November i8, 1920] 



NATURE 



567 



think of the highly trained men of science who 

 \\ere killed at Gallipoli or drowned in the mud of 

 Flanders while Ministers turned for advice to 

 alchemists and circle-squarers, or confused great 

 chemists with dispensers of drugs, and we wonder 

 whether even now anyone in power realises what 

 civilisation has lost through the sacrifice of 

 creators of knowledge. While we mourn their 

 loss, let us work and pray for the scientific en- 

 lightenment of the leaders into whose hands the 

 destinies of the nation are entrusted, so that we 

 may be assured of strong and effective guidance 

 whatever is before us. 



The Newer Spiritualism. 



Phenomena of Materialisation : A Contribution to 

 the Investigation of Mediumistic Teleplastics. 

 By Baron von Schrenck-Notzing. Translated 

 by Dr. E. E. Fournier d'Albe. Pp. xii + 340. 

 (London : Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, and 

 Co., Ltd.; New York: E. P. Dutton and Co., 

 1920.) Price 35i. net. 



"/^F making many books" on spiritualism 

 V>/ "there is no end," and study thereof "is 

 I weariness of the flesh." Certainly such is the 

 tfect of reading a ponderous and repellent 

 volume of 200,000 words conveying the story of 

 seances the details of which are as like one 

 another as peas in a pod. The author describes 

 it as "really a monograph on materialisations," 

 since it deals, in the main, not so much with com- 

 munications from the dead as with exudations 

 from the living. These, in pseudo-scientific 

 jargon, are defined as " ideoplastic " or "tele- 

 plastic," taking the shape of fluidic threads or 

 psychic discharges from the mouth, armpits, and 

 other parts of the body, sometimes returning 

 thereto, and often accompanied by blood. Both 

 the author and translator agree in assigning them 

 to "a new, or, rather, a hitherto unexplored, func- 

 tion of certain human organisms " which have " a 

 spiritistic interpretation" as "conductors of 

 psychic impulses." 



The book made a considerable stir in Germany 

 on its publication in 1913; here, it was the subject 

 of a damaging review by Miss Verrall in the Pro- 

 ceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, 

 July, 1914. The translation before us was made 

 by Dr. Fournier d'.Mbc in consultation with 

 Mmc. Bisson, in whose house the medium lived, 

 and whose reports on the sittings make up the 

 substance of the book. It is to her that the 

 medium has "lent her remarkable powers" in 

 return for board and residence. The real name 

 of the medium, whose pseudonym is " Kva C," is 

 NO. 2664, VOL. 106] 



said to be Marthe B^raud ; and while Baron von 

 Schrenck-Notzing says that he "is not justified 

 in publishing details concerning her personal 

 and family affairs," he withholds nothing 

 in respect of detail about herself, both physic- 

 ally and mentally. As to the latter, she is 

 described as abnormally emotional, subject to 

 violent outbursts of anger, very amenable to in- 

 fluences, and nursing illusions that her charms lead 

 the male sex easy captives. The numerous photo- 

 graphs of her which are sandwiched between faked 

 spirit photographs show that physical beauty 

 forms no part of her attractiveness. She is, in 

 brief, a confirmed erotic and neurotic woman, 

 who, according to information from an indepen- 

 dent source, nurses the belief that she is an in- 

 carnation of Thais. 



As already said, the record of the sittings, 

 which extended from June, 1909, to July, 1913 

 (they were held chiefly in Paris), has a dreary uni- 

 formity. Mme. Bisson was always present; her 

 watchful care over "Eva C." suggests more than 

 friendship, and awakens suspicions as to col- 

 laboration in "materialisations." The appoint- 

 ments were as usual ; the medium sat in a dark 

 cabinet, Mme. Bisson hopping in and out, and 

 then joining the other sitters, rarely more than 

 three or four, in a room dimly lighted by a red 

 lamp; a white light, as all spiritualists agree, 

 " acting destructively on the pseudopods or psychic 

 projections from the medium's body." Apart from 

 M. Richet, a somewhat credulous savant, no 

 prominent man of science was at the sittings, save 

 one Dr. Specht, who, after three attendances, said 

 that he had been "shown materialisations which 

 do not exist." Baron von Schrenck-Notzing 

 naively adds : " On account of this negative atti- 

 tude, Dr. Specht WM not invited to further sit- 

 tings." Difliculty met attempts to secure tele- 

 plasma; "Eva C." was backed by Mme. Bisson in 

 her objections, but of the two samples which 

 Baron von Schrenck-Notzing secured one was 

 recognisable as human skin, and the other, under 

 microscopic examination, a mucus-like substance, 

 showed "cell detritis, numerous microbes, and 

 some wool (from dress)." Convinced as he is 

 that the teleplasmic phenomena have a "spiritual 

 interpretation," it is to the credit of Baron von 

 Schrenck-Notzing that he admits explanations, if 

 only to controvert them, such as arc supplied by 

 the facts of hysterical rumination, when the 

 patients bring up matter which they have swal- 

 lowed, and of excretions due to excitation. 



The reviewer can deal only with such statements 

 as fill this book at their face value. The onus 

 probandi lies on those who make them. Ai 

 Faraday said in a lecture delivered before the 



