her to admit that she had thrown salted water to the ceiling. ‘I was told,’ she said, ‘that I would be given one minute to say I had done it, or go to prison. I said that I didn’t do it.’ ”

  Having an interest in ways in which data are suppressed, I have picked up some information upon how little girls are “pressed.” No details of the “pressure” were published in the London newspapers. Norfolk News, November 8—that, in the Holt Petty Sessions had come up the case of the girl, Mabel Louisa Philippo—spelled Phillips, in the other accounts—complainant against Mrs. Oswald Williams, who was charged with having assaulted her. The girl said that Mrs. Williams had time after time struck her in the face, and had called attention to her face, reddened by blows, as evidence of her guilt. Mrs. Philippo testified that, when she arrived at the rectory, her daughter’s first words were that she had been beaten. The Rev. Hugh Guy testified, but he did not testify that he was in the house at the time. According to details picked up from other accounts, he was not in the house at the time.

  It is said that legal procedure in Great Britain is superior to whatever goes under that name in the United States. I can’t accept that legal procedure anywhere is superior to anything. Mr. Guy, who had not been present, testified that he had not seen the girl struck, and I found no record of any objection by the girl’s attorney to such testimony. The case was dismissed.

  And then a document closed investigation. It was a letter from Mr. Guy, published in the Times, September 13. Mr. Guy wrote that he had tasted the water, upon the ceiling, and had tasted salt in it: so he gave his opinion that the girl had thrown the water. Most likely there is considerable salt, reminders of long successions of hams and bacons, on every kitchen ceiling.

  According to Mr. and Mrs. Williams, the girl had confessed. But see Mr. Guy’s letter to the Times—that the girl had not confessed.

  So, because of Mr. Guy’s letter, the Williamses cannot be depended upon. But we’re going to find that Mr. Guy cannot be depended upon. To be sure, I am going to end up with something about photographs, but photographs cannot be depended upon. I can’t see that out of our own reasoning, we can get anywhere, if there isn’t anything phenomenal that can be depended upon. It is my expression that, if we are entering upon an era of a revised view of many formerly despised and ridiculed data, there will be a simultaneous variation of many minds, more favorably to them, and that what is called reasoning in those minds will be only supplementary to a general mental tropism.

  The investigation was stopped by Mr. Guy. The inquiry-shearer, or the mystery-bobber, was this statement, in his letter—“It would have taken only a small quantity to create the mess.”

  The meaning of this statement is that, whereas gallons, or barrels, of oils, at a cost of hundreds of dollars, could not be attributed to a mischievous girl, “only a small quantity” could be.

  Flows of frogs—flows of worms—flows of lies—read this:

  London Daily Express, August 30—The rector, in response to a request from the Daily Express, for the latest news, reported as follows:

  “To the Editor of the Daily Express:

  “Expert engineer arriving Monday. Drippings ascribed to exudations, on August 8, of petrol, methylated spirits, and paraffin. House evacuated; vapor dangerous; every room affected; downpour rather than dripping—Guy.’ ”

  In the Daily Express, September 2, is published Mr. Guy’s statement that he had been compelled to move his furniture from the house.

  According to other accounts, the quantities were great. In the London Daily News were published reports by an architect, a geologist, and a chemist, telling of observations upon profuse flows. In the Norwich newspapers, the accounts are similar. For instance, the foreman of an oil company, having been asked to give an opinion, had visited the house, and had caught in a tub, two gallons of oil, which had dripped, in four hours, from one of the appearing-points. Just how, as a matter of tricks, a girl could have been concerned in these occurrences is not picturable to me. The house was crowded, while the oil expert, for instance, was investigating. But it does seem that unconsciously she was concerned. The first of the showers occurred in her room. Ceilings were bored and ripped off, but nothing by which to explain was found. Then another stage magician, Mr. N. Maskelyne, went to Swanton Novers, with the idea of exposing trickery. Possibly this competition made the Williamses hasty. But Mr. Maskelyne could find nothing by which to explain the mystery. According to him (Daily Mail, September 10) “barrels of it” had appeared, during the time of his observations.


