CHAPTER IV
AN EXAMINATION OF MR. HOPE AND HIS CRITICS

Having said so much in support of Mr. Hope’s mediumship, let me say what I can in the way of personal criticism, for I hold no particular brief for him, and am only anxious to follow truth wherever it may lead. I have written this pamphlet because I think that truth has been grievously obscured, and that the fruit of seventeen years of remarkable psychic demonstration is, for the moment, imperilled by the attention of the public being directed entirely to a single case which is, admittedly upon the face of it, of a damaging character. We spiritualists should be, in Stevenson’s fine phrase, “steel-true and blade-straight,” and we should never avoid an issue, or fall into the error of our opponents who have no sense of balance and can only focus their gaze upon one side of a question.

It has been said that Hope is suspiciously restless and fussy in the dark room. This, so far as my own observation goes, is correct. It may be that he is nervously anxious for success, or it may be that he is not in a normal condition—for he usually holds a service and occasionally goes into apparent trance immediately before the experiment. Whatever the cause, I am not prepared to deny the fact, or that not unreasonable suspicions might be awakened by his attitude in the minds of those who are brought for the first time in contact with his personality. I can only point to the cases already given, and say once more that no action upon his part could have produced them.

Again, it is said of Hope that he is impatient of tests and restrictions. Some of his best friends have been alienated by this fact. Mediums are touchy people—more delicately organised in many cases than any other human type. They may occasionally show an irrational annoyance and resentment against any action which implies personal suspicion. And yet, though he certainly prefers to be left to his own methods unrestrained save by ordinary observation, it is a fact that he has in the past consented to a great number of tests and has come out of them remarkably well. I have heard him say, “What have I to gain from tests? I am put to a deal of trouble, I do what I am asked to do, I get result, and then I hear no more about it except that perhaps I have convinced the person. Or perhaps, even if I have done all he asks in his own way, he still says he is unconvinced.” I can bear him out in this latter statement, for I have knowledge of three separate sittings which he had with a well-known London editor, where, under the latter’s ever more stringent conditions, Hope got results certainly twice, and, I think, thrice, and yet when I asked this editor to vouch for these results that I might quote them in this pamphlet, in the interests of truth and justice, I could get no reply to my letter. This seems to indicate either that he was not yet satisfied, though his own conditions had been carried out, or else that he had not the moral courage to help the medium at the time when he needed testimony.

The incident shows that there is some truth in Hope’s contention that tests are often a waste of energy. At the same time, it should be known that when the S.P.R. made their recent attack, founded upon a single case, Hope at once offered to give fresh sittings and to submit to the most drastic tests so long as those who were in sympathy were also associated in the experiment. For some reason the S.P.R. refused this, and it is a serious flaw in their position. None the less, we must make the admission that, in general, Hope is not fond of tests.

But there is another and more serious admission which I would make, although in doing so I may possibly be doing Hope an injustice. He is, in my opinion, not only a spiritualist, but a fanatic, which is a dangerous thing in any line of thought. We are aware that one must “test the spirits,” but I believe that Hope has such childlike and blind faith in his guides that he would obey their directions whatever they might be. I recollect one case where a distinguished man of science sent Hope a sealed packet, upon which the latter placed it in a bucket of water, under the alleged prompting of some spirit message. The natural result was to alienate the scientific man from psychic photography for many years. It is easy to say that this was simply a case of vulgar fraud, but fraud would be done in some manner which could be concealed and not in so drastic a manner as that, and, as I have shown, fraud does not at all fit in with Hope’s usual results. I make the critic a present of the case, merely adding that I believe Hope’s account of his motives to be absolutely true, however incomprehensible it might seem.

I have now, I hope, convinced any reasonable reader of the genuine nature of Hope’s powers, which, after all, wonderful as they may seem, are by no means unique, but are to be matched by those of several contemporaries both in England and in America—not all of them professionals.

