iC
*IP'-
Saturday, February 15, 1919
18 SIR CONAN DOYLE IN COM
MUNICATION WITH THE
SPIRITS OF THE DEAD.
Written By J. Godfrey Raupert, K. S.
G., For Central Bureau Press
*h Service.
ii.
The second fallacy contained In Sir
Conan Doyle's argument Is his as
sumption that the spirits of the se
ance-room are the spirits of the dead
who have proved their identity. To
the student, unacquainted with the in
tricacies of the subject, the evidence
presented in support of this claim
will seem strong but it is neverthe
less utterly worthless and proves noth
ing of the kind. It falls to the ground
entirely when it is borne in mind
that we have cases on record in which
similar striking evidence of identity
was given but in which the spirit,
caught in a falsehood, finally himself
confessed that he was not what he
had claimed to be.
A single instance of this kind shows
how complex the problem is and what
sources of information must be at
the disposal of these spirits—how
difficult, if not impossible, it is to prove
their identity. All experienced spirit
ists are fully alive to this immense dif
ficulty and have striven by various de
vices to overcome it but so far they
have not been successful. The ques
tion of identity is still the bitter cross
of psychical research, and Sir Conan
Doyle must be aware of it. It is his
"will to believe" which causes him
to pass over it so lightly. It is won
derul how this "will to believe" blinds
the mind and perverts the judgment.
Although it is well known and admit
ted that the spirits habitually imper
sonate the living, each individual ex
perimenter tries to persuade himself
that his particular spirits are doing
nothing of the kind. It is often only
after many months and even years
that the deception is discovered and
that the disillusionment comes. In
one of his works the late Mr. Stain
ton-Moses, for many years the leader
of the English spiritists and a highly
educated man, admitted that "all the
information ever given him in proof
of the presence of the departed might,
in harmony with his experience of the
Spirits, ha^e been first obtained and
then imparted by a false intelligence."
Prof. L. P. Jacks of Oxford, President
of the British Psychical Research So
ciety in 1917 and personally a high
authority on the subject, made this
statement in his presidential address:
"Take the question of imposture.
Mediums are not the only impostors.
How about the communicators? Are
they masquerading? You can have
no absolute proof that there is no Im
posture on the other side. I think
that the whole meaning of personal
identity needs to be very carefully
thought out and considered before
we begin to produce evidence in favor
of personal identity." I had myself
a striking experience of this kind of
spirit-impersonation many years ago.
A spirit, claiming to be a departed per
sonal friend of mine and intimately ac
quainted with the individual's life
history, was, after many months, dis
covered in a falsehood and then freely
and boastingly admitted that he had
managed to trick us so successfully
by drawing the information required
from our own sub-conscious memories.
Indeed, the evidence available today
fully demonstrates the fact that the
main sources of information of these
spirits are the subconscious minds of
the living, although it cannot be
claimed that' these are their only
sources of information. They have
probably access to knowledge by
methods wholly unknown to us and
quite beyond our power of imagina
tion. I have dealt with this aspect of
the subject very fully in some of my
books. The circumstance that Sir
Conan Doyle regards the presentation
of intimate knowledge respecting
some deceased pesonality as evidence
of identity goes to prove how very
imperfectly acquainted he is with the
subject. The cases he cites in his ar
ticles are too briefly stated to admit
of a critical examination and judg
ment but I am convinced that they
all find an adequate explanation in the
activities of his own subconscious
mind and in the sources of informa
tion at the disposal of these astute
beings. I am persuaded that no in
formed and unbiassed student of the
subject would today regard any one of
them as furnishing proof of identity.
What has probably impressed the read
er of his articles most of all is the
evidence supposed to be furnished by
photography. "In two cases," he tells
us, "the figures of the deceased lads
have appeared beside the mothers In
a photograph." But this is, as a mat
ter of fact, the weakest and most
worthless evidence of all. Their fig
ures are not the Individuals they
to be but mind-images taken from the
of the living and exterior
The Facts and Fallacies
of Modern Spiritism
-tt
ized and clothed with subtle matter by
the spirit-intelligences.
