General soul research-Studying the classics of "Soulology" - "ghost hunters"

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	As a compromise, though, James had asked Hodgson to give a brief report on his Piper results at the convention. There were so few good mediums—at least, he and his fellow investigators tended to eliminate most as fraudulent—that Mrs. Piper now stood out like the only flower left in a denuded garden. That was one of the issues Hodgson wanted to raise—the need to find mediums before they sold out to the demands of the profession. As it turned out, Myers and Lodge were so fascinated by the World’s Columbian Exposition that Hodgson—after making his speech—ound himself dragged across the white-marbled landscape of the fair, from the huge, glass-walled Fisheries Building to the tiny Chinese pavilion, with its heavy furniture carved with the shapes of lazy, coiling dragons, to the glittering technology exhibits. Hodgson felt that he’d seen “nearly all of the World’s Fair that I care to,” as he wrote to Mrs. Piper. He missed her, he said. He also missed being in the thick of work. He’d been hearing from his associates that the G.P sittings were still going astonishingly well. They were much more interesting to him than the marvels of the exposition. He couldn’t wait to get back. On December 17, 1893, a two-word telegram whistled its way across the Atlantic. Myers read it with gratification, but not surprise. It said only: “James accepts.” (The author's commentary: "William James" agreed to accept the call and began to serve as the president of the "Spirit Research Society." Eventually, Caesar Lombroso finally conducted a scientific test on Eusapia Palladino, and more than once, it was a series. The first inspection process was like killing the battlefield. In addition to being led by Lombroso, the team also includes a Russian psychologist, two Italian physicists, and the French physiologist Charles Richet. The singer will be held in a private home of an enthusiastic citizen in Milan. The owner agrees that the team can thoroughly search the house beforehand, and the living room used as a place to call the soul is blocked after each test. IT HAD TAKEN cajoling, pleading, and threatening—even for the Master of Turin—but Cesare Lombroso had launched not just one, but a series of scientific investigations of Eusapia Palladino. The first was something of a shambles. Led by Lombroso, the team also included a Russian psychologist, two Italian physicists, and the French physiologist Charles Richet. The sittings took place in the private home of a helpful Milan resident, who had agreed to have his house searched in advance and his parlor, to be used for the sittings, locked and sealed after each test. But as Richet would tell his SPR colleagues, Lombroso was now so enthralled, the other scientists so unnerved by confronting a medium, and Eusapia so prone to scream like a fishwife when she didn’t get her way that they lost control of the experiments almost immediately. The scientists wanted full light. She insisted on a dim red light in a darkened room, claiming that bright illumination would put off the spirits. They gave in. The researchers asked her to stand, instead of sitting at the tables she planned to levitate, so that her feet were not concealed. She refused, declaring that her legs and knees trembled so violently during levitations that she could not possibly stay upright. They gave in again. And trying to control her hands and feet was like wrestling with a freshly caught squid. She was never still, Richet complained, always twitching her fingers away, wriggling her toes. Most of the time, it was impossible to be sure that she wasn’t sneaking a hand away to produce a phantom touch, or nudging furniture with her feet or knees. Most of the time, Richet knew he was observing some rather obvious cheating. But every once in a while, the whole feel of the sittings changed: the sneaky medium disappeared, and a pale, still woman replaced her; the curtains began to shiver, as Lombroso had reported earlier, billowing in that nonexistent breeze. Hurrying to open the draperies, Richet would have sworn that he felt the touch of cold hands, although that could have been his nerves. No one was there, no wire, no body, no anything except empty air between the curtain and the window. He could explain away the common cheat. It was the other, more elusive Eusapia who bothered him, the one who sat pinned to her chair while the cold fingers of the supernatural seemed to crawl into the room. As James had complained, there were few real mediums available to psychical researchers. It occurred to Richet that, with patience, Eusapia might offer a chance to study the difference between what was real—and what was contrived. The author's comment: In the history of "Spiritual Research", Eusapia Palladino was known as the "physical psychic" that is rare in the world, and she is totally different than "Psychic media" Mrs. Piper. She seems to be more like a super magician or a wizard. She shows the incredible vision of "ghost action", but at the same time, she is seriously suspected because of her strange behavior. It’s a "scam" that is good at playing with props and tricks. Especially, she always insists on "performance" in the special environment she recognizes. This is even more irritating. He tested her again, without the Italian and Russian scientists, who, he thought, had compromised the earlier observations. Those experiments yielded the same frustrating mix of deliberate fraud and inexplicable event. In one sitting, at the Psychological Institute in Paris, he’d brought in several witnesses, including the formidable physicist Marie Curie, who Richet hoped could tell the other observers if there was any sign of unusual energy in the room. He and Mme Curie sat on either side of the medium, each gripping one of Eusapias hands. “We saw the curtain swell out as if pushed by some large object,” he noted. Richet reached up and grabbed the bump behind the fabric. It felt like a hand, but one with sausagelike fingers, much bigger than Eusapia’s “little hand,” and with nothing beyond the wrist itself. He glanced back to make sure the medium’s hands were still secured. Mme Curie assured him that she’d kept an unbreakable clasp on Eusapia’s fingers. (The author's commentary: If it is not recorded and described in this way, we later do not know that there have been so many famous figures at that time who participated in various experiments of "spiritual research", although celebrities may not specialize in this aspect of research or whether You must be able to see through the scam, but at least, these masters of the scientific community are also eager to know "the reality of life" and "is there the existence of the soul?" Moreover, with their actual participation, we also have the willingness of future generations. The researchers have added even more confidence, so that everyone can have more courage to go on the thorns without worrying about any ridicule. Richet tried another experiment, laying pieces of smoked paper on a table some distance away from the medium. Pale hands appeared and pressed against the paper. When he picked up the paper, the dark film of smoke had worn off in places, as if a finger had been rubbing at it. Eusapia’s hands remained clean, untouched by smoky residue. Those creeping hands, what to do with them? How to define them? Out of his growing frustration, Richet invented a new word for the phenomena—ectoplasm, cobbled together from the Greek ecto, “exterior,” andplasm, “substance.” “C‘est absolument absurde, mais c’est vrai!” Richet exclaimed, deciding, like Lombroso before him, that he required reinforcements. (The author's commentary: I have been engaged in the study of "experimental soul science" for most of my life. I have never seen the phenomenon of "ghost caused move". Even if I have witnessed it, it is all about "scam tricks". In fact, the author does not assert that "there must be no" because he has never seen it. The author uses "reasonable logical reasoning" to refute the possibility of this "ghost action"; First, suppose that there is indeed a "ghost", and whether all or part of the more powerful ghost is enough to make some objects in the real world move, shake, or even fly, then why must you use any "psychic"? If the "ghost" is enough to obviously "moving objects", then why are many dead souls unable to communicate with their family members and friends when they are eager to communicate with their family members? Is it broadcast by the psychic media? Or why are these ghosts not proving them to family and friends by "moving objects"? Second, the obvious "moving real-world objects"; especially the large and bulky furniture, is not established in the basic logic of "soul"; let's take a look at the first reason, a big table. It must be a lot more or even more heavy than a corpse. If the "ghost" can move the big