Translated by Roger Adwan
Arktos
London 2019
Copyright © 2019 by Arktos Media Ltd.
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ISBN
978-1-912975-21-1 (Softcover)
978-1-912975-22-8 (Hardback)
978-1-912975-23-5 (Ebook)
Translator
Roger Adwan
Editor
Roger Adwan and Martin Locker
Cover and Layout
Tor Westman
Controversies
Overtures
The Roots of Coincidence
‘I do not think that the universe is a charitable organisation’, Arthur Koestler1 writes.
Whatever the case, we are still part of it, and we must strive to make the most of things. Although the very limits of our biological equipment may well condemn us to beholding eternity through the keyhole, let us at least attempt to free the latter so as to make use of our eyes, no matter how weak our eyesight may be.
In The Roots of Coincidence, seventy-two-year-old Arthur Koestler proceeds to cautiously examine the delicate issue of parapsychology, including extrasensory perception2 and thought transmission.3
In 1932, the first parapsychological experimental laboratory was established at Duke University in North Carolina, USA. Its example was quickly echoed elsewhere and today, the number of university parapsychological departments is already beyond count.
Then, in 1969, the American Parapsychological Association was granted membership in the famous AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science), an event that acted as a consecration.
Koestler remarks:
It is an undeniable fact that, during the past ten to twenty years, parapsychological research has been made more rigorous, statistical and computer-based […]. The study of extrasensory perception has become an empirical sort of science, as austere (and all too often as dull) as the training of lab rats or the patient cutting of planaria.4
In the US, it is NASA that has taken matters into its own hands, so much so that ‘the public was quite surprised to find out, several months after the Apollo 14 mission of February 1971, that astronaut Mitchell had, while in full flight, attempted to establish telepathic contact with four pre-selected subjects’. Other experiments had previously been conducted on board the Nautilus submarine.
In the USSR, Professor Leonid Vasiliev5 began publishing the results of his own work on ‘tele-hypnosis’ in 1960. ‘According to his reports, hypnotised subjects had successfully been awoken through a remote transmission of telepathic orders. Using the very same means, one had managed to trigger the fall of subjects that had been hypnotised while standing. Further experiments with a focus on interurban telepathic communication ensued, including some between Leningrad and Moscow, for instance’.
Indeed, we have all, at one time or another, been under the impression that despite having our backs turned, we somehow ‘sensed’ the presence of a person that we could neither have seen nor heard coming. We have also perhaps experienced situations where we suddenly thought of and expressed the same idea as the one that our own interlocutor was about to share. But how are we to ascertain that what we are dealing with is anything more than mere coincidence?
The Advancement and Surprising Developments of Microphysics
Koestler responds to this objection by introducing the ‘roots of coincidence’ notion, meaning that of probability calculation. He writes:
The cornerstone of both probability theory and modern physics by and large is embodied by the “law of large numbers”, which, to put things simply, states that the more trials are carried out, the closer the actual ratios of correct and incorrect answers will converge on the probability of coincidence.
When playing a ‘heads or tails’ game, for instance, there will always be one chance out of two for the coin to fall on the side that one has bet on. And since this ratio is a constant one, the coin is bound to fall 5000 times on the ‘heads’ side and 5000 on the ‘tails’ side whenever one conducts 10,000 trials or attempts. Probability calculation thus comes across as the offspring of paradox and mathematics, since ‘it enables us to accurately predict the global result of a process comprising a large number of events, each of which remains, in itself, unpredictable’.
Koestler goes on to add:
If, on the contrary, one notices persistent deviations in a series involving several thousand trials, the only reasonable and scientific conclusion is that some other factor, beyond the workings of coincidence, must account for the result.
And this is precisely what happens in the case of telepathy. In 1934, psychologist Rhine6 published his reports on 85,000 card draws conducted in cooperation with a number of select subjects. The cards themselves were simple and of five different types. One of the subjects would draw a card, look at it and ‘memorise’ it. Another subject, located in an adjoining room (or alternatively in another building), would attempt to ‘guess’ the card in question. There was therefore one chance out of five, or 20%, for the answer to be correct. ‘And yet, the general performance average was of twenty-eight correct answers out of a hundred; never in a million years could coincidence explain such a result’. Further experiments, all of which have been far more complex, have been done since and have yielded the same results.
Could there thus be some ‘laws of seriality’ that differ from the laws of causality of the classical type? Such is the opinion adopted by physicist Wolfgang Pauli7 , the man who discovered the ‘exclusion principle’ that bears his name; and many other researchers have since followed suit.
In Sense and Nonsense in Psychology (Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1967), Hans J. Eysenck, one of the greatest contemporary psychologists, writes the following:
Unless there exists a gigantic conspiracy involving approximately thirty faculties worldwide, in addition to several hundred well-respected scientists within their various disciplines (many of whom were initially hostile to the claims of parapsychologists), the only conclusion that can be drawn by a non-prejudiced observer is that there is indeed a small number of people with the ability to perceive information that is either present in the minds of others or in the surrounding world, using means yet unknown to science. This is not to be interpreted as support granted to such notions as survival after death, philosophical idealism, and so on. And yet it is so.