This is amply proved by the strik
ing evidence which is available. Some
years ago the deceased British Card
inals were very much in evidence in
English seance-rooms. The late Card
inal Newman especially was believed
to appear regularly at a house well
known to me. I was several times
present at his materialisation and
seen many post mortem photographs
of him. But I found that they all diff
ered very considerably and that this
difference could be traced back to the
image of the late Cardinal which the
individual observer had in his mind,
or to a published photograph of him
which he had seen. They could not
therefore be presentations of the Card
inal as he exists now in the other life
and in his "spirit body." We have
furthermore photographs in which the
materialised spirit is presented at
various ages—in one case as a child
or youth, in another as a grown up
person, the presentation evidently cor
responding with the peculiar mind
image which the experimenter had of
the deceased. I have in my possession
a photograph obtained in a city which
I had never visited before and in
which there appears by my side a fair
ly good picture of a deceased member
of my family, but alas, for Sir Conan
Doyle and his theories! there is on
the same photograph also the image of
a person well known to me who is still
living, but not as she is now—an el
derly lady, but as I knew her years
ago and as I best remember her—a
young married woman. Proof positive
this, surely! that these images are not
photographs of the living dead, but
materialised phantasms taken from the
subconscious memories of relatives
and friends. The masquerading spir
its clearly cannot always distinguish
the phantasms of the living from
(those
of the dead, and it is here where
the critical investigator gets on the
track of the deception.
Space does not permit me to carry
jthe argument any further but suffi
cieht has been said to show that Sir
I Conan Doyle's evidence in favor of
the identity of the communicating spir
its is utterly worthless, and that his
prodigious claim harbors a fundamen
tal and fatal fallacy.
PRESIDENT WIL80N NAMED ARCA
DIAN BY BENEDICT XV.
Cardinal Gibbons, Too, Joined to Body
of Which Archbishop Is
Member.
Rome, Jan. 3. 1919.
One suggestion, as timely as it is
genial, is attributed to the Fifteenth
Benedict these days, viz., that of mak
ing President Wilson an Arcadian,
member of the famous literary society
that originated in the Vatican Gardens
in the sixteenth century. To Cardinal
Gibbons, father of the Bishops of the
world, the sturdy Cardinal Mercier,
and to the Prince Bishop of Trent, a
similar honor is done by the Arca
dians.
The four famous Arcadians will find
themselves in excellent company as
far as dignity, fame and learning. Leo
XIII and Plus were members of the
Arcadia. Benedict XV is one with the
title Pontlfex Maximus. The King of
Spain and the Queen of Sweden are
also members. Most of the Cardinals
in Rome belong to it, a small number
of foreign bishops, and many lovers
of letters all over Europe.
On becoming an Arcadian, one re
ceives from the society a Greek name
by which he is to be known on its
register. The name given by it to Mr.
Wilson is "Dicearces Mericies."
Archbishop Mundelein of Chicago is
an Arcadian. This signifies member
ship in the Pontifical Academy of Ar
cadia, a unique association of Catholic
scholars whose purpose is the produc
tion and patronage of what is finest
|and purest in literature. Archbishop
Mundelein was elected to this Acad
emy on April 20,1907. To the present
he and Bishop Hennessey were the
only American members of the Arca
dia.
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA WILL BE
BONE DRY BY MARCH STH.
The District of Columbia will be
come "bone dry" on some day be
tween February 22nd. and March 5th„
unless all signs fail. The war revenue
bill, reported to the House by the con
ferees, carries in it the Senate amend
ment extending to the District the pro
visions of the Reed "bone dry" law,
which prohibits the sending of alco
holic beverages Into territory where
the laws prohibit the manufacture and
sale of these beverages.
The proposed law will become ef
fective the day after the revenue bill
is signed by the President The Presi
dent has announced that he will sail
for this counter February 16th. The
revenue bill will be awaiting him on
his arrival at the White House, accord
ing to the congressional leaders.
LW.W. AGITATION
MEANS ANARCHY
American Divine Links its Propa
ganda Work With System
in Russia.
EXPLAINS SLAV RULE
Re. G. A. 8lmona, Recently Returned
From Patrograd, Telia 8«nate
Committee Government Is
Military Dictatorship.