table or even make it float in the air, why can't they move their dead body? Even if you can't speak, you can't look at things, you can't look like before. Do all kinds of fine movements, but as long as you can let your body float, can you directly prove that you still exist after death? The second reason: In the real world, we rarely Seeing the example of "energy moving objects", but, apart from some theory, it is not very rare that lightning can use large energy to open big trees or even damage houses. Therefore, we can first recognize that "energy can move objects". Proposition; but how powerful is the energy of lightning? Suppose a dead soul not only continues to exist after death, but can also retain the "power" of life, then an ordinary person, etc., the power of life may not be able to move a bulky table, let alone fully lift into the air, then, how many possibilities, one person after death When the "undead" type exists, the power is increased by several times, which can make a large table move or float in the air. The third reason is the author's long-term research induction; the so-called "soul", Compared with the living, it is only physical. Soul is a kind of spirit "Intelligent energy with self-awareness", Soul (spiritual body) is a kind of "Tiny/subtle element" that resembles the shape before life. This "subtle element" is actually contained in all ordinary substances. The unit is more elaborate, perhaps the same as the tiny particles. The "fine substance" contained in the human body is no exception. When people live, they are inseparable from the flesh, but their existence is far away. Far more than" The physical flesh, therefore, when the flesh is dead, these "subtle substances" will be separated from the flesh, and continue to exist by the "spirit" (spiritual) and continue to exist and can do various activities; however, because of this "fine matter" particles Very small, small enough to penetrate any real thing in the real world, so, like a ghost story or a mythical legend; "ghost" can easily "walk cross a wall", that is right, the ghost can indeed do it, However, because of this "penetration", it is impossible for "ghost" to "pick up" a cup or even a pencil. Think about it, if the ghost can hold the pen by himself, then why should it be done by the psychic media? Write a message? Therefore, it is impossible for "ghosts to move objects". It is even more impossible to move large tables or float them in the air; because the "fine matter" particles that make up the "spirit" will penetrate the table or heavy curtains. There is also one of the most important "reverse proofs"; I believe that more or less people have heard of some legends or ghost stories such as "revenge of the soul" or "the devil will die"; assuming that "ghost" can move bulk objects, then those who have been murdered and die, why have never moved stones and bricks to kill the murderer? If the ghost can move the big table, can the murderer be killed by the table? Or let the sharp but not very heavy fruit knife in the kitchen become a "flying knife" to assassinate the murderer? Obviously never happened, ghosts certainly can't "kill" anyone with the strength of their hands and sharp fingers. So, these are completely untenable in "reasonable logical reasoning", let alone the actual state? I don’t know why these predecessors did not think of such an important "logical problem" a hundred years ago. Perhaps in the doubtfulness of "physical psychics," there are more "believing" elements, or too urgent to find something. Or even unknowingly confused by those "excellent performance gimmicks", even forgetting the rational speculation and analysis. If you want to say that "ghost" can really control some objects in the real world? It is still possible, that is, some electronic products of weak current systems, and nerve impulse signals of biological currents in the human brain; this is not done by spiritual body, but by the spiritual mind, the soul itself. The energy is also very weak, but as long as it interacts with the weak communication line (especially the precision IC board circuit) or the neural network of the human brain, it may have an impact; one is to temporarily disable some electronic products. For example, cameras and VC cannot be shot normally; or people may have hallucinations for a while; even there are many "ghost" sighting reports, most likely not seen by the naked eye after light reflection, but the ghosts interfere with the visual nerve impulse message, making people Seeing directly from the brain. Therefore, the so-called "physical psychic" can drive ghosts to move large objects, or make a bulky large table floating in the air, which is not plausible in reasonable logical reasoning. Therefore, the author believes that those experimental results don’t have enough credit.)

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	RICHARD HODGSON HAD also been thinking over innate abilities, trying to put into perspective the mind of a medium and what it could—and couldn’t—accomplish. Surprising himself and his colleagues, Hodgson announced that he’d been mistaken in calling G.P merely a trance personality of Leonora Piper. After sittings with 130 different visitors, he’d been persuaded of the impossible—that the personality in the room was indeed a spirit, proof that his friend lived on. Out of that long line of visitors, only twenty or so were friends of the late George Pellew. The rest were strangers, brought in to muddle the picture. All were presented without a clue as to name or background. Yet G.P. had effortlessly sorted through this parade, greeting all his old friends by name except one, a girl who was now eighteen and had been only ten when he met her. She had changed, G.P. told her finally, adding rather rudely that he wondered if she still played the violin as badly as she had as a child. As Hodgson reported, not once in the years between 1892 and 1897 did “G.P” ever confuse a stranger for a friend of George Pellew—or vice versa. Hodgson found telepathy an inadequate explanation; it could hardly be supposed that all of G.P’s friends happened to be gifted telepathic agents, capable of sharing their thoughts with the medium. Sometimes G.P. talked accurately about friends not in attendance, some living miles away, making thought transference even more unlikely. Hodgson found support from other sittings as well. For instance, messages from people who had apparently died in mental anguish, such as suicides, were consistently confused, almost desperately so. If Mrs. Piper worked by telepathy to create a mental picture of a person lost to suicide, by reading the minds of friends and acquaintances, there was no reason that it would be garbled compared to all the other mind-reading. Time after time, though, messages from suicides remained muddled, miserable. (The author's commentary: There is nothing wrong with the insights of "Richard ". This phenomenon is not something that Electrocardiogram can do or explain. What's more, until one hundred years later, human beings are so-called Electrocardiogram. There is no more cognition. At most, it is just a noun that is when it is not solved. "G‧P" should be the George Pellew, and can recognize twenty old friends, and one hundred and ten strangers, can still be accurate, not to mention the "things of friends who are not present". It is very difficult to deny that the undead of "George Lulu" does exist. I can remember that the little girl had poor violin music before, and it was difficult to be picky about the performance of a dead soul. The second half of the "suicide" is also correct in the special state, but the explanation is a bit simple, according to the author's interpretation; It means "Imagine that Mrs. Piper" relied on "Reading Mind" to read these old documents from one of the people who had a deep understanding of the situation of George . No matter who is the target, whether it is life or death, she is only reading the old memory, and there will be no murmurs; therefore, for example, her reading target was locked to Richard Hodgson, The memory files of Richard may not be all normal and stable, and any murmurs will appear in the case of suicides. Obviously, this does not make sense, so of course, it is impossible to explain all of these via "read the mind") By contrast, there continued to be occasional sittings that rendered such breathtakingly clear and personal responses that even an observer given to doubt could not avoid that sense of a spirit in the room. In one such sitting, the parents of a little girl, Katherine (nicknamed Kakie), who had died a few weeks earlier at the age of five, came to visit. They did not identify themselves but brought with them a silver medal and string of buttons that the child had once played with. A transcription of the sitting read as follows: Where is Papa? Want Papa. [The father takes from the table a silver medal and hands it to Mrs. Piper] I want this—want