At this point, Arthur Koestler remarks that ‘orthodox’ science itself has some surprises in store for us. And it is modern physics in particular that equates to a genuine ‘emancipation of the human spirit in relation to the human view of things’.
The latest developments in the field of microphysics have indeed brought to light a number of surprising concepts. Still today, the average layman is reluctant to admit that two plus two can sometimes total five and that ‘negative mass’, ‘anti-particles’ and ‘holes’ in space do actually exist. The average person could hardly fathom a universe where, for instance, objects could be of a temporal nature while events retain a spatial one; nor could such a person ever comprehend that an electron can be located in two places at once, pass through two openings simultaneously,8 jump from one orbit to another without traversing any intermediary space (‘as if the Earth suddenly passed into the orbit of Mars, without having to migrate in any way’), etc.
This ‘impossible universe’, however, one that has been revealed to us by both the th
eory of relativity and quantum mechanics,9 is very real indeed. This allows Koestler to affirm that ‘the unthinkable phenomena of extrasensory perception (whether telepathy, premonition or clairvoyance) seem less absurd in the light of the equally inconceivable propositions made by modern physics’.
Koestler, in fact, prohibits himself from reaching a conclusion. Belonging to the ‘recalcitrant convert’ species whose members combine scepticism with certitude, his only request is for ongoing experiments to be pursued on a larger scale and be strictly monitored.
He also allows us to anticipate a certain ‘reconsideration of the relations between our body and mind’, in the sense of achieving greater psychosomatic unity. If the spirit is to be found solely in matter itself, then matter must also be spiritual, he states. One could thus draw a comparison between the manner in which ‘immaterial fields’ in physics are connected to the substantial aspects of material particles and the manner in which our states of consciousness relate to our brain’s own substance. James Jeans10 would thus have been proven right when stating back in 1937 that ‘the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine’.
Some uncertainties do, of course, persist. No matter how spectacular they are, the results that have thus far been obtained are not yet fully convincing. Furthermore, supposing that it did indeed exist, extrasensory perception would in all likelihood remain purely erratic: ‘It is impossible to control its underlying unconscious processes’. And last but not least, one must bear in mind that throughout history, the qualified scientists that have allowed themselves to be mystified by astute charlatans in all good faith are innumerable.
In Le treizième César,11 Henry de Montherlant12 writes:
Seldom do I dream, nor do I have any interest in dreams, whose role is providential in the eyes of all those scribblers who hunger for false strangeness; indeed, genuine strangeness is to be found in life itself and cares little for the stuff of dreams. I have occasionally had seemingly premonitory dreams, but save for a single one, what they “announced” never actually took place.
It is said that science has attained increasing knowledge in an ever-decreasing number of topics; to which Koestler adds: ‘Science represents the most glorious exploit of our human spirit, yet it also remains its most cruel source of frustration’.
*
The Roots of Coincidence, an essay by Arthur Koestler. Calmann-Lévy, 192 pages.
*
The Hidden Aspects of the Impossible
Voltaire13 was once informed by ‘clairvoyants’ that they predicted his demise at the age of thirty-two; yet he was actually eighty-four years old when he passed away. In a display of humour, he remarked that should one ask two astrologists whether a certain child would ever reach adulthood and one gave a positive and the other a negative response, at least one of them would not be mistaken in his claims.
In the Second Epistle to Timothy,14 Saint Paul mentions the pharaoh’s magicians, who used their own miracles in response to Moses’. Shortly afterwards, the Roman philosopher Celsus15 wrote a treatise that has since mysteriously vanished but whose title is still known to us: Against Magicians.
Nowadays, the number of ‘occult sciences’ is in excess of twenty, stretching from metagnomy (divination) to spiritism and also including telekinesis (the moving of objects without direct contact), the study of ectoplasms, levitation and haunting phenomena, ‘supra-normal’ photography, and others.
On the occasion of the referendum that was held on 8th January, 1961, a ‘magician’ informed Radio Luxemburg that he could confidently guess the results in advance. On the eve of the ballot, with the TV cameras rolling, he thus entrusted a bailiff with a small box. Two days later, the bailiff was provided with the key and proceeded to open the box. What he found inside was a tube containing a piece of paper on which the results were inscribed most accurately. Incited by its own listeners, the radio station expressed its amazement at the ‘miracle’ that had taken place and turned to a specialist in ‘parapsychological’ matters, Mr Robert Tocquet. The latter was quick to unveil the deception.
The key to the mystery lay… in the key that unlocked the box:
This key, one of abnormal size, actually contained the famed “magical” tube, which it automatically released by means of a special mechanism as soon as it was introduced into the lock.