Washington, Feb. 14.—The Bolshevik
regime in Russia was described by the
Rev. G. A. Simons in testimony before
the senate committee investigating
lawless agitation in the United States,
as a minority military dictatorship sup
ported by terrorism.
Dr. Simons, who for many years has
been head of the Methodist Episcopal
Church in Russia, said most of the
Bolshevik leaders were Jews, many
from the East Side of New York and
that they had set aside large sums for
the spread of their doctrine in all the
countries of the world.
Links I. W. W. and-Bolshevik.
The I. W. W. movement in this
country was said by Dr. Simons to be
identical with the Bolshevists' system.
Bolshevik propaganda apparently is be
ing carried on in the United States,
Dr. Simons said, by means of speakers,
pamphlets and articles in newspapers
and magazines. He declared that John
Reed and Albert Rhys Williams, Amer
ican writers, had been closely affiliat
ed with the Bolshevik government in
Russia. The witness said publishers
of Bolshevik literature in the United
States included the Rand School of So
cial Science in New York, Charles H.
Kerr & Co., ^Chicago The Socialist
Literature company, New York, and
Novymir, a Russian newspaper in New
York.
Close to Bolshevik Leaders.
Dr. Simons, whose headquarters
were in Petrograd before he fled the
country last October, told the commit
tee that John Reed and his wife,
Louise Braynt, were very close to the
Bolshevik leaders in Petrograd. Reed
was described as "persona grata to
the Bolshevik government so that
that wanted to make him consul gen
eral in New York."
"Was he regarded by Americans
there aB American or Bolsheviki?"
questioned Senator King of Utah.
"As a Bolshevik," replied the wit
ness. "There were a number of Amer
ican Bolshevik sympathizers there.
We referred to them as 'mushheaded
mlddleheaded.'"
Albert Rhys WllllamB frequently
participated in Bolshevik meetings,
Dr. Simons said, and "was heart and
soul with them, speaking in very ten
der termB of them."
FINAL ACTION IS DEFERRED
8eiiate Fails to Reach Vote on War
Revenue Bill.
Washington, Feb. 14.—Final action
on the conference report of the $6,
000,000,000 war revenue bill was de
ferred by an early adjournment of
the Senate in observance of the birth
day anniversary of Abraham Lincoln.
This unexpected move came after
Senator Penrose of Pennsylvania,
senior Republican of the conferees,
had precipitated a general debate with
a three-hour attack on what he termed
extravagance and waste of appropria
tions since the war began.
While promising the revenue meas
ure his support, the Pennsylvania
senator said it taxed the country about
to the breaking point and asserted
that the American people were
"alarmed if not disgusted by congres
sional appropriations."
BREAKS TWO AUTO RECORDS
Ralph De Palma Shows Some Speed
at Daytona, Fla.
Daytona, Fla., Feb. 14.—Ralph De
Palma broke the world's automobile
records for both a mile and a kilo
meter in straightaway dashes on Day
tona beach. The time for the mile as
announced by officials of the Automo
bile association of America was 24.02
seconds against Bob Burman's record
of 25.40 seconds made in 1911. DePal
ma's kilometer time was 15.86 seconds
or two seconds below the record.
NEW HAMPSHIRE STAYS DRY
Legislature Refuses to Modify the
Prohibition Law.
Concord, N. H., Feb. 14.—The state
house of representatives, by a vote of
173 to 140, killed a bill to legalize the
sale of beer and light wines. The pro
hibition law adopted by the legislature
two years ago made illegal the manu
facture and
Bale
uors and the
THE IRISH STANDARD
of all intoxicating
bill
modified the law.
liq
killed would have
Time Will Not Be Extended.
Washington, Feb. 14.—Treasury of
ficial reiterated that there would be no
extension of the time for filing Income
profit tax returns beyond March 16.
This applies alike to Individual in
comes, corporation incomes and profit
returns and to similar reports re
quired by the law on that date. OflW
dais dolled rumors reaching the (Teas*
ury that extension might be granted la
certain eases for these returns. Ad
ditional time may be granted, however,
for so-called "informatics at the
President Said to Have Agreed to
Use of Troops if Found
Necessary.
