8 THE LIMITS OF EXPERIMENTATION
Before leaving the question of reincarnation we must mention the claims of the 'experimental proofs' that are made for it. Certainly, when something is demonstrably impossible, as is the case here, all the facts that can be mustered in its favor are completely without significance, and one can be assured in advance that these facts are badly interpreted. But it is sometimes interesting and useful to bring things in focus, and here we find a good example of the pseudo-scientific fantasies in which the spiritists take pleasure and by which even some psychists allow themselves to become infected, often without knowing it. First, we will recall and clarify what we said previously concerning cases adduced as instances of reincarnation by reason of a so-called spontaneously produced 'awakening of memories'. When these cases are real (for some of them are very poorly controlled, those who handle such things repeating them one after the other without ever making any effort at verification) they are nothing other than simple cases of metempsychosis in the true sense of this word, that is to say the transmission of certain psychic elements from one individual to another. There are even cases for which there is no need to go so far as this; thus it sometimes happens that a person dreams of a place unknown to him, and later when visiting a more or less distant land for the first time he finds there all that he had seen, as if by anticipation. Assuming he believed in reincarnation and if he had not kept a clear and conscious memory of his dream, and if nevertheless the recognition was produced, he might imagine it was a case of the remembrance
of a previous existence. Many cases can in fact be explained in this way, at least among those for whom the places recognized do not evoke the idea of a particular event. These phenomena can be grouped together with so-called 'premonitory' dreams and are far from rare, although those who have them most often avoid speaking of them for fear of being considered hallucinatory (yet another abused word that basically explains nothing). Much the same can be said of the facts of 'telepathy' and of others of the same kind. They bring into play certain subconscious prolongations of the individuality, the existence of which is more easily explicable than is commonly believed. In fact, any being must carry within itself certain virtualities which are like the seeds of all the events that will befall it; for insofar as they represent secondary states or modifications of the being, these happenings must have their principle or raison d'être in its own nature. This is a point which Leibnitz alone among all modern philosophers has seen clearly, although his conception was falsified by the notion that the individual is a complete being and a kind of closed system. The existence of various predispositions or tendencies, psychological or physiological, is generally admitted from the outset; one cannot see why this should hold only for certain of the things that are to be realized in the future while others would not have any correspondence in the present state of the being. If it is objected that there are purely accidental events, we reply that this manner of seeing things implies belief in chance, which is nothing other than the denial of sufficient reason. It is recognized without difficulty that every past event that has affected a being, however minimally, must leave in it some trace, even organically (some psychologists would like to explain memory by a socalled physiological 'mechanism'); the difficulty lies in conceiving that in this respect there is a kind of parallelism between past and future. This is quite simply because the relativity of the temporal condition is not taken into account. There could be a whole theory to expound here, one which would occasion extensive developments; but it suffices to have noted that these are possibilities that must not be neglected even though there may be some difficulty fitting them into ordinary science, which is applied only to a small portion of the human individuality and of the world wherein this
individuality is deployed. What, then, if it were a question of going beyond the domain of this individuality?
As to those phenomena which cannot be explained in the manner just discussed, they are especially those where the person recognizes a place he has never visited but at the same time has a more or less clear idea that he has lived there, or that such and such an event has happened to him there; or, further, that he has died in such and such a place (most often a violent death). In verified cases of this kind it has been ascertained that what the person believes to have happened to him has in fact occurred in that place to one of his more or less remote ancestors. This is a clear example of the hereditary transmission of psychic elements, which we have mentioned. Facts of this kind can be labeled 'ancestral memory', and elements thus transmitted are for the most part of the nature of memory. What is unusual at first glance is that this memory may not be manifested for several generations; but the case is exactly the same for corporeal resemblances as also for some hereditary maladies. It can be readily admitted that during the interval the memory in question has remained in a latent and 'subconscious' state, awaiting a favorable occasion to be manifested. If the person in whom such a phenomenon is produced had not gone to the right place, the memory would have remained in a latent state, as it had up to that point, without becoming clearly conscious. Further, it is exactly the same for what in the memory pertains specifically to the individual: everything is retained because there is a permanent possibility of its reappearance, even what seems most completely forgotten and what is most insignificant in appearance, as is seen in certain more or less abnormal cases. But in order for such and such a memory to actually reappear, it is necessary that circumstances lend themselves to this reappearance; in fact, there are many memories of which one never again becomes clearly and distinctly conscious. What comes to pass in the field of organic predispositions is exactly analogous: an individual may carry latent within himself such and such a malady, cancer for example, but this malady will develop only under the action of a shock or of some cause that weakens the organism. If such circumstances are not encountered, the malady will never develop, but the seed really exists, just as a psychological tendency