to bite it. [She used to do this.] ... I want you to call Dodo [her name for her brother George] . Tell Dodo I am happy. [Puts hands to throat] No sore throat any more. [She had pain and distress of the throat and tongue] ... Papa, want to go wide [ride] horsey [She pleaded this throughout her illness] Every day I go to see horsey. I like that horsey ... Eleanor. I want Eleanor. [Her little sister. She called her much during her last illness.] I want my buttons. Where is Dinah? I want Dinah. [Dinah was an old rag doll, not with us]. I want Bagie [her name for her sister Margaret]. I want to go to Bagie ... I want Bagie ... (The author's commentary: This is the content of a "soul-calling event". Of course, I believe that some people will think that this is "reading mind". However, can "reading mind" be able to read such detailed things, isn't it enough? What's more, so far, the scientist or psychologist can tell us what is the so-called "reading mind"? Under the condition that no term related to "spirit" or "induction" is used, who can use scientific vocabulary to explain how this phenomenon and ability are produced? How can "heart" be "read"?) It was a shock to hear Hodgson, the longtime cynic, the tough-minded investigator, the most skeptical of the SPR inquirers, declare such sessions to be evidence of spirit communication. But once convinced, he did so with typical forthrightness in his second report on Leonora Piper, published in December 1897: “At the present time I cannot profess to have any doubt but that the chief ‘communicators’ to which I have referred in the foregoing pages are veritably the personages they claim to be, that they have survived the change we call death, and that they have directly communicated with us, whom we call living, through Mrs. Piper’s organism.” Hodgson’s paper illuminated beautifully—if unintentionally—the inherent difficulties of producing persuasive results in psychical research. To accept that G.P. was a spirit, one had to believe in immortality. Further, one needed to believe that the exchanges between this modest American medium and a self proclaimed spirit proved the reality of life after death, trumped all other explanations. (The author's commentary: In addition to the applause of "Rich Hodgson", we must admire his courage. In the context of that era, how much courage is needed to publish these papers so surely? And what we call "life after death" is exactly what he said: "The soul survived the change we call death." It proves that "the soul is immortal" and also proves "the post-mortem world" or "spiritual world." The existence of these "ghost" can communicate directly with the living people in the sun through high-quality psychics. However, in the latter half of the narrative, the author has considerable doubts; because "GP is a ghost" exists even It’s true, but I’m afraid it’s still difficult to prove “eternal life”. At least this evidence is not strong enough.) Henry Sidgwick had longed for the day that his society showed the skeptics wrong, delivered up indisputable proof that the soul survived. But he could not convince himself that this was it; he’d spent too many years picking apart evidence, and he could see ways to pick apart Hodgson’s report as well. The G.P. sittings were remarkable, Sidgwick agreed, but they did not entirely exclude telepathy. True, it seemed unlikely that all G.P.’s friends were strong telepathic communicators, delivering mental information to Mrs. Piper. But it was not impossible, and therefore thought reading could account yet for recognition and revelations about the dead man’s friends. Further, Sidgwick was troubled by the fact that while G.P. recognized others so readily, he retained so little knowledge of himself, at least of his former intellectual pursuits. Pellew had been an avid student of philosophy; the trance personality barely recognized the subject. (The author's commentary: "Henry Sidgwick" was somewhat over-conservative in this matter, and believes that he cannot fully explain and prove the so-called "ECG" or "reading mind"; the same problem was also in the narrative of the second half; suppose that after the death, "the soul is immortal", since it can memorize and describe some evidence that can be proved, why the soul know nothing about his own professional knowledge? These two performances are of course quite contradictory? However, the next paragraph was somewhat explained that) (The author's commentary: "Henry Sidgwick" was somewhat over-conservative in this matter, and believes that he cannot fully explain and prove the so-called "ECG" or "reading mind"; the same problem was also in the narrative of the second half; suppose that after the death, "the soul is immortal", since it can memorize and describe some evidence that can be proved, why the soul know nothing about his own professional knowledge? These two performances are of course quite contradictory? However, the next paragraph was somewhat explained that)

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	Asked whether G.P.’s life after death shed light on Wright’s views of natural laws, the session went as follows: G.P.: Yes, law is thought. Sitter: Do you now find that law is permanent? G.P: Cause is thought. Sitter: That doesn’t answer it. G.P.: Ask it. The sitter asked if G.P. agreed with Chauncey Wright and was first told “most certainly” and then told, “He knows nothing, his theory is ludicrous.” Surely, Sidgwick argued, the real spirit of George Pellew could have handled simple questions about a philosopher whose work he knew well. Did such hard-earned knowledge just leak away, sand trickling from broken glass, once a person died? Sidgwick found it hard to accept that the mind might survive but only as an empty container, bare of the knowledge that once filled it. If Hodgson had hoped for better support from his colleagues, he did not chastise them for their doubts. Instead, he set about answering the criticisms. Sidgwick, he said, had raised one of the more interesting and complicating aspects of spirit communication, the difficulty of communicating through a medium. It called to mind the challenge of the “ghost of clothes” question, the way that one mind may alter information received from another. As Hodgson pointed out, Mrs. Piper knew nothing of philosophy. She was unlikely to understand it or relay its finer points with any grace. Her ability was to receive these flickers of communication but she wasn’t necessarily a competent interpreter. “If Professor Sidgwick were compelled to discourse philosophy through Mrs. Piper’s organism, the result would be a very different thing from his lectures at Cambridge,” he emphasized. Perhaps Hodgson had hoped that his peers would give support, but he did not condemn them because of their doubts. Instead, he tried his best to explain to these doubts. He said that the problems pointed out by Sidgwick highlighted the intriguing and intricate aspect of soul communication, which is the difficulty of communicating through psychics. It is reminiscent of the question of "ghost wearing clothes", that is, a person may change his or her own mind after getting information from other people's minds. Hodgson pointed out that Mrs. Piper had no knowledge of philosophy. She could not understand its meaning, nor could she express her subtle arguments gracefully. Her ability is to receive the mind of the soul, but it is not necessarily a brilliant interpreter. "Assume that Professor Sidgwick has to pass on the knowledge of philosophy through Mrs. Piper physiological body, and the effect will be quite different from his personal lectures in the Cambridge class." (The author's commentary: According to the author's research experience and some empirical records show that the soul will not easily forget everything he learned during his life. Some of the technique, such as medical knowledge, which will be useless in spiritual world, and the soul was dead at young age, even without a chance to apply the technique in the human world, then the soul may stay in the human world and try to find opportunity to apply his technique. The soul need find a psychic media for help, and the psychic media need be smart enough to understand the soul’s mind/idea. If the intelligent level of the psychic is much lower than the soul, then the message about medic cannot be translate or passed correctly.) As Hodgson considered the issue, he’d come to believe that some things might be easier for spirits to communicate than others. Emotional connections—with their pure, personal power—might survive fairly intact through the translating mechanism of the medium. Intellect and sophisticated knowledge would be unlikely to fare so well, especially if the translator were uneducated, or if the medium lacked the language and training to understand what was being said in the first place. He reminded Sidgwick of all the obstacles that must be overcome for any spirit communication, even