TEUTONS MUST DISARM
Wilson Gives First Formal Notice ot
Intention to Return to France
Conference Expects to Com
plete Work by June 1.
London, Feb. 14.—The British
delegates at the peace conference
have been deflntely instructed to
claim an indemnity which will in
clude the cost of the war as well as
the damage actually caused, it was
announced in the house of com
mons by Andrew Bonar Law, gov
ernment leader in the commons, in
reply to a question. A commis
sion is now considering the amount
to be claimed, the method by
which the indemnity should be
guaranteed and the means of en
forcing payment, Mr. Bonar Law
added.
Paris, Feb. 14.—In a written reply to
a delegation of the French Association
of the Society of Nations, President
Wilson made known formally for the
first time his intention to return to
Prance.
The president says that he accepts
the suggestion that after his return to
Paris a great public meeting be ar
ranged in celebration of the conclu
sion of the work of the peace confer
ence.
Arrangements have been completed
for President Wilson's departure from
Paris Friday night and his embark
tlon from Brest Saturday. He plans
to return to France March 15.
There now is belief in official circles
the peace conference will be able to
complete its work by June 1.
Brief Armistice First.
The supreme war council has de
cided, says a Havas report, that the
armistice with Germany will be re
newed Feb. 17 for a very brief period
with the Allies reserving the right to
suspend it at any time in the event
Df Germany's failure to carry out new
clauses or those which have hitherto
not been executed. It is said the terms
will provide that the Germans must
cease hostilities against the Poles and
maintain their forces within fixed
limits.
Permanent Armistice Planned.
During the brief period of the re
newed armistice a special commission
will definitely draft the conditions of
an armistice which will last till the
signature of the peace preliminaries.
These conditions, which the supreme
war council is reported to have ap
proved in a rough form, have in view,
it is said, the demobilization of the
German army and the disarmament of
the enemy under the supervision of
the Allies. These terms, it is under
stood, will be communicated to Ger
many so that the national assembly
at Weimar will have time to deliberate
upon them until the provisional armis
tice expires.
Must Take Precautions.
It is reported that M. Clemenceau
made an impressive speech at the
sitting of the council, showing the
necessity of taking all desirable pre
cautions against Germany.
President Wilson is declared to have
adopted the same viewpoint, affirming
that all the Allies were agreed on that
point and that divergencies which
cropped up during previous discussions
bore solely on the most suitable meth
ods of obtaining the necessary guaran
ties.
Wilson Ready to Use Troops.
President Wilson according to the
report is understood to have declared
in conversation that a resumption of
hostilities was a grave eventuality to
which he would agree only on the most
absolutely essential considerations and
not for any secondary motive.
The report states that, in Mr. Wil
son's opinion, the non-cxecution of
terms of the armistice by Germany
would be an incident of sruch a nature
as to justify the resumption of war
and it is stated that he would not hesi
tate in that case to order the Ameri
can army to take up arms again.
YANKS REINFORCE THE ALLIES
March 30 Miles to Reach Hard Pressed
British and Russ.
Archangel, Feb. 14.—American rein
forcements, marching over 30 miles of
forest trail, reached the hard pressed
British and Russians in the region of
Sredmakrenga. The bolsheviki, who
had been launching strong attacks in
this region, evidently feared they
would be cut off, and withdrew.
Conditions on other sectors of the
northern Russian front are unchanged.
Denies World Army Report.
Paris, Feb. 14.—Lord Robert Ceo®,
the British representative" on the
league of nations' commission, denied
a report spread in Paris that the
league of nations commission had ap
proved the creation of an immediate
International army and that the Unit
ed States and Great Britain had con
ceded a point to France. Lord Robert
said that In his opinion the commis
sion would decline to approve any
such plan. He added such a report
must have originated from an enemy
of the peace conferenoe
TO COMPEL HONS De Valera The Hera tf Sin
TOOBSERVETM
A Leader Whose Genius Has Trans
formed The Irish Situation in a
Few Years.