not manifested by any exterior act is no less real in itself. We must add that since there cannot be any fortuitous circumstances (such a supposition is even senseless, for our ignorance of the cause of something does not make the cause non-existent), there must be a reason why an 'ancestral memory' is re-manifested in a particular individual rather than in any other member of the same family, just as there must be a reason why a person physically resembles such and such an ancestor rather than another, or his immediate relatives. Here we must introduce the laws of 'affinity' alluded to above, but we would risk straying too far afield if we had to explain how one individual can be particularly linked to another, and so much the more so in that ties of this kind are not necessarily or invariably hereditary, and, strange as it may seem, that such ties may even exist between a human being and nonhumans. Further, beyond natural ties, artificial ties can be produced by certain magical procedures, even magic of a rather inferior kind. On this point as on so many others the occultists have put forward eminently fantastic explanations. Thus, Papus has written:
The physical body belongs to an animal family from which the greater number of its cells have come, after an astral evolution. The evolutive transformation of the body is accomplished in the astral plane; thus there are human bodies which, by the appearance of their countenance, are linked to the dog, to the monkey, to the wolf, even to birds or fish. This is the secret origin of the totems of the red men and the black race. [1]
We confess ignorance of what the 'astral evolution' of corporeal elements may mean, but after all this explanation is worth just as much as those of the sociologists who imagine that the totem, whether animal or even vegetable, is regarded literally and materially as the ancestor of the tribe. They seem to have no suspicion that 'transformism' is a quite recent invention. In all this it is really not a question of corporeal but of psychic elements (we have seen that Papus was similarly confused as to the nature of metempsychosis). It is obviously unreasonable to suppose that most of the cells of the
human body, or rather of their constituent elements, should have an identical provenance; while in the psychic order, as we have noted, there can be conservation of a more or less considerable set of elements that remain associated. As to the 'secret origin of totems', we can state that it has truly remained secret for occultists as well as for sociologists; and perhaps it is better that this be so, for these are not things that can be easily and unreservedly explained owing to the practical applications and consequences some people would not fail to draw. There are already many other such things, also rather dangerous, and one can only regret that they are accessible to any experimenter who happens along.
We have just spoken of cases of non-hereditary transmission; when this transmission involves only peripheral elements it is hardly noted, and indeed it is almost impossible to ascertain clearly. Certainly, there are in each of us such elements coming from the disintegration of individuals who have gone before us (naturally only the mortal part of the human being is in question here). If some of these ordinarily 'subconscious' elements appear as clearly and distinctly conscious, one readily perceives that there is within oneself something of which one cannot explain the origin, but little attention is usually given these elements because they seem incoherent and to have no relation to the habitual content of consciousness. It is especially in abnormal cases, as with mediums and hypnotic subjects, that phenomena of this kind are produced to any extent, and such cases there can also be the manifestation of elements of analogous though adventitious provenance, which adhere only briefly to their individuality, instead of constituting an integral part of it. But it can also happen that once they have penetrated the individual, these elements are permanently fixed therein, and this is not the least of the dangers of this kind of experimentation. To return to the case wherein a transmission is spontaneously effected, the illusion of reincarnation can hardly occur except by the presence of a considerable number of psychic elements with the same provenance, sufficient to represent almost the equivalent of a more or less complete individual memory. Such cases are rather rare but it seems that there are nevertheless some examples. Such would seem to be the case when, an infant in a family having died, another is then
born possessing at least partially the memory of the first. It would be difficult to explain such facts by simple suggestion, which is not to say that relatives might not have played an unconscious role in the real transfer or that sentimentality might not contribute to a reincarnationist interpretation. Memory transfers have also been known to occur with a child belonging to a different family in another setting, which runs counter to the suggestion hypothesis. In any case, when there is a premature death the psychic elements persist more easily without being dissolved, and this is why most reported cases of this kind involve children. There are also cases where people in their youth manifested the memories of individual adults, but some of these cases are more doubtful than the previous, and where everything can be reduced to suggestion or thought transfer. Naturally, if these things occur in a milieu that has been influenced by spiritists, they must be treated as extremely suspect, although there is no question as to the good faith of those who note them, any more than there is in the case of experimenters who involuntarily shape the conduct of their subjects to conform with their own theories. Nothing in any of these facts is impossible a priori, except the reincarnationist interpretation itself. Some have also wanted to find proofs of reincarnation in cases of 'child prodigies', [2] which are sufficiently explained, however, by the presence of psychic elements previously elaborated and developed by other individualities. We also add that in cases other than premature death it is even possible that psychic disintegration is sometimes hindered or at least retarded artificially; but this too is a case that it is better not to emphasize. We need not speak of true cases of 'spiritual posterity' in the sense that we have previously indicated because these cases by their very nature clearly escape the very limited means of investigation available to experimenters.