We will next turn to the particular case treated in the report of the S.P.R. drawn up by Mr. Price, and afterwards published in a sixpenny form and widely distributed gratis with the evident intention of ruining Hope. Apart from its truth or falseness, the pamphlet is in deplorable taste, with puns upon Hope’s name, and tags of Johnson and Dryden dotted over it. So grave a subject should be treated with dignity even when severity is necessary. I will now state the case as clearly as I can, together with some remarkable side-lights which have appeared since the publication.

Having determined to catch Hope out, Mr. Price, who has considerable knowledge both of conjuring and of photography, procured from the Imperial Dry Plate Company eight plates, all of which had been cut from the same sheet of glass. Six of these plates were made up into a single packet, and all were treated by X-rays, so that while there was no outward sign that they had been marked there would, according to the testimony of the Company, appear upon them when they were developed a design of the Company’s trademark.

Carrying with him this doctored packet, and accompanied by a friend, Mr. Seymour, also a conjurer, Mr. Price kept an appointment which Mr. Hope had given him at the British College of Psychic Science, London, on February 24th, 1922. The mediums were quite unsuspicious of any trap, nor did they hear anything of the matter till four months later.

Mr. Price says: “I made myself very pleasant, said how sorry I was that they had been ill with influenza, and asked after the Crewe Circle, saying that my people were natives of Shropshire.” A private detective must, of course, use deception, but when Mr. Price at a later stage proceeded to ask that “Onward, Christian soldiers!” be the hymn sung, and suggesting that the extra finally shown was that of his own mother, he really does seem to be wallowing in it to an unnecessary degree. After all, the matter was one of business; he had paid for his sitting, he would surely get it, and no elaborate deception was needed.

After the usual ceremonies Mr. Price and Mr. Hope went into the dark room, where the package was opened and the two top plates put into the carrier. Hope then took up the carrier, asking Price to wrap up the remaining plates, and it was at this moment that Price “saw him ... put the dark slide to his left breast-pocket, and take it out again (another one?) without any ‘talking’ or knocking.” I copy this sentence as printed, and it is curious to find the S.P.R., which is continually claiming from others the utmost exactness of statement, passing one which is so involved and unintelligible. However, it is certain that Mr. Price means that Hope at that moment changed the carriers, though he does not even tell us where the second carrier went to. Mr. Price had endeavoured to mark with some pricking instrument of his thumb the original carrier, but carriers are often of very hard wood, and he could not, one would think, have verified such a result, therefore the fact that no marks of pricks were found upon the carrier cannot be regarded very seriously. It is an instructive fact that the S.P.R. receives all these very loose tests without question or comment, while when the evidence is the other way, as in the case of Major Spencer, they are ready with the most extraordinary explanations rather than admit a positive result.

The couple then emerged from the dark room—I am omitting unessential and wearying details—and the photographs were duly taken with no exact record of the time of exposure, though Mr. Price roughly placed it at from eighteen to nineteen seconds. The point was really of great, and might have been, of vital importance. When the plates were developed one was normal of Price alone, and the other had a female extra looking over Price’s shoulder. This female face has the psychic arch and bears every sign to my eye, and to that of every spiritualist whom I have heard discuss it, of being true to type and a real Hope extra.

Mr. Price complimented the medium upon his success, carried off the plates, and then set himself to dictate an article which was duly printed in the “Proceedings” of the S.P.R. to show that the whole business was a swindle, that the plates had been changed, and that the extra had been on a plate which Hope had foisted upon Price by the device of changing the carriers in the dark room.

The points upon which Price relied in his charge may be taken in their order. They were:

Experiments were at once undertaken by several investigators, including Dr. Cushman, of Washington, and Mr. Hewat McKenzie. They showed that with long exposures, such as Hope gave, the X-ray marks vanish, so that this test, as was admitted by the Imperial Company, ceases to be valid.

These marks seem to have been mere pricks, and there is no independent evidence as to their existence.