(From Current Opinion)
A capacity for the quiet manage
ment of emotional men and women,
never before displayed so complete
ly by any Irish leader, and a born
mathematician's sense of proportion
applied to politics afford the combina
tion that seems to explain the career
of Bamonn de Valera to mystified
London newspapers. He is a man of
genius, however misapplied, If we are
to be guided by the London News,
while the Manchester Guardian thinks
that anywhere but in Ireland he would
now be a statesman in reasonable of
fice, swaying the destinies of his coun
try. In a period that he remains still,
a character, unfamiliar and mysterious,
he has converted an obscure and pro
scribed revolutionary society into the
dominant Irish political party. He has
routed the entrenched leadership of
the Redmonds and the Dillons, the
O'Briens and the Devlins all com
bined. He has revolutionized the
attitude of the Roman Catholic
hierarchy, at one time openly hostile
to him. He has composed feud after
feud within his following through his
perfect, sympathy with Irish human
Nature and a rare comprehension of
its merits and defects. Results of
this sort, as the Liberal Manchester
organ remarks, are never achieved
by mediocrities, and those British
newspapers which at first hailed de
Valera as an interloper and a foreign
er, coming from nowhere and rep
resenting nothing, are now inclined
to agree that, humiliating as it must
be to the politicians in London, he
has matched his wits against theirs
and made even the great Lloyd
George, to say nothing of Sir Edward
Carson, seem a trifle inefllcient by
comparison.
The mystery in which the name and
the career of de Valera are involved
include his present whereabouts. No
body seems to know definitely, so rig
id is the Irish censorship, whether he
is in jail or out of it or just what part
of Ireland he calls home. The prison
experiences of the past four or five
years have aged the man, our contem
porary says, and he now looks, with
his lined and pinched face, somew'hat
older than his thirty-seven years. He
is fine looking still, says the Lon
don News, altho he was never band
some, like Parnell in his prime, or
aristocratically elegant, like the mar
tyr Emmet. Nature seems to have
given him the heavy build of O'Con
nell, but he has not grown fat, like
that liberator. The wide open eyes
of de Valera, set far apart, are large
and staring, forming an essential fea
ture of the physiognomical impression
as a whole. The lips are firm and
compressed in repose. The nose is
slightly hawklike and the skin by its
swarthiness reveals the Iberian de
scent. The father of de Valera is un
derstood to have been a political ref
ugee from Spain when he met and
married the Irish girl who was to be
come the mother of the Sinn Fein
hero.
The little boy received the name of
Bdmond in baptism, not Eamonn. He
learned to lisp the English tongue in
America. When he first arrived In
Bruree in county Limerick he was only
six. He spoke Spanish and French
from childhood and in Ireland be
learned to ride like a centaur and to
swim and to shoot. He was educated
at a big school near the college of
Blackrock. His mother despised the
English all her life and from the first
he was passionately Irish, with a
strong tendency to play with tin sol
diers. He must have the llngustic
gift, for it Is affirmed that he could
speak Gaelic with fluency when he was
only twelve. His mathematical genius
—the most astonishing of his endow
ments—disclosed itself when he was
seventeen and he thought at one time
of becoming an astronomer. Before
he had passed on to the college of
Blackrock be was applying mathemati
cal formulas to every conceivable
problem. His sense of proportion and
of order, his foresight, his construc
tiveness, his ability to plan far ahead,
are aspects, to all who know him, of
his mathematical genius. He was a
successful tutor in consequence and
he astonished the examiners, when ap
plying for his degree, with abstruse cal
culations of planetary weights that re
vealed no error at any stage of Intri
cate computations that filled reams of
paper. In a quieter period of history,
writes one who knows him to a Lon
do& paper, he might have become a
Newton or worked out fresh theories
of dynamics. He seems to have
thought at one time of going into the
army, for his military aptitudes,
among his fellows at any rate, are
rather high Indeed.
His ringing laugh, his athletic
prowess, unexpected In one of his ro
mantic and poetical personal
appear|party,
ance, and the alertness of his man-
SjS.^y ywj.r "T-^SF-T..^fj* -"-.)-
Fein and all Ireland
ner do not suggest the brooder over
figures.