We have already said that memory is subject to posthumous disintegration because it is a faculty of the sensible order. It is worth adding that during the individual's life, memory can also undergo a kind of partial dissociation. The many maladies of the memory
[2]: Allan Kardec, Le Livre des Esprits, p101; Léon Denis, Après la Mort, p166; Christianisme et Spiritisme, p296; Gabriel Delanne, L'Évolution animique, p282, etc.
studied by psycho-physiologists are fundamentally such dissociations, and this is the explanation for so-called dual or split personalities, in particular, where there is a division into two or more different memories that alternatively occupy the field of consciousness in a clear and distinct way. These fragmentary memories must naturally coexist, but only one of them can be conscious at a given moment, the others being repressed into the 'subconscious'. Moreover, there is sometimes a measure of communication between them. Such occurrences are produced spontaneously with some patients, as is natural somnambulism; they can also be realized experimentally in the 'second states' of hypnotic subjects, and most phenomena of spiritist 'incarnation' should be placed in this category. Hypnotic subjects and mediums differ from normal men especially by a dissociation of their psychic elements, which is accentuated with the training they undergo. This dissociation makes possible the phenomena in question, and likewise permits heteroclite elements to be inserted in their individualities.
The fact that memory is not a truly permanent principle of the human being, not to speak of organic conditions to which memory is more or less closely linked (at least as to its exterior manifestations), makes it clear why we have not considered more seriously a frequent objection to the reincarnationist thesis that even its defenders adjudge 'considerable'. This is the objection drawn from the fact of forgetfulness during a given existence, of previous existences. Papus' response is surely weaker than the objection itself.
This forgetfulness is an ineluctable necessity for avoiding suicide. Before returning to earth or to the physical plane, every spirit sees the trials it will have to undergo; it does not return until it has accepted all these ordeals. Now, if once incarnated, the spirit knew all it would have to endure, its reason would be overcome, its courage would be lost, and deliberate suicide would result from this clear perception. . . . The possibility of suicide must be removed from man if he is to retain with certainty the memory of previous existences. [3]
It is not obvious that there is a necessary relationship between memory of previous existences and prevision of the present existence; if this prevision was conceived only as a response to the objection of forgetfulness, it was scarcely worth the trouble. But it must also be said that the thoroughly sentimental notion of 'ordeals' plays a great role among occultists. Spiritists are sometimes more logical, without intending to be so. Thus Léon Denis, even while declaring that 'the forgetfulness of the past is for man the indispensable condition of every trial and of all earthly progress' (to which he adds other no less sentimental considerations), simply says:
The brain can receive and store only the impressions communicated by the soul in its captivity to matter. Memory can reproduce only what it has registered. At every rebirth the cerebral organism is for us like a new book on which sensations and images are engraved. [4]
This is perhaps a bit rudimentary, for memory after all is not corporeal in nature, but at least it is plausible, and so much the more in that the author notes that we seem to have no memory of much of our present existence. Again, the objection is not so grave as one might think, although it has a more serious appearance than those founded on sentiment; it may even be the best that people ignorant of all metaphysics can put forth. But for ourselves, we have no need to resort to such questionable arguments.
We have not yet tackled the strictly 'experimental' proofs (the several cases in question being designated by this name). But something else remains as a matter for experimentation in the strictest sense. It is here especially that psychists do not seem to realize the limits within which their methods are applicable. Those who have followed us this far must already see that the experimenters (that is, those who are so according to the ideas accepted by 'modern science', even if they are themselves kept at some distance by its 'official' representatives) are far from being able to furnish valid explanations for all that is involved. How can the facts of metempsychosis, for example, give rise to their investigations? We have
[4]: Après la Mort, p180.
noted a singular misapprehension of the limits of experimentation on the part of spiritists who claim to 'prove immortality scientifically'; we will soon find another no less astonishing to anyone free of 'scientific' prejudice, and this time not among spiritists but among psychists. Moreover, it is sometimes difficult to draw as fine a line between spiritists and psychists as should exist in principle, for it seems there are men who call themselves psychists only because they dare not frankly admit to being spiritists, this latter label having too little prestige in the eyes of many. There are others who allow themselves to be influenced unknowingly, and who would be quite astonished if they were told that their unconscious prejudices had falsified the results of their experiments. Experimenters would have to be unaware of the very existence of spiritism in order to study psychic phenomena without preconceived notions, something that is obviously impossible. If this were actually the case, no one would ever have dreamed of conducting experiments designed to verify reincarnation; and if from the outset there was no idea of verifying this hypothesis, no one would ever have adduced facts such as those just reported, for the hypnotic subjects who are used in these experiments only reflect ideas intentionally or unintentionally suggested to them. It suffices that an experimenter think of a theory, that rightly or wrongly he conceive of it simply as a possibility, for this theory to become the point of departure for interminable ramblings on the part of the hypnotic subject, and the experimenter will naively welcome as confirmation what is only the action of his own thought upon the 'subconscious' imagination of the subject; so true is this that the most 'scientific' of intentions have never guaranteed immunity from certain causes of error.