of the most primitive type, to occur. If one considered the difficulty of communication between two living people in the same room—the way one person interprets or misinterprets another’s thoughts during a conversation—how much more difficult to conduct that conversation with someone speaking from another dimension, using the awkward device of an entranced medium to relay messages? “The conditions of communication must be kept before the mind,” Hodgson insisted, and expectations for fluency should be lowered as a result. （The author's commentary: Hodgson’s insights and persistence are correct. The answer to this question is very simple; think about it; suppose I am an oriental tourist. When I was traveling in Paris, my wallet and all the documents were taken away. I was in a hurry to find a police station. Because I didn't know French, I talked with the police on duty at the counter in Chinese for a long time. He didn't understand a sentence. The police chief behind him asked him what happened. Well, how can the police officer on duty answer this question? Don't say that he can make it clear, I am afraid he can't do it if he wants to learn my voice?) JAMES McKEEN CATTELL, the Columbia professor who had so vehemently disparaged James’s SPR presidential address, read Hodgson’s affirmation of spirit life and hated it from first paragraph to last. The life-after-death insinuations in Hodgson’s report struck him as simple spirit-mongering, and its conclusion—that even skeptics such as Richard Hodgson could be converted—infuriated him. Cattell didn’t really care if Hodgson wanted to make a fool of himself. But given the author’s reputation as a savvy investigator, Cattell did worry about the report’s influence on the beliefs of other scholars. What if a reputable scientist were to conclude that since the previously far-from-gullible Hodgson had crossed the line to credulity, it had become an intellectually permissible, even a respectable ideological crossing? The prospect horrified Cattell. He fired off an essay to Science magazine, titled “Mrs. Piper, The Medium” (in homage to Browning’s cynical portrait of D. D. Home), to make sure that the real scientific point of view was understood. Cattell took aim not only at Hodgson’s analysis but at what he considered the bigger target, William James’s support of the SPR studies. Referring to James’s earlier description of Mrs. Piper as “the white crow” that helped persuade him of supernatural realities, Cattell wrote: “The difficulty has been that proving innumerable mediums to be frauds does not disprove the possibility (though it greatly reduces the likelihood) of one medium being genuine. But here we have the ‘white crow’ selected by Professor James from all the piebald crows exhibited by the Society.” Her credibility was due not to her own talents, Cattell continued, but to being endorsed by one of the country’s premier psychologists. (The author's commentary: This is the most terrible "selfish departmentalism" in the scientific community. Fortunately, these "scientific supremacy" are not ordered by the Holy See to preside over the "inquisition", or even black crows or white crows, even believe People with white crows in the world will be sent to the "fire column." However, this is not the point; the real key is whether any self-proclaimed scientific scientist is arguing against it and vigorously attacking it. Is there any strong evidence for these experiments? Of course it is not! They just oppose it as will. This practice itself has seriously deviated from the basic spirit of science. So how can the two sides talk rationally? Any celebrity person "endorsers do not endorse "Not the point, but is this event or experiment honest? Can it really prove that "the soul is not destroyed?" If you can, it is not necessary to endorse any celebrity endorsement. If not, it is useless to find anyone to endorse. The author is also deeply pained by it; in any kind of research done in the long term, no matter what any discovery is made, Clear evidence of human evidence, physical evidence, and even audio-visual archives; those who are arrogant in science always say that they always turn a blind eye to any evidence that is spread out in the sun, and then they start talking in the office and they don’t even have to go to the scene in person. Observing the testimony, you can show off some professional terms to explain even strongly rebuttal; for example, the "psychic phenomenon" is to look at the color and add the words, or else the personality is dissociated; the problem is that some psychics can not wait for the parties to open. I’m telling a lot of hidden things, or the parties I’m talking about may not be at the scene at all, so there’s a “praying and seeing” and there’s a lot of psychics that I’ve been exposed to. When answering a question or transmitting a message of the undead, there is no drowsiness, and the mind is completely awake. How can it be said that "personal dissociation"?) Psychical research was clearly costing William James academic prestige and political capital among his fellow scientists. Privately, he confessed some regrets over it. Publicly, James responded as if he didn’t care. He wrote back to Science, characterizing Cattell’s position as a childishly simple argument that “mediums are scientific outlaws and their defendants are quasi-insane,” going on to suggest that the magazine’s readers might prefer more intelligent, sophisticated criticisms. For the discriminating reader, James recommended Sidgwick’s dissection of the G.P. case, which could be found in Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research. Continuing that acerbic exchange, Cattell dismissed the opinions of nonscientists, and especially those belonging to the SPR, which he said was doing active harm, encouraging people to cling to the mysticism of the past. The role of science, he said, was not to pander to superstition but to help eliminate it. And when a leading psychologist such as William James failed to live up to that role, he could be held personally responsible for holding back progress itself “I believe that the Society for Psychical Research is doing much to injure psychology,” Cattell concluded. “The authority of Professor James is such that he involves other students of psychology in his opinions unless they protest. We all acknowledge his leadership, but we cannot follow him into the quagmires.” James could handle vitriol like this with ease. He replied mockingly that he enjoyed Cattell’s “amiable persiflage” and feeble attempts at insult. It bothered him, though, that he could not persuade his peers to see the value in psychical research. Further, both Hodgson’s report and the SPR response conformed to scientific principles. Hodgson had offered a theory and the supporting evidence for it. His SPR colleagues had reviewed it, criticized it, and demanded more substantial evidence. (The author's commentary: Science is only studying the various phenomena that we can see or can feel, whether it is natural or human, not to pursue "truth". Therefore, it is necessary to establish a "Scientific Crusade" and then compare it with the Middle Ages. Do you have a "scientific witch hunting" action? If you arbitrarily defend the "scientific supremacy" of the fundamentalism, then it is not helping the "science" pimp? The author has been tirelessly debunking the scam and tricks nearly twenty years. To break religious superstitions, the real motive is to reveal the true gold and find the rare white crows among many black crows, but also to find out more evidence of "the soul is not extinguished" and "the spiritual realm" Can humans have more reference materials on the study of life, can they face up to the important issue of human beings, "Is life alive after death?" and "What is the life of human life after death?" Even if you are arrogant and accused of being infinitely important, you should also make a loud appeal to what is happening in life than to know your own life. What is more important to the soul? What is more than life and lifestyle except this life; if some of the self can still survive in the universe after the death of the flesh, should we not regard it as a learning to deepen Exploring and researching? Why is it that everything is still confusing, human beings are so ignorant and ignorant of life, such paintings are self-limiting and not worthy of their own understanding, not only by their own authority in the scientific community, but also by their ruthlessness in the authority of the scientific community. Is it because we don’t understand, don’t know, don’t understand, so we need to delve deeper? Even the final conclusion is that after human death, it’s the same as the grass, the smoke is gone, and the life is gone. This is not the same. Is it a good conclusion? At least we don't have to expect to go to heaven after death, don't be afraid to go to hell, don't worry about the doomsday trial...)

