Michael Cremo - Human Devolution - A Vedic Alternative To Darwin's Theory

Wallace had a similar experience with the medium Eglington. The séance took place at a private house, in the presence of about eighteen spiritualists and people inquisitive about spiritualism. The medium was to sit behind a curtain hung across one corner of a room. The space behind the curtain was small, just large enough for the chair on which the medium was to sit. Wallace noted, “I and others examined this corner and found the walls solid and the carpet nailed down” (Wallace 1905, v. 2, p. 329). In other words, there was no concealed opening through which a confederate could enter. After Eglington arrived and sat behind the curtain, a robed male figure appeared and walked around the room, in dim light, allowing all of the witnesses to touch his robes and examine his hands and feet. Could the figure have been Eglington in disguise?

Wallace (1905 v. 2, p. 329) gave this description of what happened immediately after the sitting: “Several of the medium’s friends begged him to allow himself to be searched so that the result might be published. After some difficulty he was persuaded, and four persons were appointed to make the examination. Immediately two of these led him into a bedroom, while I and a friend who had come with me closely examined the chair, floor, and walls, and were able to declare that nothing so large as a glove had been left. We then joined the other two in the bedroom, and as Eglington took off his clothes each article was passed through our hands, down to underclothing and socks, so that we could positively declare that not a single article besides his own clothes were found upon him. The result was published in the Spiritualist newspaper [and] certified by the names of all present.”

It is true that on some occasions mediums were exposed in cheating. This should not be surprising, for even in orthodox science there is no shortage of cheating. One notable hoax was Piltdown man, which fooled the scientific world for forty years. And today the manipulation and manufacture of test results in science laboratories is fairly common. So whether we are talking about paranormal science or normal science, we cannot exclude the possibility of cheating and hoaxing. The only thing we can do is examine particular cases and make reasonable judgements about the likelihood of imposture. In the case of Wallace’s experience with Eglington, a great deal of care was taken to insure against trickery. In light of this, the apparent materialization of a humanlike figure by Eglington deserves a certain degree of credibility.

The most extraordinary phenomenon witnessed by Wallace was produced by a truly remarkable medium, Mr. Monk. A nonconformist clergyman, Monk had gained a considerable reputation for his séances . In order to study him more closely and systematically, some well known spiritualists, including Hensleigh Wedgwood and Stainton Moses, rented some rooms for Monk in the Bloomsbury district of London. Wedgwood and Moses invited Wallace to come and see what Monk could do.

Wallace (1905 v. 2, p. 330) later gave this account of what happened: “It was a bright summer afternoon, and everything happened in the full light of day. After a little conversation, Monk, who was dressed in the usual clerical black, appeared to go into a trance; then stood up a few feet in front of us, and after a little while pointed to his side, saying, ‘Look.’ We saw there a faint white patch on his coat on the left side. This grew brighter, then seemed to flicker, and extend both upwards and downwards, till very gradually it formed a cloudy pillar extending from his shoulder to his feet and close to his body. Then he shifted himself a little sideways, the cloudy figure standing still, but appearing joined to him by a cloudy band at the height at which it had first begun to form. Then, after a few minutes more, Monk again said ‘Look,’ and passed his hand through the connecting band, severing it. He and the figure then moved away from each other till they were about five or six feet apart. The figure had now assumed the appearance of a thickly draped female form, with arms and hands just visible. Monk looked towards it and again said to us ‘Look,’ and then clapped his hands. On which the figure put out her hands, clapped them as he had done, and we all distinctly heard her clap following his, but fainter. The figure then moved slowly back to him, grew fainter and shorter, and was apparently absorbed into his body as it had grown out of it.”