The earliest accounts of this kind involving reincarnation are those published by the Gencvan psychist Professor Flournoy, who took the trouble to gather into a volume [5] everything which one of his subjects had told him of various existences he claimed to have lived on earth and elsewhere. And what is more remarkable is that he was not even astonished that what happened on Mars was so easily expressible in terrestrial language! This story is on a par with any
[5]: Des Indes à la planète Mars.
dream whatsoever and in fact could have been studied from the point of view of the psychology of dreams produced by hypnotic states. It is scarcely credible that something more was believed to be involved, although that is exactly what happened. Somewhat later another psychist, Colonel Rochas, who was reputed to be a serious researcher, wanted to take up the question in a more methodical way, but he lacked the necessary intelligence to know what was really involved in this kind of thing as well as how to avert certain dangers. He was also purely and simply a partisan of hypnotism, and like so many others he was imperceptibly led to an almost total acceptance of spiritist theories. [6] One of his last works [7] was devoted to the experimental study of reincarnation; this was an account of his researches on so-called 'successive lives' by means of what he called the phenomena of 'regression of the memory'. At the time of its publication (1911) an 'Institute of Psychic Research' was established in Paris under the patronage of de Rochas and the direction of L. Lefranc and Charles Lancelin. We should point out that the latter, who identified himself equally as a psychist and an occultist, was really a spiritist, and that he was well known as such. Lefranc, whose tendencies were the same, wanted to repeat the experiments of de Rochas, and naturally the results agreed perfectly with those obtained by de Rochas. Anything contrary would have been surprising since his point of departure was a preconceived hypothesis, an already formulated theory, and since he found no-one better to work with than de Rochas' own former subjects. These ideas are now to be found everywhere; there are some psychists who firmly believe in reincarnation simply because they have subjects who told them of previous existences. One must agree that it is a little difficult to prove such claims, but this does provide a new chapter for the history of what may be called 'scientific credulity'. Knowing something of what hypnotic subjects really are and how they move
[6]: In 1914 Colonel de Rochas accepted, as did Camille Flammarion, the title of honorary member of the 'Association of Spiritist Studies' (of the Allan Kardec persuasion), founded by M. Puvis (Algol), with Léon Denis and Gabriel Delanne as honorary presidents (Revue Spirite, March 1914, p140).
[7]: Les Vies successives.
indiscriminately from one researcher to another, spreading abroad the products of various suggestions they have received, there can be no doubt that in psychist circles they are the carriers of a real reincarnationist epidemic. It is therefore useful to show in some detail what forms the basis for these accounts. [8]
De Rochas believed that with some subjects he had observed 'memory regression'; we say he believed he had observed, for if his honesty is not in question, it is no less true that the facts he interpreted in this way on the basis of pure hypothesis can in fact be explained in quite another and simpler way. Briefly, these facts come down to this: in a certain somnolent state a subject can be put back mentally into some period in the past; 'situated' thus in some past age, he then speaks of it as if it were the present. It is concluded from this that it is not a case of 'remembering' but of 'memory regression'. "The subject does not recall,' Lancelin declares categorically, 'but is put back into the indicated period'; and he adds with real enthusiasm that for Colonel de Rochas 'this simple remark has been the starting-point for a truly outstanding discovery. [9] Unfortunately, this 'simple remark' contains a contradiction in terms, for there can obviously be no question of memory where there is no remembering. This is so evident that it is difficult to understand why it was not perceived, which further leads one to think that it is not merely an error of interpretation. This observation apart, it must first be asked if the possibility of pure remembering is really excluded only for the reason that the subject speaks of the past as if it had again become present to him; when, for example, he is asked what he did at such and such a time, he does not respond: 'I was doing this,' but 'I am doing this.' The immediate response to this can be that memories as such are always mentally present; whether these memories are clearly and distinctly present in the field of consciousness or in the 'subconscious' is of little importance since, as we have said, they can
[9]: Le Monde Psychique, January 1912.
[8]: We recall only from memory the 'investigations into the past' to which the 'clairvoyants' of the Theosophical Society devoted themselves; this case is altogether analogous to the other, except that hypnotic suggestion is replaced by autosuggestion.
always pass from the one to the other, which shows that it is only a question of a difference of degree. That which for our present consciousness characterizes memories of past events is their comparison with our present perceptions (perceptions being understood as present), a comparison which alone permits the distinction between the one and the other in establishing a temporal relation, that is to say a relation of succession between exterior events of which they are for us the respective mental translations. This distinction between remembering and perceiving pertains, moreover, to the most elementary psychology. If this comparison is for any reason rendered impossible, whether by momentary suppression of any exterior impression or in some other manner, then memory, being no longer temporally localized in relation to other present psychological elements, loses its representative character of the past, keeping only its quality of 'presentness'. Now this is precisely what occurs in the cases we have been discussing. The state in which the subject is placed corresponds to a modification of his consciousness of the present, implying in a certain sense an extension of his individual faculties, although to the momentary detriment of the development of these faculties in their normal state. If therefore the subject is insulated from the effects of present perceptions and if in addition all events prior to a given moment are excluded from his awareness (conditions perfectly realizable by suggestion), this is what happens: when the memories relating to this moment are distinctly presented to the consciousness thus modified as to its range (which is then the actual consciousness of the subject), they can in no way be situated in the past nor even simply envisaged as past, since in the field of consciousness (we speak only of the clear and distinct consciousness) there is no longer any element with which they can be placed in a relation of temporal anteriority.