Hindu Ropes and ‘Spiritualist Touches’
A professor at a Civil Engineering School, Mr Tocquet, who also happens to be a magician, has continued to draw attention to himself. Having inspired people to dream (in Médiums et fantômes,16 Les mystères du surnaturel,17 and Le bilan du surnaturel18 ), he now exerts himself to demystify such claims. His latest work reveals the very methods employed by the falsifiers of credulity, providing us with an entire inventory of their ‘tricks’.
He remarks that telepathy is, more often than not, part of ‘music hall occultism’. The operator and his assistants make use of a mnemotechnical code (involving gestures or utterances) that allows them to transmit dozens of words, perhaps even entire sentences, with astounding speed.
Another successful ploy:
The experimenter writes a short phrase or makes a sketch on a square piece of paper. The paper is thereafter placed in an envelope, which is then sealed. Next, the envelope is given to the “metagnome”, who touches it with his hands, presses it against his forehead and ultimately specifies its contents.
And here is the explanation:
While manipulating the envelope, the “medium” has simply imbued it with 95% pure alcohol. This liquid renders the paper temporarily transparent, allowing one to read what is written or see what has been drawn. It takes the alcohol less than a minute to evaporate, while the envelope remains intact.
As for levitation, it can hardly be achieved outside ‘space capsules’, where the laws of gravity are cancelled. On earth, it appears to be constantly simulated. Psychoanalyst Schrenck-Notzing developed an interest in a certain Karl Krauss, a man who produced some incredible ‘levitations’. Here is Mr Tocquet’s account of things:
The experiment always took place in complete obscurity. Participants would hold the subject’s hands, while his feet could be located thanks to the presence of luminescent strips of material. The medium would first ask to be covered with a sheet, so that he could “concentrate his powers”. A minute later, the sheet would be pushed aside and, suddenly, the assistants would watch as both of the medium’s feet left the ground and gradually ascended.
In actual fact,
once he had been covered with the sheet, Krauss would proceed to remove one of his shoes and fasten it to the other using a large clasp. Having cast the sheet aside, he would slowly lift the foot bearing both shoes and swing it in the air. All these movements were always made silently and without allowing the hands of the testers to detect any abnormal or suspicious contractions.
In India, the ‘Hindu rope’ once left a lasting impression on the majors of the British army. It is now common knowledge, however, that ‘the rope was hollow and its base contained an interlocking metallic tube system whose extension, once the rope had been cast, formed a telescopic tube with sufficient rigidity to allow a trained child to climb all the way to the top’. A similar trick is used when the Ganges channels its muddy waters along and ‘fakirs’ are seen walking on water:
Following a speech about his own divine powers, the yogi strips off his clothes and, standing barefooted and wearing nothing but a loincloth, sets out to walk across the water, slowly and majestically.
The night before, of course, a thick rope had been stretched a few centimetres beneath the river’s surface:
The miracle itself is no more than a tightrope walker’s performance.
And when spiritualists are heard asking ‘Spirit, are you there?’, it is the medium who responds. Mr Tocquet explains how this can be achieved.
Once the middle finger’s nail has been coated with colophony, the hand is placed upon the table with the middle f
inger bent. The fingernail then adheres to the tabletop and the slightest and utterly imperceptible contraction of the finger, even at short distance, produces a pronounced crackling sound, one that is analogous to a blow.
With their hands concealed in darkness, mediums accomplish their ‘spiritualistic touches’ by means of ‘a certain pliant and extremely lightweight ruler that has been placed into their jacket’s inner pocket and is then taken into the mouth and unbent at the right moment’. Using calcium sulphide, strontium, and ferrocerium, one produces excellent quality ‘mysterious rays’ and ‘halos’. And as regards ‘ectoplasms’, what is generally used are balloons or gauzes that are then skilfully rolled out. Mr Tocquet points out:
Among regurgitating subjects, even the stomach can be used for concealment. Mrs. Duncan19 was thus able to conceal a prodigious number of objects in her own stomach (several meters of extra-fine gauze, engravings, photographs, rubber gloves, and other things as well) and then, during her pseudo-trance, regurgitate the lot with extraordinary ease.
The instant materialisation and dematerialisation of a “ghost” can both be achieved by means of a black veil or a petroleum lamp. Such a lamp, of ovoid shape and egg-like size, is concealed beneath the large white sheet covering the medium. When the lamp is turned on, it lights up and the apparition becomes visible; when switched off, the ghost simply vanishes. In addition to this, the lamp itself is held in the palm of the medium’s hand, allowing an impressively spectral light to illuminate the face.
Fakirs and Stigmatics
In connection to stigmatics, the author writes that ‘the trophic disorders, ulcerations, eschars, and erythema displayed by hysterics are very often self-induced. And yet the differences between such accidents and the common sickly stigmata, as well as most suggestion-generated ones, are sometimes insignificant appearance-wise. Similarly, the very partition that separates the stigmatised from the hysterical is, at times, quite thin’.
Controversies and Viewpoints Page 1
