Hypnotism: Its History, Practice and Theory |
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and refrain from puffing the scientifically unimportant proceedings of such
a person as Mme. Magdeleine G. in a manner which, according to Willy Hellpach,
constitutes a downright misdemeanour. I must also blame Schrenck-Notzing for his conduct on a recent occasion. In spite of his repeated protests that all such matters should be investigated under the scientific conditions that obtain in the laboratory, he nevertheless attempted to prevent the scientific examination of a medium in Berlin a few months ago. He had heard that certain sceptical Berlin investigators, whose names were given, had been invited to the seance of a medium. He stated that this was unfortunate and that the meeting ought to be prevented as it might injure the lady's mediumistic powers, which were still in the developmental stage. He said he was induced to take this step, because professors at the University of Munich, and noted neurologists, had declared that a promise made to a mediumistic " circle "need not be kept, and that the only scientific way of getting at the truth is to catch the phantasm and hold it fast. I am unaware that Munich scientists have ever advocated perjury. It is hardly possible to find any other motive, as Schrenck-Notzing calls it, for his action than his spiritistic tendencies, of which he may, perhaps, be unconscious. In an earlier work, Schrenck-Notzing attacked the experts who had pronounced against thought-transference, and he also expressed the opinion that many of their assertions were due to a priori aversion, and were not based on experimental research. " I am convinced this is the most unscientific way of getting rid of questionable proceedings. Consequently we are spared the necessity of submitting such verdicts to a searching criticism." Here we have Schrenck-Notzing blaming the men who do not experiment, and yet on other occasions he does his best to hinder those who are willing to investigate the question experimentally. I very much doubt whether a man who deprecates scientific seances—and it is only with such that we are concerned—has any right to set himself up as an objective investigator of mediumistic phenomena. But all this can be easily explained if we remember that Schrenck-Notzing is an honorary member of the German Society of Spiritists; that in the very article in which he advocates the investigation of mediumistic phenomena, he also indulges in a hopelessly uncritical disquisition on the "unexplained residuum," and that he also poses as the champion of Eusapia Palladino and similar persons. In reality, Schrenck-Notzing is so entangled in the meshes of spiritism, that he has apparently lost the power of observing and thinking objectively. I have already on previous occasions referred to the numerous sources of error which we must not overlook in our inquiry into occultistic experiments. These |
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