  Just how effective, as an inquiry stopper, was the story of the girl and the “small quantity,” is shown by the way the Society for Psychical Research was influenced by it. See the Journal S.P.R., October, 1919. Mr. Guy’s letter to the Times is taken as final. No knowledge of conflicting statements by him is shown. The Society did not investigate. “A small quantity” can be explained, as it should be explained, but “barrels of it” must be forgotten. Case dismissed.

  If the Rev. Hugh Guy described at one time a “downpour,” which had driven out him and his tables, chairs, beds, rugs, all those things that I think of seriously, because I have recently done some moving, myself, and then told of “a small quantity,” why have I not an explanation of this contradiction?

  I wrote to Mr. Guy, asking him to explain, having the letter registered for the sake of a record. I have received no answer.

  In the London Daily Mail, Sept. 3, 1919, are reproduced two photographs of oil dripping from different ceilings. Large drops of oil are clearly visible.

  6

  Flows of blood from “holy images”—I take for a proposition that, though nothing can be proved—because, if all phenomenal things are continuous, there is, in a final sense, nothing phenomenal—anything can be said to be proved—because, if all phenomenal things are continuous, the most preposterous nonsense must somewhere be linked with well-established beliefs. If I had the time for an extra job, I’d ask readers to think up loony theories, and send them to me, and I’d pick out the looniest of all, and engage to find abundant data to make it reasonable to anybody who wanted to think it reasonable.

  Once upon a time I thought that stories of flows of blood from “holy images” were as ridiculous as anything that I had ever read in any astronomical, or geological textbook, or in any treatise upon economics or mechanics.

  Well, then, what happened?

  It occurred to me that stories of flows of blood from “holy images” are assimilable with our general expressions upon teleportations. Whereupon, automatically, the formerly despised became the somewhat reasonable. Though now and then I am ill-natured with scientific methods, it is no pose of mine that I am other than scientific, myself, in our expressions. I am tied down like any college professor or Zulu wise man.

  As a start-off, I suggest that if we accept that flows of water ever have appeared at points in objects, called “houses,” a jolt is softened, and we pass easily into thinking that other fluids may have appeared at points in other objects, called “holy images.” The jolt is softened still more, if we argue that other fluids did appear at points in the object, called a “house,” at Swanton-Novers.

  There may be Teleportation, and maybe for ages the secret of it has been known by esoteric ones. It may be that priests, especially in the past, when, sociologically, they were of some possible use, have known how to teleport a red fluid, or blood, to points upon images. They may have been “agents,” able to do this, without knowing how they got their effects. If I can accept that our whole existence is an organism, I can accept that, if by so-called miracles, its masses of social growths can best be organized and kept coordinated, then appear so-called miracles. The only flaw that I note in this argument is that it overlooks that there is no need for miracles. If there is a need for belief in miracles, miracles can be said to have occurred.

  We shall have an expression in terms of some of the other of our expressions. If we arrange the ideas of it neatly, if not nattily, no more will be required to impress anybody who would like to be impressed.

  Out in open fields there have been mysterious, or miraculous, showers of water. Then has appeared the seeming “agency” of human beings, and similar showers have occurred in houses—

  Out in open places, there are electrical manifestations, and they are known as “lightning.” The general specializes, and human beings use electricity, in their houses, or in images that are called “machines.” Or we’d say that electricians are trained “agents” in the uses of lightning.

  Out in open places there have been flows of a red liquid.

  In La Nature, Sept. 25, 1880, Prof. J. Brun, of the University of Geneva, writes that, near Djebel-Sekra, Morocco, he had heard rumors of a fall of blood from the sky. He visited the place of the reported phenomenon. He says that, to his stupefaction, he found rocks and vegetation covered with scales of a red, shining material. Examining specimens under a microscope, he found them composed of minute organisms, which he tells us were Protococcus fluvialis.

  The identification may be doubted. I don’t like it. The ease with which any writer can pick to pieces any statement made by anybody who is not present to bandy delusions with him is becoming tiresome, but if I will write a book, I will write it triumphantly.

  So this identification may be doubted. First we note that Prof. Brun says that, instead of having the features of the algae that he had named, these organisms were simple, or undifferentiated. To explain this appearance, the Professor, who had perhaps recovered from his stupefaction, says that the things were young ones. But an aggregation exclusively of young Protococci is as extraordinary as would be a vast assemblage, say filling Central Park, New York, of human infants, without a sign of a parent.