What is in question in all this is nothing other than a mental state that implies a modification of the conception of time, or better of its comprehension, in relation to the normal state. Moreover, both states are only different modalities of the same individuality, as are the various states, whether spontaneous or induced, which correspond to all the possible alterations of the individual consciousness, including those commonly grouped under the improper and faulty
denomination of 'multiple personalities'. In fact, there can be no question here of superior and extra-individual states in which the being would be freed from the temporal condition, nor of an extension of the individuality implying this same exemption even partially. On the contrary, the subject is placed in a determinate instant which essentially supposes that his present state is temporally conditioned. Further, the states to which we have just alluded obviously cannot be attained by means entirely within the domain of the actual individuality, even considered exclusively within a very restricted portion of his possibilities; and this is necessarily the case in every experimental procedure. On the other hand, even if these same states were attained in some way, they could not be perceived by this individuality whose particular conditions of existence have no point of contact with the conditions of superior states of the being, states of which the psychists do not even suspect.
As for effectively returning to the past, this is something as manifestly impossible for the individual as is his being transported into the future. This notion of travel into the future can obviously only be a completely erroneous interpretation of the facts of 'prevision'; but this interpretation could not be more extravagant than the one in question here, and some day such an interpretation may likewise be produced. If we were not familiar with the theories of the psychists in question, we would certainly never have thought that the 'time machine' of H.G. Wells could be considered as anything but pure fantasy, nor that there could be serious talk of the 'reversibility of time'. Space is reversible, that is to say any one of its parts, having been traversed in a certain direction, can then be traversed in the opposite direction; and this is because space is a system of coordinates envisaged in simultaneous and permanent mode; time on the contrary, being a coordination of elements considered in successive and transitory mode, is not reversible, for such a supposition would
be the very negation of the point of view of succession, or in other words it would amount to the suppression of the temporal condition. This suppression of the temporal condition is moreover perfectly possible in itself, as is the suppression of the spatial condition; but it is not so in the cases we have considered since these cases always presuppose time. Moreover, we should observe that the concept of the 'eternal present', which is the consequence of such a suppression, cannot have anything in common with a return to the past or a transport into the future, as it suppresses precisely both past and future, freeing us from the point of view of succession, that is, of what constitutes for our present existence all the reality of the temporal condition.
Nevertheless, there are men who have conceived this idea of the 'reversibility of time' and who have even claimed to base it on a socalled 'mechanical theorem', the formulation of which we believe would be interesting to reproduce in its entirety. It is Lefranc who, in order to interpret his experiments, believed it necessary to pose the question in these terms:
Can matter and spirit go back through the course of time, that is to say be placed again at a previous time of life? Past time does not return; however, could it not return? [10]
In order to answer this question, he set about researching a previously published work by Breton [11] on the 'reversibility of all purely material movement', even though this author had only offered the conception involved as a kind of mathematical game with consequences which he himself considered absurd. But it is no less true that this a real abuse of reasoning, such as some mathematicians occasionally commit, especially those who are only 'specialists'; and it is notable that the field of mechanics offers particularly favorable ground for this kind of thing. This is how Breton's exposition begins:
[10]: Ibid., January 1912.
[11]: Les Mondes, December 1875.
Knowing the complete series of all the successive states of a system of bodies, these states following upon and engendering themselves in a determined order from the past, which functions as cause, to the future, which has the rank of effect [sic], let us consider one of these successive states, and without changing anything of the component masses or of the forces acting between these masses [12] or of the laws of these forces, or again of the actual situations of these masses in space, let us replace each speed by an equal and contrary speed. . . .
A velocity opposed to another, or even in a different direction, cannot truly be equal in the strict sense of the word; it can only be equivalent in quantity. On the other hand, is it possible to think of this replacement as changing nothing of the laws of motion under consideration, given that if these laws had continued to be followed in the normal way, the replacement would not have been produced? But let us look at what follows:
We will call this the reversal of all the speeds; the change itself will take the name reversion, and we will call the possibility of this change reversibility of the movement of the system. . . .