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	James himself tended to side with Sidgwick in terms of the report’s shortcomings. He didn’t deny that G.P provided some startling moments; but the personality also showed the same “vacancy, triviality and incoherence of mind” that so often plagued the spirit messages from Mrs. Piper and, indeed, those from all mediums. Hodgson’s attempt to excuse such meanderings by extreme difficulty of communication struck James as inadequate, as he made clear, again writing in the SPR journal, “Mr. Hodgson has to resort to the theory that, although the communicants probably are spirits, they are in a semi-comatose or sleeping state, while communicating, and only half-aware of what is going on and Mrs. Piper’s subconscious is then forced to fill in the gaps of whatever they say.” This seemed at best an imperfect cover story. Even worse, the explanation discounted the best sittings in an effort to excuse the poorer ones. What about those apparently pitch-perfect days? Did the spirits suddenly wake up? Did Mrs. Piper’s hearing improve? Could she briefly understand the ghostly communicators better? (The author's commentary: In fact, in my opinion; "Mrs. Piper" has no reason to cheat at all, her personality is trustworthy, her enthusiasm is worthy of praise, but we can no longer demand more, even if it is for such an exquisite and outstanding psychic, there really should be no more complaining, because we must not treat the "spiritual world" with human world. There are many unusual conditions there, and there may be many limits that we can't understand. How can we force ghosts/souls to live according to our standard/convention? It is not because there is a difference between "undead" and "living people". "spiritual world" and "human world" are also different. Do we need a lot of spirit and effort to explore? Even think about it; the famous primate expert Ms. Jane Goodall spent almost all her lifetime. Is it a thorough understanding of the orangutans? Of course not, and how much time have we spent human brain researching the brain since ancient times, and therefore we have fully understood it? Of course not. Not because "Does the soul exist? "It is more difficult to explore than any knowledge visible to the naked eye. So, has humanity yet to have any positive conclusions? If "soul" or "ghost" is just a foreigner we have never seen before, "spiritual world" is just an island in Amazon. The primitive people newly discovered in the jungle, so if you set up an expedition to overcome the hardships, do you understand it? However, the "soul" is not like this, and the "spiritual world" is not like this; we can't see this "foreigner" at all. We do not know where this "primitive nation" is located; such difficulty is likely to exceed the "wisdom" of mankind today. We are just a glimpse of the faint light of the front line, even if we continue to study, can you really understand in the next century, or three, five or even a thousand years? If Mrs. Piper didn’t cheat—and no evidence yet existed that she did—then it was still unclear to James how she accessed the information revealed in her trances. He continued to believe that she possessed some exceptional power; he continued to have no idea exactly what that power might be. “If I may be allowed a personal expression of opinion at the end of this notice,” James said, “I would say that the Piper phenomena are the most absolutely baffling thing I know.” (The author's commentary: James was very pertinent. The real power of the psychic is indeed confusing. The more humbly you explore, the more you will get, because, for humans. There are so few "powers" in the ethnic group. We really know too little. Even so far, no one really knows why they are different from ordinary people. Why is it that there is only one to one tenth of a million has such ability? And how does this ability come from? Or how is it formed? We really don’t know anything about it unless we want to be like the attitude of those who are "scientific-based"; we could NOT always classify something we don’t know as superstitious and scam. Otherwise, this road of soul research is still very long and hard!) DESPITE THE DOUBTS of his colleagues, mostly thanks to his reputation as “an expert in the art of unveiling fraud,” as the Saturday Review put it, Hodgson’s latest Piper report received exactly what Columbia’s Cattell had feared, serious attention. At the Review, famously hostile to psychical research, the editors wrote to acknowledge that Hodgson’s account of G.P provided strong evidence in favor of survival after death. Still, the Review emphasized, it was unclear exactly what survived, whether it was a soul, a spirit, or merely some sort of imprint of a personality. As the editorial noted, “So far as we can see, all that is proved is that some record of the life on earth is laid up in some unearthly archives, and that under some circumstances, this record is accessible to the minds of the living.” G.P.’s knowledge of his life on Earth, especially his previous relationships, seemed remarkable. But the “spirit” continually failed to provide any real detail about life after death. His descriptions, “while free from the nauseous sentimentality mingled with Swedenborg which forms the bulk of so called spirit communications,” were either vague or comfortably Christian, adding nothing new to the knowledge of immortality. (The author's commentary: This passage is very fair to the commentary of the greatest "soul master" in Swedenborg history, and he is very classic and not surprising except for his first book, "The Spiritual World". Other works are almost all "disgusting teachings that are full of Christianity." The author has good reason to prove that his works are purely personal imgination, and they are fabricated according to his personal idealized "spiritual" world. This is not the case at all.) In conclusion, the magazine raised a point of elegant metaphysics: “The question is not whether something survives death, but whether that is a living something; whether it grows? Time may give us an answer to the question; but it has not been given yet.” That unearthly archive—or at least the possibility of something like it—was an idea that William James had considered, hoping that it might solve some of the troubling questions in psychical research. It was just the first glimmer of a thought, really, but James wondered whether the energy generated in our lives—with all their passion and grief, laughter and argument—did more than fall to dust. Perhaps life’s energy burned an impression, or memory, a cosmic record of sorts that lingered after the person himself had vanished. Perhaps the very objects that we handle could sometimes be energy repositories, absorb some of life’s stray heat, radiate it back out. If so, that might explain the improbable art of psychometry, the occasional flash of insight that a good psychic seemed to get from holding a piece of jewelry or an article of clothing. It might even explain haunted houses, those curious impressions of spirits that tended to repeat over decades, even centuries. (The author's commentary: James was partially right about his opinion. A person's "life energy" may be left in the clothes he often wears or items he often uses, and may even exist in a long-lost house. Here, some "psychics" can see the correct relevant information, but because it is a residual, the information is also zero-fragmented. After the owner dies, the energy on these residual objects may not disappear at the same time, so it can still be spirited. The media read it. However, this phenomenon or ability is only a part, and finally it is necessary to return to the real big topic; "the soul is immortal and the spiritual realm" goes up, if there is a breakthrough in this subject, there are many related The mystery should be solved.) And perhaps—as the editors of the Review posited—that added up to a different explanation of immortality. Perhaps there was no real life after death; just the occasional echo of what was, sounding briefly in the night and fading away. Pursuing that set of ideas, James proposed that most of us never hear the echoes at all. We live sheltered, born with mental buffers—or dikes, as he called them—to protect against such intrusions, to keep life from being too impossibly strange. But sometimes—as with a crisis apparition—that last blast of desperate energy overcomes those barriers so that just for a moment we hear our dying mother’s voice, see the face of a lost friend. (The author's commentary: Again, this is one of many "spiritual phenomena" and cannot be used to explain all phenomena in a partial way.) James had recently evaluated just such a case, the story of Bertha Huse and Nellie Titus, which seemed to capture those possibilities. It was all there, the young woman’s unseen fall into a lake, the body trapped out of view, the dream image of the tragic accident. There had been no conversation in the dream, no purposeful ghost, merely an intense image of the girl’s last moments. Mrs. Titus reported a history of such dreams, flashes of insight caught in the quiet night. Perhaps in her undefended sleep, she was unusually open to those energy surges created by a final moment, allowing her to receive what seemed to be a message from the dead. The same explanation might also serve for the medium James knew best, Leonora Piper. Perhaps she was even less well defended from such signals, more prone to picking them up on a frequent basis. Both women might belong to a small group of people born without adequate mental barriers to that cosmic record, so that “fitful influences leak in, showing the otherwise unverifiable common connection.” (The author's commentary: Perhaps this is true, as the author's personal later perception; "Psychic ability" or "psychic" is probably not a good gift, but the opposite may be a congenital defect, just like "scholar syndrome". They may be inferior in all aspects, but there is an incredible "shortcut" that can be intuitively used for astronomical calculations and instant answers, or like a camera, without going through the complicated circuit of the brain. At a glance, you can paint a super building on a white paper, and then you can't even miss a window. So is a natural psychic because there is also a special "pipe" or wide bandwidth? The bandwidth can receive special messages that normal people can't hear? Or because our brain information mechanism can filter or block these noises in advance to prevent irrelevant things from interfering with our normal reception, and the psychic is due to birth defects. Missing this "ear plug"?)