  The explanation sublimates segregationism. It attributes to a grab, an exquisite discrimination. Somewhere in a swamp, said Prof. Brun, there were hosts of Protococci—venerable ones, middle-aged ones, and their brats—or “all sizes,” as he worded it. Along came a whirlwind. Carrying away all the minute organisms, this big, rough disturbance removed, with microscopic fastidiousness, old Protococci from young Protococci, according to differences in specific gravity. It cast down at one place all the bereft parents, and precipitated, at Djebel-Sekra, a rain of little, red orphans.

  When we recover from the sadness into which this tragedy cast us, we reflect that of all organisms, red blood-cells are of the simplest, or least differentiated. Anyway, here is an orthodox scientist who accepted that a red fluid did fall from the sky. I have about a dozen other records of showers of red fluids that were not rains colored by dusts. Upon several of these occasions the substance was identified as blood.

  Or that once upon a time, or once upon an archaic time, there came to this earth, along arterial paths in space, red flows of a primitive plasm that deluged continents, and out of which, by the plan, purpose, guidance, or design that governs developments in all organisms, higher forms of life developed—

  And that maybe this mechanism has not altogether ceased, so that to this day, but in a vestigial sense, or in a very much dwindled representation, such flows are continuing—

  And that, if human beings ever have had “agency” in directing such flows, that is only a specialization of the general.

  Once upon a time, it was the fashion with those of us who say that they are of the enlightened, to reject all stories of the “Miracles at Lourdes.” The doctors had much to do with this rejection. Somewhere behind everything that everybody believes, or disbelieves, is somebody’s pocket. But now, as to those “miracles,” the explanation of auto suggestion is popular. Some of us who were not interested are beginning to think. The tendency that I point out is that of so often rejecting both data and an explanation, simply because one rejects an explanation. Many of our data are in this position of phenomena at Lourdes. Explanations have been taken over by theologians, or by spiritualists, and scientists, instead of opposing this usurpation, have denied the data. Whether it is only because I now want so to accept, or not, I now accept that the phenomenon of the stigmata, or flows of blood from points upon living images, has occurred.

  Most likely those who deny the phenomenon of the stigmata are those who have not read, or have not recently read, the story of Louise Lateau, for instance. One would have to be of a very old-fashioned resistfulness not to accept this story, half an hour after reading it. For the latest instance, that of Theresa Neumann, of the village of Konnersreuth, near Munich, Germany, see the New York Times, April 18, 1928. In recent years, several
cases have been reported, in the United States. Flows of blood from points in living images lead us to flows of blood from points in graven images. If one accepts the phenomenon of the stigmata, I don’t know that acceptance is monstrously stretched by transferring the idea from bodies to statues.

  “On Saturday (Aug. 21, 1920) all statues and holy pictures, in the home of Thomas Dwan, of Templemore, Tipperary, Ireland, began to bleed.” See newspapers of August 24th.

  A boy, James Walsh, a devout youngster, aged sixteen, was the center of the reported phenomena, at Templemore. Perhaps the bleeding statues and pictures were trickeries of his.

  All boys and girls are little rascals. This is a generalization that one can feel somewhat nearly sure of, until it is examined. Then, because of continuity, we find that we cannot define boys and girls, because no definite line can be drawn between youngsters and adults. Also rascality and virtue merge. Well, without arguing, I say that if all the boys and girls who appear in our records were rascals, they were most expert little rascals.

  “Towns in ruins—terrible bloodshed—bombs and burnings—shocking series of murders—hellish vandalism—brutality and terrorism—hangings, ambushes, raids.”

  Whatever the association may be, I note conditions in Ireland, at this time.

  Here is one newspaper heading, telling of occurrences of one day—“Reign of terror in Ireland—terrible massacre—appalling loss of life—holocaust—bloodshed and horror.”

  Five days before the phenomena at Templemore were first reported, this town was raided. The Town Hall was burned down, and other buildings were destroyed. Templemore was terrorized. All shops were closed. Few persons dared to be seen in the streets. On the road to Templemore there was not a cart. The town was partly in ruins. It was god-forsaken and shilling-and-pence-deserted.