Broad daylight rules out clever puppetry. That Monk was standing only a few feet from Wallace, in the middle of an ordinary room, rules out the production of the form by stage apparatus. Wedgwood told Wallace that on other occasions a tall, robed, male figure appeared alongside Monk. This figure would remain for up to half an hour, and allowed himself to be touched by Wedgwood and his colleagues, who carefully examined his body and clothes. Furthermore, the figure could exert force on material objects. Once the figure went so far as to lift a chair upon which one of the investigators was seated (Wallace 1905, v. 2, p. 331).

Exchanges with Romanes

In 1880, nature published a letter from an anonymous scientist expressing an interest in carrying out experiments to verify paranormal phenomena. Wallace deduced that the scientist was George J. Romanes. He wrote to him, pointing out that several scientists had already performed such experiments but had met with “only abuse and ridicule” (Wallace 1905, v. 2, p. 310). On February 17, 1880, Romanes replied that he was aware of such scientific prejudice, but he was hopeful that further proofs would have the desired effect. He suggested that Wallace did not realize the extent to which his own work had created within the scientific community a climate favorable to the eventual acceptance of spiritualistic phenomena (Wallace 1905, v. 2, p. 311). When Romanes repeated his desire to carry out some experiments, Wallace gave him some practical advice.

Wallace paid Romanes a visit in London. Romanes told Wallace how he had become interested in spiritualism (Wallace 1905, v. 2, pp.

314–315). A relative of his—a sister or cousin—happened to be a medium. At séances with her, Romanes witnessed the communication of messages by rapping not produced by any of those present. At times, the messages contained answers to the mental questions of Romanes. Romanes was impressed, and in 1876 he had written some letters to Darwin, giving a positive account of his experiences. Wallace was later shown these letters by a friend (Wallace 1905, v. 2, p. 315).

A year or two after his visit to Romanes, Wallace (1905 v. 2, p. 330) was surprised to read in a London newspaper some remarks by Romanes very unfavorable to thought reading. Wallace did not, however, reply. But in 1890, Wallace and Romanes became involved in a controversy about evolution. In his criticism of Wallace’s book Darwinism, published in the journal nineteenth Century (May 1890, p. 831), Romanes said that in the last chapter “we encounter the Wallace of spiritualism and astrology

. . . the Wallace of incapacity and absurdity” (Wallace 1905, v. 2, p. 317).

Wallace replied privately in a letter dated July 18, 1890: “As to your appeal to popular scientific prejudice by referring to my belief in spiritualism and astrology (which latter I have never professed my belief in), I have something to say. In the year 1876 you wrote two letters to Darwin, detailing your experiences of spiritual phenomena. You told him that you had had mental questions answered with no paid medium present. You told him you had had a message from Mr. J. Bellew. . . . And you declared your belief that some non-human intelligence was then communicating with you. You also described many physical phenomena occurring in your own house with the medium Williams. You saw ‘hands,’ apparently human, yet not those of any one present. You saw hand-bells, etc., carried about; you saw a human head and face above the table, with mobile features and eyes. Williams was held all the time, and your brother walked round the table to prove that there was no wire or other machinery (in your own room!), yet a bell, placed on a piano some distance away, was taken up by a luminous hand and rung and carried about the room! Can you have forgotten all this? In your second letter to Darwin you expressed your conviction of the truth of these facts, and of the existence of spiritual intelligences, of mind without brain. You said these phenomena had altered your whole conceptions. Formerly you had thought there were two mental natures in Crookes and Wallace—one sane, the other lunatic! Now (you said) you belonged in the same class as they did” (Wallace 1905, v. 2, pp. 317–318). Wallace therefore thought it unfair that Romanes should have written as he did in the nineteenth Century article. In subsequent letters to Wallace, Romanes replied that his letters to Darwin were private and contained only a provisional acceptance of the phenomena he witnessed. Romanes claimed he later suspected that the medium Williams was cheating. To test this, he placed him inside a metal cage, and in this circumstance none of the usual phenomena occurred. Romanes thereupon withdrew the opinions expressed in his letters to Darwin (Wallace 1905, v. 2, pp. 319, 321).