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	If he was going to set the standards so high, despite the troubling lack of depth among psychical researchers, if he was determined that the Hodgson-control be studied with the restraint and precision that he demanded, the best investigator—perhaps the only investigator really available—was William James himself. MARGARET VERRALL HELD a position as classics lecturer at Newnham College. She was fluent in both Greek and Latin, the wife of a Cambridge philosophy professor, an old friend of the Sidgwicks and Myerses, and, most of all, a woman of tireless patience. Since Myers’s death, she’d been pondering his wish to prove immortality. She’d liked him so much, and he’d believed so passionately in survival of the soul, that she wanted someone to make a concerted effort to contact his spirit, if it existed. Finally, as several years passed, as 1905 wound away, she decided to do it herself. As she explained to all those who considered this a strange decision, she felt she’d be letting down a friend if she didn’t at least try. And then, too, after all that time spent in the company of Myers and the Sidgwicks, she was a little curious. An organized woman by nature, Mrs. Verrall worked out a careful system for contacting a spirit. First, she chose automatic writing as the best way to converse with Myers. Then she set aside a time in the late afternoon to try to acquire this skill. Then she waited. For three months she sat at her desk daily, holding a pencil against a piece of paper for at least an hour, listening to the mantel clock tick away the time. Day after day, she arose stiff with sitting, the blank tablet mocking her. Gradually she became so bored that she quit focusing on the elusive Myers and fell into musing on her work, her garden, her household duties, her family. Lost in that daydreaming haze, she found herself suddenly snapping to attention, the tablet covered with simplistic messages in Greek and Latin —much cruder versions than she usually used—but with the signature “Myers” at the end. (The author's commentary: This was a very special "psychic" case. It is clear that Margaret Verrall was not a born psychic. She was because "Myers is so convinced that the soul will live forever." So she wants to "psychic" herself. What is admirable is that she is so persevering. "For three consecutive months, she was at the table every day, holding a pencil and facing the white paper for at least an hour...", then nothing was gained. This was really not something that ordinary people can do. However, when she was no longer so obsessed and wants to "psychic", she accidentally contacts the undead of "Myers". Perhaps, we believe that "focus" just narrows the scope of reception, and relaxes "focus", but it is easier to receive the message. Of course, the way she works in front of it cannot be regarded as in vain, but provides different opinions. I have seen many people who are "psychic" through training afterwards are usually inferior in their ability to compare with born psychic." If they are trained through religious methods, they are often limited to some religious teachings.) (The author's commentary: This was a very special "psychic" case. It is clear that Margaret Verrall was not a born psychic. She was because "Myers is so convinced that the soul will live forever." So she wants to "psychic" herself. What is admirable is that she is so persevering. "For three consecutive months, she was at the table every day, holding a pencil and facing the white paper for at least an hour...", then nothing was gained. This was really not something that ordinary people can do. However, when she was no longer so obsessed and wants to "psychic", she accidentally contacts the undead of "Myers". Perhaps, we believe that "focus" just narrows the scope of reception, and relaxes "focus", but it is easier to receive the message. Of course, the way she works in front of it cannot be regarded as in vain, but provides different opinions. I have seen many people who are "psychic" through training afterwards are usually inferior in their ability to compare with born psychic." If they are trained through religious methods, they are often limited to some religious teachings.) (The author's commentary: This is also the most puzzling of the "undead". Why can't we lock a single psychic to complete communication? Why should we break a message apart and pass it through at least three psychics? Looking at the mess alone, must be combined to see the full presentation? The author believes that this is not a "dead" prank, but a purposeful, assuming that the "Myers" undead only contacted Mrs. Piper. Of course, it is ok, but if you can get 1/3 of the information through the three and then complete the merger, then you can provide more convincing proof, so that the fact that "the soul is immortal" is more clear. Believable; otherwise, how would you explain such a peculiar phenomenon? This point is that you have to admire the "Myers" undead is quite wise, but at the same time it proves a little; "Undead" is capable of judging who can pass Spirit, who can't communicate.) IN JUNE 1906, Mrs. Piper received a friendly invitation from Oliver Lodge’s wife, Mary. The SPR wanted her to return to England for a second round of investigations—and, more personally, Lady Lodge would be delighted to see her again. Many strategy discussions and letters had preceded this invitation. Nora, Lord Rayleigh, Oliver Lodge, William James, and a new SPR administrative secretary, a slight, dark Cambridge graduate named John Piddington, all debated how to properly study this curious messaging system. The invitation came only after the experimental plan was in place. Nora would oversee the Verralls in Cambridge, and Piddington would keep Mrs. Piper sequestered in London. None of the details of the study would be revealed to the three women, only that they were participants in a new series of tests. The British Society for Psychical Research, thanks to the determination of Nora Sidgwick and Oliver Lodge, had rebuilt itself with some real success. John Piddington was one of two honorary secretaries; the other position belonged to the Hon. Everard Feilding, a younger son of the earl of Denbigh. At the moment, Feilding—who had a known affection for the more peculiar phenomena— was investigating a candle-throwing poltergeist. The more staid and methodical Piddington seemed a logical choice for the correspondence study. Piddington had a businesslike style about him and a fondness for organization. He had helped setup an endowment for the SPR so that it could pay full-time researchers; he’d managed the transfer of Hodgson’s voluminous records to England. To the great appreciation of James Hyslop, he’d transferred some of Hodgson’s responsibilities to Hyslop’s New York institute, effectively merging the American organizations. But the cross-correspondence study, as it came to be known, was to be managed strictly by the British SPR. Under that plan, Mrs. Piper would come to England for a series of experiments that began with a rather obvious difference between the two mediums. Mrs. Verrall was a scholar, trained in Greek and Latin. Mrs. Piper had a New Hampshire primary school education and no knowledge of the classic languages. But—and this was the key—the “spirits” in question belonged to men who did know those languages. So if Gurney, Sidgwick, or Myers were actually communicating with Mrs. Piper, they would understand Latin and Greek instructions even if she didn’t. Following that logic, the tests would be conducted in the following manner: Piddington would wait till Mrs. Piper was entranced. He would then ask her, or her control, to give a message to Myers. Piddington would then read off a message in Latin, concluding with a request to relay its content to Mrs. Verrall. If the message arrived, if they transcended the language barrier, it would be hard to avoid a conclusion that some intelligence greater than that of the mediums was working with them. (The author's commentary: very certain, we really want to be very grateful to these predecessors a hundred years ago, they are so tireless in the rigorous design of various ways to prove "the soul is not destroyed", not only to prove, but also to prevent any cheating or misjudgment The possibility, from their attitude and the ingenious way of design, makes it really necessary for the younger generation to learn with humility and sincerely applaud their efforts and achievements. Even today, suppose that there are such conditions, so carefully designed the "cross-communication comparison method" is also absolutely applicable, and it is not easy to design a better way.) By December 1906, Mrs. Piper and her daughters were settled in London, and once the Americanmedium and Piddington had learned to be comfortable with each other, the work began in earnest. In mid-December, during several sittings, Piddington talked to Mrs. Piper’s Rector, asking him topass along instructions to Myers and his friends. The instructions were given in Latin, each word pronounced slowly, syllable by syllable, and then spelled out for purposes of clarity. Piddington’s message began with a compliment: “Diversis internuntiis quod invicem inter serespondentia jamjudun committis, id nec fallit nos consilium, et vehementer probamus.” (As to thefact that for some long time you have been entrusting to different messengers things, which correspond mutually between themselves, we have observed your design, and we cordially approve it.) This polite opening was followed by a request, also in Latin: Could the Myers personality, oncecontacted through Mrs. Piper, send a signal to another medium (in this case, Mrs. Verrall)? And couldhe attach to that message a recognition device, some code words or symbols of his choice? After several sittings, Rector replied to Piddington: “We have in part understood and conveyed your message to your friend Myers and he is delighted to receive it so far as he has been able to receive it.” Several weeks later, in early January 1907, Rector seemed to think that Piddington might need some reassurance as to the delay: “Hodgson is helping Myers with his translation.” Two weeks later, Rector said he had a communication from Myers: “I should like to go over the first and second sentences of our Latin message.... I believe I can send you a message which will please you if I understand it clearly.” By this time, Piddington had given further thought to the idea of a recognition device. He had a more specific suggestion, again conveyed in Latin: Could Myers please ask the medium at the other end to draw a circle and triangle as part of her response? That night, Mrs. Verrall wrote: “Justice hold the scales. That gives the words but an anagram would be better. Tell him that—rats, star, tars and so on. Try this. It has been tried before. RTATS. Rearrange these five letters or again t-e-a-r-s ... s-t-a-r-e.” Five days later, she wrote: “Aster [a star] ... the world’s wonder, And all a wonder and a wild desire/the very wings of her.... but it is all much the same thing—the winged desire, the hope that leaves the earth for the sky... Abt Vogler for earth, too hard that found itself or lost itself—in the sky. That is what I want, On the broken sounds, threads.” She closed the message with a circle and a triangle. (The author's commentary: For the "so-soul" researchers at that time or in modern times, this result must be exciting. In such a well-designed, almost no false positive or other embarrassing experiment, the extraordinary results achieved are I have to face it up, and, for those doubts and ridicules of the scientists, it is undoubtedly a slap in the face. And I believe that such experiments can withstand repeated verification.)