This would be more convincing if any indication could be given as to what became of the discarded carrier. In cross-examination Mr. Price weakened on the point.

This statement holds good. The plates have been examined and compared, and those who desired to guard the interests of Mr. Hope (or rather of truth) agreed that this contention was right, and that there had actually been a substitution of plates at some time by somebody. There we are all on common ground. How then, and why, were the plates changed?

Many who were convinced by experience of Hope’s powers and of his essential honesty, and who were aware of the bitter antagonism which exists against him, as against all psychic phenomena, in certain circles of conjurers and of sceptical researchers, and of indiscreet expressions before the experiment, were of opinion that the whole transaction was an organised conspiracy to discredit the medium. The packet of plates had been for several weeks before the experiment in the possession of the officials of the S.P.R., and was accessible to clever-fingered people who were hostile to Hope’s claims, and who had frequently averred that the opening of sealed packets was an easy process. There were other arguments which I will not state lest I should seem to be endorsing them. Let me say, at once, that I believe Messrs. Dingwall, Price and Seymour to be honourable gentlemen, however much I differ from their point of view, and that I will not advance any hypothesis which is not consistent with that position.[1]

At the same time, I would point out that all their difficulties, which have increased with fuller knowledge, are due to their own tortuous and indirect way of approaching the question. Suppose that instead of all this juggling of X-ray marks Mr. Price had simply initialled his plate the moment he took it from the packet as I and many other experimenters have done, surely if he had afterwards received an extra upon that initialled plate the test would have been complete, so far as substitution is concerned. If he had not done so, I am sure that Hope would have given him a second appointment, and he could have gone on until he had either succeeded or until he had proved that with an initialled plate Hope was helpless. Had this been done much trouble would have been saved, and the result been equally clear.

Or, again, when he was, as he says, morally sure that Hope had changed the carrier, suppose that instead of complimenting Hope upon results and suggesting that the image was that of his mother, he had said, “You will excuse me, Mr. Hope, but I must really examine you and your dark room, for I think I can find a marked carrier which you have concealed while you substituted your own.” A refusal from Hope would have really been a confession. But, all through, a tortuous course was preferred.

I have nothing against Mr. Price’s honour, but a very great deal against his methods, winding up with his sixpenny attack upon Hope, when the matter, as events have proved, was very far from being settled.

This pamphlet would certainly convey to the public the idea that Mr. Price looked upon psychic photography in general as the greatest humbug in the world, whereas since then he has signed a document which ends with the words:

Had he been wise enough to adopt this humbler tone in the first instance we could all discuss the question now in a more placid frame of mind.

Fig. 8.—The Rev. C. L. Tweedale and his wife with psychic likeness of Mrs. Tweedale’s father. (See p. 34.)

Fig. 9.—Photograph of Mr. Frank Burnett—Mrs. Tweedale’s father—who died in 1913. Compare with Fig. 8, showing psychic likeness obtained six years later.

Fig. 10.—Photograph of Mrs. Buxton of the Crewe Circle with her daughter. Psychic likeness of Mrs. Buxton’s father unlike any other picture in existence. In the bottom left-hand corner is reproduced a normal photograph of Mrs. Buxton’s father for comparison. (See p. 35.)

Fig. 11.—Photograph of Mr. and Mrs. H. East, with psychic likeness of their son obtained on a surprise visit to Crewe. Normal photograph reproduced alongside psychic effect for comparison. (See p. 19.)

But irritability must not make us unjust, and we have to face the question how came the plates to be changed? The only honest answer is that we do not know, but that the evidence taken on its face value at this stage was against Hope, in spite of his long record of honesty. Mr. Barlow has put forward the plea that Hope was in an abnormal mental condition at such times, and was to that extent irresponsible. I fear I cannot accept this, for such substitution must be thought out beforehand, an image must be prepared, and the whole transaction is not an act of impulse but a deliberate plan.

