Acid Test of Spiritualism
Acid Test of Spiritualism is an article published in The New-York Times on 22 april 1923.
About forthcoming test by J. Malcolm Bird for The Scientific American.
The illustration features Arthur Conan Doyle with Sherlock Holmes and Spirits.
Acid Test of Spiritualism
A new Sherlock Holmes of psychical investigation has been developed in connection with the tests of supposed mediumistic phenomena to be undertaken in New York within the next month. Incidentally, he came hack to New York with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle after the creator of the immortal detective had taken this new psychic sleuth on a tour of Europe to enable him to perfect his technic.
The original Holmes worked by deduction, although he did not spurn the aid of his favorite science, chemistry, when pressed hard for a solution to a problem. Sir Arthur in his investigations or psychic phenomena, which left him a convent to spiritualism, also used the deductive method, backed up to some extent by simple precautions which his common sense indicated as necessary to prevent fraud. The new Holmes of spiritualism will apply all the delicate electrical and other instruments which have been invented for research work in other lines to the attempt to determine for all time, he says, whether or not psychic phenomena are genuine and whether they are based upon laws which at present men do not understand, but merely observe in action.
When J. Malcolm Bird, who is Chairman of the committee which will investigate these Phenomena for The Scientific American, of which magazine he is associate editor, returned from Europe a few days ago there was an immediate suggestion in his lank figure, topped with a cloth cap of the detective Conan Doyle had made famous. Standing beside Holmes's creator, the resemblance was sufficiently striking to make one wonder if Sir Arthur, in his new role of psychic, had materialized his favorite character.
Mr. Bird professes an open mind about mediums and their powers. He law in his personally conducted tour some things which, Impressed him, although in the conditions under which they were produced there was nothing to carry conviction to the man accustomed to look at all physical manifestations with the cool eye of the scientific observer. What he was convinced of was that Sir Arthur was no fool and that if the phenomena which had been seen were fraudulent, the tricks were sufficiently ingenious to be worth serious investigation.
On the other hand, supposing an unknown cause for the phenomena, Bird's view was that the existence of this cause should be established beyond doubt, at a time when half of Europe seems to be dabbling in spiritualism and when there are thousands of converts to the idea in the United States, where it, as Doyle is careful to insist, the thing had its modern renaissance.
Mr. Bird saw enough to be certain that the - ordinary methods of observation by sight and touch were inadequate — enough also to lead him to believe that the clumsy expedients sometimes used to check attempts at fraud were obstacles to a fair investigation. He made his trip partly to see the things which Sir Arthur has told of in his books and lectures, and partly to examine the instruments recently perfected for the safeguarding of such Investigations against imposition.
There is not an instrument of modern electrical science suitable for psychic laboratory work which will not be used in the forthcoming tests to determine the vexed question of the authenticity of spiritualistic phenomena. y Some of these instruments have been used in the European laboratories built by enthusiasts on the subject, and interesting data have been obtained from them, although nothing has been accepted by scientific men as proof of the spiritualists' claims. But nothing of the kind has ever been set up here. The preparation for The Scientific American tests is thus almost as interesting as the tests themselves will be.
Sir William Crookes was the first to attempt to apply scientific tests to psychic manifestations. The great British chemist became an ardent believer in spiritualism and published the results of his experiments in scientific magazines. He used several instruments in his tests, in which the spring balance to show increase or decrease of weight in objects levitated by the medium played an important part. One of these instruments was designed to produce a line showing the curve of such weight variations.
Nearly all the phenomena which have caused so much discussion in recent years were seen and described by Crookes, such as the production of sounds, the alteration In the weights of bodies, levitation of living bodies, movements of articles about the room without contact with the medium or spectators, and the curious luminous patches which are now explained by the theory of ectoplasm, so vigorously, denied by the anti-spiritualists. Incidentally, Mr. Bird, on his European trip, saw everything that Sir Arthur said he would see except ectoplasm.
"The phenomena I am prepared to attest are so extraordinary and so directly oppose the most firmly rooted articles of scientific belief — among others, the ubiquity and invariable action of the force of gravitation — that even now, on recalling the details of what I witnessed there is an antagonism in my mind between reason, which pronounces it to be scientifically impossible, and the consciousness that my senses, both of touch and sight — arid these corroborated — are not lying witnesses when they testify against my preconceptions."
So wrote Crookes, and the simple instruments he devised to check up on what his reason denied were the beginning of the attempt to prove spiritualism scientifically, an attempt that has made very little progress, but which the sanguine hope the coming tests may settle one 'way or the other if proper assistance is received. from the mediums.
By the way, Crookes had more need to use instruments than most others. Or he was so myopic that he could barely see objects a short distance away. But the work he began was not carried on, and it was not until within the last few years that any attempt was made to add to his laboratory apparatus. One reason, perhaps, for this, as Crookes pointed out years ago, is that spiritualism to many persons is a religion, so that they hold the presence of scientific observers to be a profanation. It was with difficulty that Crookes got a few mediums to go to his home for tests, and the same difficulty has been encountered by the committee of The Scientific American. In this latest lecture Conan Doyle himself described spiritualism as a religion that would supplement all religions. True, he made the distinction that if spiritualism was proved it would provide a scientific basis for religion, but obviously why persons feel thus strongly about their beliefs it is natural that they should shrink from the cold inquiries to the incredulous.