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	On February 11, Rector delivered another message from Myers, one that gave some clues as to what he was trying to do. He told Piddington that hope, star, and Browning were all important in Mrs. Verrall’s script. With that, Nora Sidgwick realized that all those ramblings about stars made actual sense. Myers was ever a lover of poetry—and “Abt Vogler” was a poem written by Robert Browning. It was a tale of a musician, included in that same 1864 book that featured “Mr. Sludge, the Medium.” Nora hurried to find it among her poetry books: And the emulous heaven yearned down, made effort to reach the earth, As the earth had done her best, in my passion, to scale the sky: Novel splendours burst forth, grew familiar and dwelt with mine, Not a point nor peak but found and fixed its wandering star. “The mystic three,” wrote Miss Verrall on February 17, “and a star above it all / rats everywhere in Hamelin town / now do you understand?” She had been drawing as well—a crescent moon, a star, and a winged bird. Her illustrated message was signed “Henry.” Mrs. Verrall now wrote down a message, signed from Myers, saying that he was worried that Rector did not know the poem so familiar to the rest of them: “I am most anxious to make Rector understand about the name of that poem.” Some weeks later, while entranced, Mrs. Piper carefully wrote the words, “Abt Vogler.” “Now, DEAR MRS. SIDGWICK, in future have no doubt or fear of so-called death, as there is none, as there is certainly intelligent life beyond it.” (The author's commentary: In the end, this sentence is probably the most powerful instigator for all those who want to know the "post-mortem world" and the inner sincerity of "the soul is not destroyed." In the author's long-term research, this is indeed proved; physical death is not the end of human life has vanished, and the "soul" can continue to exist beyond the death of the flesh. We really don't have to fear the death of the flesh. Instead, we should focus on how to improve our "spirituality" in this life.) Mrs. Verrall was writing messages, purporting again to be from Myers. “Yes, it’s a great comfort,” Nora replied. “Yes, and I have helped proclaim it for you all,” the Myers script continued, explaining that he had chosen the Browning poem because it best fitted his own life, wandering the stars. He had more to say, but it was so incredibly frustrating getting even the smallest shred of a thought across. Myers hadn’t realized in life how difficult it would be—even between old friends—to reach through the drawn curtains of death. “You must patch things together as best you can. Remember we do not give odd or singular words without a deep and hidden meaning.” (The author's commentary: There is a phenomenon hard to understand. Why can't the ghost/souls send some plain and clear message, but always use metaphors or poems to communicate as a riddle? This makes people feel like in the era of telegraph without the phone. In the era of "telegram", in order to quickly spread the message, the content should not only be streamlined to the minimum, but also a lot of code... "The spiritual world" and the human world are separated by obstacles that are difficult to overcome. What are these obstacles and how are they formed? Of course, the author must emphasize here: I don't believe that it is a god or a ghost, or any living "administrator" is in control, it should be a natural barrier which is unknown to us so far, or is the author's personal research experience... What is the broad "spiritual flow"?) ……………………………… ……………………………… PORING OVER THE cross-correspondence scripts, Nora’s assistant at the SPR, a Newnham College graduate named Alice Johnson, suddenly remembered a peculiar letter received from India a few months earlier. The unexpected correspondence came from Alice Kipling Fleming, a sister of writer Rudyard Kipling and a longtime secretive psychic. For years, Mrs. Fleming, the wife of a British army officer, had been troubled by an uneasy sense of the occult. She did her best to keep her feelings secret, though, because her family disliked the subject. “It puzzles me a little,” Mrs. Fleming wrote to Miss Johnson, “that with no desire to consider myself exceptional I do sometimes see, hear, feel or otherwise become conscious of beings and influences that are not patent to all. Is this a frame of mind to be checked, permitted or encouraged? I should like so much to know. My own people hate what they call ‘uncanniness’ and I am obliged to hide from them the keen interest I cannot help feeling in psychic matters.” Mrs. Fleming had read Myers’s book Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death, and it had inspired her to begin surreptitiously experimenting. After a recent afternoon of automatic writing, she’d found some lines that concluded with the signature “Myers.” They included some remarkably specific direction to send the text to Mrs. Verrall in Cambridge. (The author's commentary: The weird and exciting "spiritual phenomenon" has appeared again. A psychic that has no connection with the "Ghost hunters" team has appeared again, and then it is the spiritual message that conveys "Myers". This "Myers" was really a very enthusiastic soul. Whenever he died, he tried to prove to all human beings the fact that "the soul is not destroyed"! And it can accurately request the new message to be sent to Margaret Verrall. From India to the United Kingdom, we can't help but ask us; how the soul/ghost was like passing through time and space can come and go in these two distant distances. This was probably worthy of us. People are working hard.) Mrs. Fleming didn’t know Mrs. Verrall, didn’t know if the directions were real, doubted whether any part of the message was authentic—but it was precise enough to make her feel that she should do something. She decided to hand off her scripts to the SPR: “Will you forgive me for troubling you with the writing? I do not like to suppress it as it gave me the impression of someone very anxious to establish communication, but with not much power to do it ...” If they did choose to use her work, Alice Fleming asked Miss Johnson and her friends to protect her by using a false name. They did. In SPR publications, she was known only as Mrs. Holland. When she took a second look at the scripts from India, Miss Johnson found that the so-called Myers had given Mrs. Fleming a near perfect description of rooms in Mrs. Verrall’s house. But even more curiously, she’d written other details that suggested that Mrs. Fleming had unwittingly been pulled into their cross-correspondence experiments. ON APRIL 17, 1907, Mrs. Piper suddenly began fumbling for the Greek word for death. “Sanatos,” she wrote, haltingly. “Tanatos.” Then several days later, it came out right: “Thanatos, thanatos, thanatos.” Death, death, death. One day earlier, Mrs. Fleming had mailed a script from India that read in part, “Maurice, Morris, Mors.” The last was Latin for death; it seemed to Miss Johnson that their India correspondent was reaching for the counterpart to Mrs. Piper’s thrice-times death. And Mrs. Fleming continued, “And with that the shadow of death fell upon him and his soul departed out of his limbs.” A week later, Mrs. Verrall wrote, “Pallida mors” (Pale death), and then, “Warmed both hands before the fire of life. It fails and I am ready to depart.” THE CROSS-CORRESPONDENCE experiments filled hundreds of pages. Not all connected so neatly; not all even made sense. But enough did; enough of those flares of similarity brightened the pages that the investigators saw only two meaningful choices. They must either accept a pattern of exceptional coincidences or accept that they were reading mental messages sent and received by both the living and the dead. Almost all the psychical researchers reached the latter conclusion. They wished, of course, that the spirits could do a better job of getting their precise message across, that the results would be more exact, that the proof would be more convincing to their critics. They were told, as the correspondence continued, that the spirits wished, in turn, that their human