Let us pause a moment, for it is just this possibility which, from the point of view of movement itself, we cannot admit. Movement takes place in time; the system in question resumes in the opposite direction in a new series of successive states the positions it had previously occupied in space; but for all that, time never again becomes the same, and it suffices that this condition alone be changed for the new states of the system not to be identical to the previous states in any way. Moreover, in the reasoning which we cite it is explicitly supposed (though in questionable French) that the relation of past to future is a relation of cause to effect. But the true causal relationship implies on the contrary the simultaneity of the two terms, whence the result that states considered as following one another cannot, from this point of view, engender one another, as there would have to be a nonexistent state producing a not-yet-existent
[12]: 'On these masses', perhaps would have been more understandable.
state, which is absurd. From this it also follows that if the memory of any kind of impression can cause other mental phenomena of whatever kind, it is only insofar as the causal memory is present memory, a past impression being incapable of causing anything. But let us continue: 'Now, when the reversion of velocities of a system of bodies will have been effected. . . .' The author of this reasoning has had the prudence to add parenthetically, 'not in reality, but in pure thought.' Without realizing it, he thereby completely departs the field of mechanics, what he speaks of no longer having any relationship whatsoever with a 'system of bodies' (it is true that in classical mechanics contradictory suppositions are also found, such as that of a heavy body being reduced to a mathematical point, that is to say to a body which is not a body, since it lacks extension). But it should not be forgotten that the author himself regards the so-called 'reversion' as unrealizable, in contrast to the hypothesis of those who have wished to apply his reasoning to 'memory regression'. Assuming the 'reversion' as effected, this is what the problem becomes:
It will be a question of finding for the reversed system the complete series of its future and past states. Will this search be more or less difficult than the corresponding problem for the successive states of the same system that has not been reversed? Neither more nor less. . . .
Obviously, since in both cases it is a question of studying a movement of which all the elements are given; but in order for this study to correspond to something real or even possible, one must not be taken in by a simple play of notation such as that indicated in what follows:
And the solution of one of these problems provides the solution for the other by a very simple alteration consisting, in technical terms, of changing the algebraic sign for time, writing $-t$ instead of $+t$, and reciprocally.
This is quite simple in theory but fails to take into account that the notation of 'negative numbers' is an entirely artificial process (and one that is not without its logical consequences) useful for the simplification of calculations; it is one, moreover, that does not
correspond to any kind of reality. The author of this reasoning falls into a serious error shared by many mathematicians, and in order to interpret the change of sign which he has indicated he immediately adds: 'That is, the two complete series of successive states of the same system of bodies will differ only in that the future will become past and the past will become future. . .' That is certainly a singular phantasmagoria, and it is worth taking notice when an operation as common as the simple change of an algebraic sign is endowed with such truly strange and marvelous power-at least in the eyes of mathematicians of this kind.
This will be the same series of successive states traversed in the opposite direction. The reversion of velocities at any time simply reverses time; the first series of successive states and the reverted series have, in all the corresponding instants, the same part in the system, with equal and contrary velocities [sic].
In reality, unfortunately, the reversion of velocities simply reverts the spatial situations and not the times; instead of being the same series of successive states traversed in the opposite direction, it will be a second series inversely homologous with the first, and this as to space only. The past never becomes the future for all that, and the future never becomes the past except in virtue of the normal and natural law of succession such as is produced at each instant. In order for there to be true correspondence between the two series it is necessary that in the system under consideration there be no changes other than simple changes of position. These latter alone can be reversible because they involve space as the only consideration and space is in fact reversible. For every other change of state this reasoning will no longer apply. It is therefore absolutely illegitimate to seek to draw such consequences as these:
In the vegetable kingdom, for example, by reversion we would see a rotten and fallen pear again become ripe fruit hanging from its tree, diminishing and again becoming a faded blossom, then a newly opened flower, then a flower bud, then a fruit bud at the same time that its component materials again become carbonic
acid and water vapor diffused in the air, on the one hand, and on the others sap, then humus or manure.
It seems that somewhere Camille Flammarion has described almost the same thing, but with the added supposition that a 'spirit' departs the earth at a speed greater than that of light and with a visual faculty enabling it to distinguish at any distance the smallest details of terrestrial events. [13] This is a whimsical hypothesis at the very least, but would not be a true 'reversion of time' since the events themselves would nonetheless continue to follow their ordinary course, their unrolling in reverse order being only an optical illusion. At every instant changes are produced in living beings which cannot be reduced to changes of position; and even in inorganic bodies, which seem to remain the most completely like unto themselves, there are also irreversible changes. 'Inert matter' as postulated by classical mechanics is nowhere to be found in the physical world for the simple reason that whatever is truly inert is necessarily devoid of all quality, sensible or other. It is really too easy to uncover the many unconscious sophisms concealed in such arguments. And yet this is all that is found to justify 'before science and philosophy' a theory such as the claimed 'memory regressions'.