With the demand for proof growing, however, and the increased interest in spiritualism in the last few years, the reluctante to have the cause of psychic phenomena investigated has somewhat diminished. Men in Europe began to fit up laboratories at considerable expense. Baron von Schrencky-Notzing of Munich, a wealthy amateur, has devoted much of his time and money to such investigation. Dr. G. Gelet of the Paris Metapsychic Institute has a laboratory provided by the legacy of a wealthy woman in which tests have been conducted. But, according to Mr. Bird, the best work has been done and the most elaborate machinery for tests has been provided by Fritz Grunewald of Charlottenburg. He is an electrical engineer, who for years perfected delicate testing devices for a big German firm, and who, when he became interested in spiritualism, turned his abilities to the development of instruments suitable for testing the phenomena classed as psychic.
Grunewald has begun some interesting work with the spectroscope in investigating luminous vapors which are by so many believed to issue from the medium's body, ectoplasm and other strange "materializations." Examinations have been undertaken to determine their composition by means of studies or wave lengths. He is also trying some experiments to learn whether phosphorus can be detected in the room to account for the smell which so often accompanies these séances.
As at Grunewald's, the room itself in New York which will be used for séances will be carefully prepared, so that the part of the room where the medium will sit, called the cabinet, will provide both for the convenience of the medium and the accuracy of the tests. The room will he lighted in such a way that the variation of light is at all times under perfect control. In the circuit leading to each lamp there will be a variable resistance member, so that the intensity of each lamp may be cut down to the desired point. Red light is used during a seance, although Crookes said that he got some of his most interesting results in full light.
The medium will be dressed in a simple garment, and luminous strips of cloth will be attached to the arms and legs; so that any movement, may be seen. There will also be a mosquito net cage, to be used if necessary, and ropes, if it is found advisable to use them. Mr. Bird trussed one medium like a fowl at a London séance, and the phenomena appeared just the same. Nothing will be asked of the medium, however, which the judges and spectators will not be willing to undergo themselves in the search for the truth of so-called spirit manifestations.
Conan Doyle showed at one of his recent lectures pictures of paraffin gloves which he said had been formed by persuading a materialized spirit to dip its hand in paraffin and then, like the Snark, softly and silently vanish away. So at these tests there will also be melted paraffin in case a spirit is willing to stick a hand in it and leave a glove as evidence. The camera will be used whenever possible, an electric flash furnishing the light by which the picture will be taken.
The spring balance, as in Crookes's time, plays a large part in the tests, and the medium's chair, everything to be levitated, and some other objects, will be so arranged that alterations in their gravity will be at once apparent to the observer. Connected with the scales will be the chronograph, which records on a smoked drum by means of an un-inked stylus the variations of a moving needle or dial, variations which the eye could not always follow or the hand record at a time when there were other distractions in the room, such as a table leaping lightly over one's head, which Mr. Bird says happened to him in London. If such a thing takes place in New York at these tests, the tables idiosyncrasies will be written down, so that they may be studied later at leisure.
These recording instruments, which record not only movement, but time, will be attached to the hands and feet of the medium, to the hands and feet of other persons in the room, to all movable objects, and then Mr. Bird will defy anything to hop around under a "psychic impulse" without having its motive-traced. For if the medium should have anything to do with the movement, directly or indirectly, if there were a variation in the medium's weight at the time the table left the floor, or in the weight of any other person at that time, the instruments would record at the same time the movement of the table and the weight variation or movement of the individual, so that cause and effect might be linked together. If these phenomena of levitation should occur without producing any record except that of movement of the table, it would go toward proving that some unknown force was at the bottom of the phenomena.
There be induction coils, galvanometers, electroscopes, some of them for testing the electrical condition of the medium at the moment when phenomena are produced. For it has been claimed that electrical fortes emanate from the medium, sufficient at times to affect the compass needle. There will also be some of the instruments devised for use during the war, such as sound detectors and heat detectors. If unusual sounds occur they will be registered on these instruments in such a way that by a comparison or the records made by the instruments showing the direction from which the sound came and the time at which it occurred, the point of its production in the room will be ascertained. Then the senses of the judges will be checked against the records. The phonograph controlled by electric motors, will be used to register such sounds.
These are only a few of the many devices which will be used in The Scientific American tests. It will take days of careful work to fit up the room in which these tests take place, and nothing that may occur in it will be stranger than some of the electrical forces and ingenious instruments which have been devised by man to aid him in his scientific work and which will now be turned to the investigation of something which most scientists say is not and never has been a science.
These many handicaps will not he placed upon the medium at once, for the committee believes that such procedure would be unfair, because of the restraining effect. The first tests will be under conditions almost dictated by the medium. Every possible latitude will be extended to order the medium the opportunity to produce phenomena, and after these phenomena have been observed by means of the senses, another test will be arranged under scientific control to ascertain if the same phenomena can be produced. If they are so produced spiritualism will receive an impetus such as it never did before, and if they fail there will be less said about it.