contacts would do a better job as well. (The author's commentary: Yes! The author tries to objectively examine and speculate on this event and content, and must agree with the conclusions of the predecessors of a hundred years ago; only the "soul is not extinguished" and "the spiritual realm" are established, can explain the all the phenomenon they observed. At least not the paranoid argument that the scientific community has adhered to so far.) Back in the old despondency,” read one passage, taken down by Alice Fleming and signed “Edmund Gurney.” “Why don’t you write daily? You seem to form habits only to break them.” Mrs. Fleming told Alice Johnson that the complaint spilled out after she had been too busy to spare time for automatic writing. “If you don’t care to try every day for a short time, better drop it all together. It’s like making appointments and not keeping them,” the Gurney message continued. “You endanger your own powers of sensitiveness and annoy us bitterly.” Some of the messages signed by Myers seethed with frustration: “Yet another attempt to run the blockade—to strive to get a message through—how can I make your hand docile enough—how can I convince them? “The nearest simile I can find to express the difficulties of sending a message is that I appear to be standing behind a sheet of frosted glass—which blurs sight and deadens sound—dictating feebly—to a reluctant and somewhat obtuse secretary. “A terrible feeling of impotence burdens me.” (The author's commentary: Obviously, the enthusiastic souls want to prove that they still exist, they can still be active, and the thoughts that can still be thought are not lost to these companions in the world, but their grievances and powerless feelings are probably similar to the people of the human world. It is very powerless and confused. What is so barrier? At the same time, it is not to be asked. Is there a better way of communication, and even without the use of psychics, it is possible to directly communicate the "spiritual world" and "human world"? This is also a great but very difficult project for my generation and future generations of aspiring researchers.) WILLIAM JAMES WAS a retired professor now, having taught his last class at Harvard in January 1907. At the age of sixty-five, he seemed noticeably thinner and grayer, but he assured his many well wishers that he planned only to slow down a little, to put more time into his work as a philosopher. Of course, James also spent many of his newly liberated hours in the company of the self-proclaimed spirit of Richard Hodgson. His desk stood stacked with piles of transcripts, records of the sittings held before Mrs. Piper left for England to do the cross-correspondence work. He was sifting, analyzing, fuming: “It means much more labor than one would suppose, and very little result,” he wrote to his brother, Henry. “I wish that I had never undertaken it.” Encounters with the Hodgson control veered between a presence so real that James remembered breaking out in a chill during the sitting and, at the other extreme, tedious hours with what appeared to be some peculiar creation derived from Mrs. Piper’s interpretation of the masculine personality. The Hodgson control tended to announce himself with the unfamiliar heartiness of a campaigning politician, exclaiming, “Well, well, well! I am Hodgson. Delighted to see you. How is everything? First rate?” Hodgson had never talked like that in his life. Yet the glad-handing usually gave way to a familiar friendliness, as if the ghost—if it was such— had to pull free from Mrs. Piper before emerging as himself. The spirit Hodgson teased his old close friends, turned quiet and serious with those he knew less well. One woman had told James that she and R.H. “were such good friends that he was saucy toward her, and teased her most of the time,” which was exactly as the control treated her, “absolutely characteristic and as he was in life.” Another former friend left his sitting feeling dizzy and shaken. After the irritating greeting period “came words of kindness which were too intimate and personal to be recorded, but which left me so deeply moved... it had seemed as though he had in all, reality been there and speaking to me.” James was determined to be as ruthless an investigator as Dick Hodgson had ever been. Emotional responses were all very well, but they weren’t facts. And facts didn’t count until they’d been dissected into pieces and every fragment examined. In one sitting, the Hodgson personality had asked a friend to destroy some letters written to a woman and hidden in his desk. “Look for my letters stamped from Chicago. I wouldn’t have them get out for the world.” (The author's commentary: The above paragraph adds more credibility to the evidence. Even today, it will not be better if it is carried out by my generation. I really want to thank you again for the selfless dedication of these respectable predecessors. Leaving such valuable research materials, especially the hard core evidence, can make us study more practical and more confident!)

阿倫

	NOTES AND SOURCES I WAS FORTUNATE to spend time in two terrific and very different archives: the Houghton Library, at Harvard University, which holds the correspondence of William James (referred to hereafter as Houghton), and the American Society for Psychical Research, in New York (referred to as ASPR), which holds a treasure trove of largely unpublished correspondence and other documents relating to James, Richard Hodgson, James Hyslop, and colleagues, as well as containing one of the best occult libraries in the world. Many of the described interactions in this book are drawn from the archived correspondence in those institutions. As a point of reference, letters from and to William James have, of course, also been excerpted and published many times over; the best companion to the original letters at the Houghton Library is an annotated series of twelve volumes, The Correspondence of William James (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1992-2004). Some of James’s more noteworthy correspondence on psychical research and the vast majority of his published articles on the subject are contained in two books: Gardner Murphy and Robert O. Ballou, eds., William James and Psychical Research (New York: Viking Press, 1960); and Frederick H. Burkhardt and Fredson Bowers, eds., Essays in Psychical Research (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1986). For a general overview of the period and the players, I found the following books most helpful: Frank Podmore, Mediums of the Nineteenth Century (Hyde Park, N.Y.: University Books, 1963; originally published in 1902 as Modern Spiritualism); Brian Inglis, Natural and Supernatural: A History of the Paranormal (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1977); Janet Oppenheim’s fascinating book The Other World (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1985); Alan Gauld’s wonderfully down-to-earth history The Founders of Psychical Research (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1968), and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s highly biased and terrifically gossipy and readable History of Spiritualism, published in 1926 by George H. Doran, New York. I also found the Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology, edited by Leslie Shepard (New York: Gale Research/Avon Books, 1978), to be a great paranormal trivia resource. In cases where information is widely known and found in numerous sources, I have not provided specific references. I have, however, occasionally attempted to give a sense of the range of references used in portraying a particular psychic or psychical researcher. And I have occasionally tried to give additional context to a particular moment in history or to explain a reference itself. I have not provided citations for every brief quote, but only for the longer ones. And as a further point of clarification, I occasionally provide narratives in the book, mostly ghost stories and accounts of sittings with mediums. Although those are derived from documents of the time, to be referenced below, their telling here is my own.