We have shown that one can very easily explain-almost without going beyond ordinary psychology-the so-called 'past-life regression' which in reality is quite simply the recall to clear and distinct consciousness of memories retained in a latent state in the 'subconscious' memory of the subject and relating to some period of his life. To complete this explanation it should be added that from the physiological point of view this recall is facilitated by the fact that every impression leaves some trace in the organism experiencing it. We need not investigate the way in which this impression is recorded by certain nervous centers, for that is a study pertaining purely and simply to experimental science-which is not to say that this science has so far obtained very satisfactory results in this regard. But however that may be, the action exercised by these centers, which correspond to different modalities of the memory, are
[13]: Lumen.
aided by the psychological factor of suggestion, which even plays a principal role, for the physiological order concerns only the conditions of the exterior manifestation of the memory. This action, we say, however it is effected, permits the placement of the subject in the conditions required for the realization of the experiments we have mentioned, at least as regards their first part, that relating to the events in which the subject has really participated or which he has observed at a more or less distant time. But what tends to delude the experimenter is that things become complicated by a kind of 'dream in action', of the type that has given somnambulism its name. However inadequately he may have been led, the subject, instead of simply recounting his memories, begins to mimic them; he will also mimic all that is suggested to him, whether sentiments or impressions. Thus de Rochas 'regressed the subject ten, twenty, or thirty years; he made the subject a little child, a crying baby.' In fact, once he suggested that his subject return to infancy, he should have expected him to act and speak like a true infant. But similarly, if he had suggested that his subject was an animal of some kind, the subject would not have failed, in like manner, to behave as the animal in question. Would he, de Rochas, have concluded that the subject really was an animal in some previous life? The 'dream in action' may have as its point of departure either personal memories or knowledge of the ways of acting of another being, and these two elements may even be commingled to some extent. This latter case is probably what happens when one wants to 'situate' the subject in infancy. It may also be a question of knowledge the subject does not normally possess but which is communicated to him by the experimenter without the latter having the least intention of doing so. It is probably thus that de Rochas
had regressed the subject to before his birth, making him return to his uterine life where, going backward in time, he assumed the various positions of the fetus.
We will not say, however, that even in this last case there is not in the individuality of the subject some organic or even psychic traces of the states in question. On the contrary, there must be such, and they may furnish a more or less considerable portion (which would be
difficult to determine) of his 'dream in action'. But of course no physiological correspondence whatever is possible except for those impressions which have really affected the subject's organism. And similarly from the psychological point of view, the individual consciousness of any being whatever obviously can contain only elements having some connection with the actual individuality of this being. This must suffice to show that it is perfectly useless and illusory to try to pursue experimental researches beyond certain limits, which is to say, in the present case, prior to the subject's birth, or at least from the beginning of his embryonic life. Nevertheless this is just what one claims to do in 'situating him before conception'; and on the preconceived hypothesis of reincarnation it is thought possible, by 'going always further back, to make him [the subject] relive his previous lives,' even in the meanwhile studying 'what happens to the non-incarnated spirit'!
Here we are obviously in full-blown fantasy; nevertheless, Lancelin assures us that 'the result obtained' is enormous, not only in itself, but for the ways it opens for the exploration of the prior lives of living beings,' and 'that a great step has been taken by that scholar of the first rank, Colonel de Rochas, in the way opened by him, the way of disoccultation of the occult [sic], and that 'a new principle has been posed, the consequences of which, from the present moment, are incalculable. [14] But how can one speak of the 'anteriorities of the living being' when what is in question is a time when that living being did not yet exist in an individualized state? And how can one mean to take it back beyond its origin, that is, into conditions in which it was never actually found and which for it do not therefore correspond to any reality? This amounts to creating an artificial reality from nothing, that is to say a 'mental reality' that does not represent any sensible reality. The suggestion provided by the experimenter gives the point of departure, and the imagination of the subject does the rest. It may doubtless happen that the subject sometimes encounters, either within himself or in the psychic ambience, some of the elements we have discussed and which come from the disintegration of other individualities. This would explain why
[14]: Le Monde Psychique, January 1912.