He is a brilliant talker, says the Lon
don News, and he seems to have no
reserve on the subject of his dreams
of glory for Ireland. His courage Is
beyond question and he readily faced
death at Boland's bakery in the
'revolution." He rallies his men un
der fire as only one with the grit ot
command and of Inspiration can. He
received a death sentence calmly, with
one of his favorite works, the "confes
sions" of St. Augustine, under his
arm. He was not in the least moved,
his jailers reported, when a reprieve
was read to him In his cell. It would
be erroneous to infer that he is cold
or impassive. He is emotional but
self-controlled. Naturally he is nerv
ous. At times he talks incessantly.
His temperament is sanguine, not to
say enthusiastic. He is lucky in hav
ing that fine physique, for it shows
up conspicuously before an audience
and prejudices every observer in his
favor. His oratory is a blend of the
sarcastic, the anecdotal, the polished,
the enthusiastic. The spark of fire
Hashes early from it. He does not
rank either. Indignation flames. The
soul shines forth from the flashing
dark eyes. Such are the impressions
of reporters for the London press.
He has a tragic platform manner.
He conveys or communicates emotion
with his arms, now folded across his
breast or again held behind him until
they wave in the air as he darts for
ward at a decisive moment. One de
rives an impression of youth, precise
ly as in the time of the orthodox
Home Rulers of the Redmond school
one beheld middle age or gray and
bespectacled maturity talking about
castle government in slightly cracked
accents. There is nothing cracked in
the accents of de Valera, altho there
is an occasional hoarseness. He has
moments of oratorical frenzy when
he seems anything but the cool and
calculating geometrican. He might
occasionally be deemed diffuse, if not
incoherent and irresponsible. In a
moment more he is calm, collected,
narrating some fresh instance of Brit
ish stupidity.
Stupidity, as the London World
says, is the indictment of the British
always when de Valera is called up
on to frame It. There are moments
when de Valera goes so far as to say
that the British are not oven ordin
arily bad. They are simply stupid.
The topic is dwelt upon with a wealth
of felicious illustration from the Irish
point of view. It Is one of the para
doxes of his situation that de Valera
is personally quite popular with many
of the English in Ireland. He has
not the cold aloofness of I'arnell in
dealing with everybody, bis own fol
lowers included, nor yet the somewhat
aristocratic hauteur of the late John
Redmond, suggesting the English
country gentlemen, nor the vehement
hatred of all things British that char
acterized Danien O'Connell. In fact, de
Valera can be good-natured, if sarcas
tic, in his allusions to the English.
"The English," he is quoted as having
said at East Mayo, "are not like the
Bourbons, who never learned anything
and who never forgot anything. The
English learn many things but they
never know how to apply their knowl
edge. When a German learns anything
he proceeds to apply the knowledge
but an Englishman lets his knowledge
accumulate in his head until it has be
come solid." De Valera's favorite illus
tration of the stupidity of the English
is drawn from the state of Ireland,
a country .very easily governed, he in
sists, inhabited by a people who
respect strong government intelligent
ly administered. In fact, de Valera's
observations upon the English would
make an interesting volume, especial
ly as he affirms that, instead of hating
them, he really loves them at a dis
tance. At Dublin he predicted once
that when the English put him to
death they will in their stupidity im
part a superfluously sanguinary char
acter to the act.—Current Opioion.
Two Mexican Bishops have died re
cently, Msgr. Pagaza of Vera Cruz
and Msgr. Dominguez of Tepic. At
the time of his death the latter was a
street sweeper. That such a thing
should have been possible seems in
credible to Catholics "up north," but.
the report of the bishop's humiliation
is well authenticated. To take a
bishop in his seventieth year and de-v
grade him and his office to such an
extent is—well, worthy of Carranea.
GERMANY DOWNS RADICALS. JM
if
Berlin, Jan. 31.—Unofficial returns
from Sunday's elections to the Prus
sian assembly, without taking Po-,^||
sen's twenty-one delegates into con-!_
sideration, show the selection of 142
Socialists, 24 Independent Sociallsts,aM|
87 Christian Peoples party, 41 ,6er-j|||f
man Nationalists, 18 German FeopWs |||g
61 Democrats. Guelphs and
Democrat-Peasant..
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