There has, however, been a most singular sequel to the case which causes an extraordinary complication, and when closely examined seems to me to turn Hope from the defendant into the accuser. The S.P.R. claims that after this experiment one of the two marked plates had been returned to them, but in so secret a fashion that it could not be explained who had brought it or how it had been obtained. This was apparently a point against Hope, the charge inferred, though not stated, being that he had left this plate about, after abstracting it from the carrier, and that some enemy had recognised it and brought it to clinch the case against him. So secret were the proceedings of the Society that though I am one of the oldest members of that body I was refused leave to see this mysterious plate. Eventually, however, some of our people did see it, and then an extraordinary state of things revealed itself. First of all the plate was undoubtedly one of the original set supplied by the Imperial Dry Plate Company. Secondly, it was a virgin unexposed plate, so that it is impossible that anyone at Hope’s end could have picked it out from any other plates, since the marks were invisible. Third, and most wonderful, it actually, on being developed, had an image upon it, which may or may not have been a psychic extra. This plate was sent on March 3rd, a week after the experiment and three days after Hope and Mrs. Buxton, who knew nothing yet of Price’s trap, had returned home to Crewe. It was in a double wrapper, with a request upon the inside cover that it be developed. The wrapper was formed of Psychic College literature, and it bore the Notting Hill postmark.

Now consider the situation thus created. Since the plate had not been developed it is clear that neither Hope nor anyone at the College could possibly have known that it was a marked plate, for there was no publication of the alleged exposure until more than four months after. Who was there in the whole world who did know that this was a marked plate and one in which the S.P.R. might be expected to take a special interest? Clearly the experimenters of the S.P.R. and their confidants—no one else. But if the marked plate had been abstracted by Hope in the dark room and mixed up there with other plates how could any friend or emissary of the S.P.R. have picked it out as being the plate that was marked? It could not have been done. Therefore the conclusion seems to be irresistible that this plate was abstracted from the packet before the experiment by someone who knew exactly what it was. If this be so, Hope is the victim of a conspiracy and he is a much ill-used man. I see no possible alternative to this conclusion.

Let us see if we can build up any sort of theory which would cover all the known facts. Any such theory is bound to be improbable, but the improbable is better than the impossible, and it is quite impossible that Hope could have known that a plate was secretly marked when it had not been exposed or developed. We have to remember that the knot of conspirators (some consciously so, and some not) are in close touch with a group of conjurers. These gentlemen have announced that there is no packet which cannot be opened and no seal which cannot be tampered with undetected. For twenty-four days after Mr. Price takes his packet of marked plates to the headquarters of the S.P.R. it was locked up not in a safe but in an ordinary drawer, which may or may not have been locked, but could presumably be easily opened. My belief is that during that long period the packet was actually opened and the top plates taken out. Upon one of these top plates a faked photograph was thrown from one of those small projectors which produce just such an effect as is shown on the returned plate. The idea may have been that Hope would claim this effect as his own and that he would then be confounded by the announcement that it was there all the time. That was the first stage. The second stage was that either the original conspirator relented or someone else who was in his confidence thought it was too bad, so the packet was again tampered with, the marked and faked plate taken out and a plain one substituted. The packet was then taken to Hope as described. Mr. Hope then got a perfectly honest psychic effect upon the unmarked plate. Meanwhile the abstracter, whoever he may have been, had the original faked plate in his possession, and out of a spirit of pure mischief—for I can imagine no other reason—he wrapped it in a sheet of the College syllabus, which can easily be obtained, and returned it to the S.P.R., to whom it originally belonged. Wherever it came from it is clear that it did not come from the College, for when a man does a thing secretly and anonymously he does not enclose literature which will lead to his detection.