he may be able to furnish some details concerning persons who may have really existed; but even if these cases are duly noted and verified they would not prove anything more than the others. Apart from the initial suggestion, all this is generally quite comparable to what happens in ordinary dreaming, where, as the Hindu doctrine teaches, 'the individual soul creates a world proceeding entirely from himself, the objects of which consist exclusively of mental conceptions'; and for this creation the soul naturally utilizes all the elements of diverse provenance which may be at its disposal. Moreover, it is not usually possible to distinguish these conceptions, or rather the representations into which they are translated, from perceptions having an exterior origin, unless a comparison is established between these two kinds of psychological elements; and this can be done only by the more or less clearly conscious passage from the dream state to the waking state. But this comparison is never possible in the case of a dream instigated by suggestion, since on awaking the subject does not retain in his normal consciousness any memory of it (which is not to say that memory of it does not subsist in the 'subconscious'). Further, the subject may in certain cases take as memories mental images which are not really memories, for a dream may include memories as well as current impressions without these two kinds of elements being anything other than purely mental creations of the present moment. Strictly speaking, these creations, like all others of the imagination, are only newly-formed combinations of pre-existing elements. Of course, we are not speaking here of more or less modified or deformed memories of the waking state which are often mingled with dreams; the separation of the two states of consciousness is never complete, at least in ordinary sleep. This separation seems to be much more complete in induced sleep, which explains the apparently complete forgetfulness of the subject on awaking. This separation is always relative, however, because it is basically only a question of diverse modalities of the same individual consciousness. This is clearly shown by the fact that a suggestion given in hypnotic sleep may produce its effects after the subject awakes, while he, the subject, nevertheless seems to have no memory of it. If the examination of dream phenomena were pursued further than we can do here, it would be seen that all the elements called into play also enter into the manifestations of
the hypnotic state, these two states representing only a single state of the human being. The only difference is that in the hypnotic state the consciousness of the subject is in communication with another individual consciousness, that of the experimenter, and can in some measure assimilate to itself elements contained in the consciousness of the researcher as if these merely constituted one of its own prolongations. This is why the hypnotizer can supply data to the subject which the latter will use in his dream. These data may be images, more or less complex representations (as takes place in the most ordinary experience), and also ideas or theories of whatever kind, such as the reincarnationist hypothesis, ideas which the subject will also be eager to translate into imaginative representations. All this is possible without the hypnotizer needing to formulate these suggestions orally and without them even being willed by him. Thus an induced dream is a state similar in every respect to those brought about in a subject by appropriate suggestions, or by partially or totally imaginary perceptions, but with the sole difference that here the experimenter is himself the dupe of his own suggestion, taking the mental creations of the subject for 'awakening of memories', even for a real return to the past. In the final analysis this is the socalled 'exploration of past lives', the only 'experimental proof' properly so called that the reincarnationists have been able to bring forward in favor of their theory.
The 'Institute for Psychic Research' in Paris maintained a 'neurological and pedagogical clinic' where an effort was made (as elsewhere) to apply suggestion to 'psychotherapy', especially to cure alcoholics and maniacs, and to improve the mental condition of some idiots. Such efforts were very laudable, and whatever the results obtained, there is certainly no occasion to find fault with them, at least as to the intentions that inspired them. But it is true that even on a strictly medical level these practices are sometimes more harmful than useful and that those who use them hardly know what they are handling. But in the final analysis it would be better for the psychists to stop there, for if they wish to be taken seriously they must stop using suggestions that lead toward such phantasmagoria as we have just discussed. Nevertheless, one still meets those who boast of the 'clear evidence for spiritism', opposing this to 'the obscurity of metaphysics', which moreover they confuse with the
[15]: This is found in an article signed by J. Rapicault included also in Le Monde Psychique of January 1912, and is quite characteristic of the propagandist tendencies of the spiritists. 'Simplicity', that is to say intellectual mediocrity, is openly vaunted as a superiority, a point to which we shall return below.
most everyday philosophy. [15] Quite singular evidence, at least if it not be the evidence of absurdity! Some even claim for themselves 'metaphysical experiences', unaware that, so conjoined, the two words constitute pure and simple nonsense; their conceptions are so completely limited to the world of phenomena that all that exists beyond experience is for them non-existent. Assuredly, none of this should astonish us, for it is only too obvious that all spiritists and psychists, of whatever persuasion, are profoundly ignorant of true metaphysics, the existence of which they do not even suspect. And so, whenever occasion offers we are content to note how such tendencies specifically characterize the modern Western mind, which by a monstrous deviation the like of which is nowhere else to be found, is turned exclusively toward the exterior. Although 'neo-spiritualists' quarrel with 'positivists' and 'official' scientists, their mentalities are fundamentally the same, and the 'conversions' of certain scientists to spiritism do not imply as deep or serious a change as one might imagine, or imply only the following one: the mind of such a scientist, while always remaining narrowly limited, has at least in a certain respect lost the relative equilibrium it had retained until the point of 'conversion'. One can be a 'scholar of the first rank' in a much more incontrovertible way than was Colonel de Rochas (by which we do not mean to deny him a certain merit); one can even be a 'man of genius' according to current 'profane' ideas, [16] and not be sheltered from such accidents. All this simply proves that a researcher or a philosopher, whatever his value as such, and whatever his special field may be, is not for all that necessarily or markedly superior to the great mass of the ignorant and credulous public which furnishes the major part of spiritist-occultist clientele.
[16]: Even so, Rapicault perhaps goes too far when he affirms that 'many great geniuses have been adepts of spiritism.' That there are some few who are such 'adepts' is already too much, but it would be wrong to allow oneself to be overly impressed by or to attach any great importance to this; what is conventionally called 'genius' is something very relative, something worth incomparably less than the least particle of genuine knowledge.