It is possible that this thing may originally have been conceived as a sort of practical joke upon Hope and upon spiritualists generally, but that some who were not in the joke have pushed the matter further than was originally intended. Whom can we blame? I am in the position of never having personally met any of the three protagonists, Price, Dingwall or Seymour, so that my view of them is impartial. Mr. Price is popular among the spiritualists who know him, and all agree that he would be unlikely to lend himself to any deception. Mr. Dingwall was possessed by an extreme prejudice against Mr. Hope, and yet I cannot conceive him as gratifying that prejudice by such a trick. He cannot, however, be acquitted of having aided and abetted in issuing the libellous pamphlet against Hope before all the facts were known, and before Hope’s friends could examine any of them. It was an unworthy thing to do, and Messrs. Price and Dingwall must share the responsibility. It is a curious fact which should be recorded that, although the experiment was on February 24th, and though the report of the alleged exposure was not issued till the end of May, we find Mr. Dingwall applying for a sitting with Hope early in May, and writing, when Hope refused to give him one: “As I understand from your letters that you still refuse to have sittings with the only scientific body in Great Britain investigating this subject, I shall be obliged in my coming report on psychic photography to publish certain facts which may not be of advantage to yourself.” That letter was on May 2nd. Apparently, therefore, the publication of the “exposure” depended upon whether Mr. Dingwall was piqued or was humoured. If he were sure that the exposure was a genuine one this is a very singular attitude to assume.

There remains Mr. James Seymour, the amateur conjurer, who has been concerned in several so-called exposures. It would be unjust to assert that it was he who carried out this deception, for when a packet is left for twenty-four days in a drawer many people may have had access to it, and none of the three experimenters may have known the facts. This, I think, is very probable. At the same time, as Mr. Seymour has been very searching in his inquiries about mediums, he will not take it amiss if I ask him what he meant when in his evidence (“Cold Light,” etc., p. 7) he says: “They” (i.e., Hope and Mrs. Buxton) “were thoroughly taken in by the packet and were not suspicious of it.” How could they possibly be suspicious of a packet which had never been opened? On the other hand, if the speaker knew that the packet had been tampered with, it would be a most natural remark to make. The words may be innocent, but they demand a clear explanation, and so does the fact that an extra was found upon a marked plate which obviously had never been in Hope’s dark room at all.

So secretive and tortuous have been the methods of the agents of the S.P.R. that each fresh piece of evidence has to be wrung from them, and they seem to have no conception of the fact that a man who is accused has a right to know all the facts concerning the accusation. Even now, nine months after the event, constant pressure has to be put upon them in order to get at the truth. Only at this last moment has a new and strange fact been admitted. It is that when the mysterious marked plate was returned it was not alone, but that three other plates, not belonging to the marked series, were with it, each of them adorned with psychic photographs. These photographs in no way resembled the results of Hope or of Mrs. Deane, nor were they like the one upon the marked plate. I should be interested to know whether Mr. Marriott was ever in the counsels of the conspirators, for there is something in this incident which rather recalls that gentleman’s powers and also his somewhat impish sense of humour.

Even now—I write nearly nine months after the original investigation—we have no assurance that this secret of the S.P.R. has been fully divulged or that they have been frank with the public. It is possible that they have received other anonymous communications which bear upon the case. The first one was within a week of the investigation, and if divulged at the time it might have been possible to find the source. After such a lapse of time it is far more difficult. As I have shown, these new facts place the Society in a very invidious position and that may be the cause of their hesitations and concealments, but they have to remember that they have made a wanton attack upon a man’s honour, and that their own amour propre is a small thing compared to the admission of the injustice they have done. They should now come forward honestly, admit the blunders they have committed, apologise to Hope, and remove any slur which they have cast upon one of the most important and consistent psychic manifestations ever known in the history of the movement. In all attempted explanations let them bear in mind the central fact that no one but themselves and their associates knew that there was a marked plate in existence until several months after the experiment and after one had been returned to them.

Among those who examined the evidence at that time available was Dr. Allerton Cushman, for whose independence of mind and strong common sense I have a great respect. Having signed the document in which he admitted that there had been substitution of plates, he added the following impressive note: