by Otto Penzler
“What does it matter what, in my ignorance, I said?” he cried. “Isn’t it enough that I’ve been humiliated? That my entire life has been turned about? Must you insult me as well—sitting there so smugly and insulting me? I think I can make claim to being someone whom you might respect.”
And so I assured him that I did respect him. And he walked about the room, wiping at his eyes, greatly agitated. He spoke again of his friend, Brandon Gould, and of his own ignorance, and of the important mission we must undertake to inform men and women of the true state of affairs. I tried to talk with him, to reason with him, but it was hopeless. He scarcely listened to me.
“… must inform the world … crucial truth.… There is no death, you see. Never was. Changes civilization, changes the course of history. Jarvis?” he said groggily. “You see? There is no death.”
25 March 1887. Cambridge.
Disquieting rumors re Perry Moore. Heard today at the University that one of Dr. Moore’s patients (a brother-in-law of Dean Barker) was extremely offended by his behavior during a consultation last week. Talk of his having been drunk—which I find incredible. If the poor man appeared to be excitable and not his customary self, it was not because he was drunk, surely.
Another far-fetched tale told me by my wife, who heard it from her sister Maude: Perry Moore went to church (St. Aidan’s Episcopal Church on Mount Street) for the first time in a decade, sat alone, began muttering and laughing during the sermon, and finally got to his feet and walked out, creating quite a stir. What delusions! What delusions!—he was said to have muttered.
I fear for the poor man’s sanity.
31 March 1887. Cambridge. 4 a.m.
Sleepless night. Dreamed of swimming … swimming in the ocean … enjoying myself as usual when suddenly the water turns thick … turns to mud. Hideous! Indescribably awful. I was swimming nude in the ocean, by moonlight, I believe, ecstatically happy, entirely alone, when the water turned to mud.… Vile, disgusting mud; faintly warm; sucking at my body. Legs, thighs, torso, arms. Horrible. Woke in terror. Drenched with perspiration: pajamas wet. One of the most frightening nightmares of my adulthood.
A message from Perry Moore came yesterday just before dinner. Would I like to join him in visiting Mrs. A—— sometime soon, in early April perhaps, on a noninvestigative basis …? He is uncertain now of the morality of our “investigating” Mrs. A—— or any other medium.
4 April 1887. Cambridge.
Spent the afternoon from two to five at William James’s home on Irving Street, talking with Professor James of the inexplicable phenomenon of consciousness. He is robust as always, rather irreverent, supremely confident in a way I find enviable; rather like Perry Moore before his conversion. (Extraordinary eyes—so piercing, quick, playful; a graying beard liberally threaded with white; close-cropped graying hair; a large, curving, impressive forehead; a manner intelligent and graceful and at the same time rough-edged, as if he anticipates or perhaps even hopes for recalcitration in his listeners.) We both find conclusive the ideas set forth in Binét’s Alterations of Personality … unsettling as these ideas may be to the rationalist position. James speaks of a peculiarity in the constitution of human nature: that is, the fact that we inhabit not only our ego-consciousness but a wide field of psychological experience (most clearly represented by the phenomenon of memory, which no one can adequately explain) over which we have no control whatsoever. In fact, we are not generally aware of this field of consciousness.
We inhabit a lighted sphere, then; and about us is a vast penumbra of memories, reflections, feelings, and stray uncoordinated thoughts that “belong” to us theoretically, but that do not seem to be part of our conscious identity. (I was too timid to ask Professor James whether it might be the case that we do not inevitably own these aspects of the personality—that such phenomena belong as much to the objective world as to our subjective selves.) It is quite possible that there is an element of some indeterminate kind: oceanic, timeless, and living, against which the individual being constructs temporary barriers as part of an ongoing process of unique, particularized survival; like the ocean itself, which appears to separate islands that are in fact not “islands” at all, but aspects of the earth firmly joined together below the surface of the water. Our lives, then, resemble these islands.… All this is no more than a possibility, Professor James and I agreed.
James is acquainted, of course, with Perry Moore. But he declined to speak on the subject of the poor man’s increasingly eccentric behavior when I alluded to it. (It may be that he knows even more about the situation than I do—he enjoys a multitude of acquaintances in Cambridge and Boston.) I brought our conversation round several times to the possibility of the naturalness of the conversion experience in terms of the individual’s evolution of self, no matter how his family, his colleagues, and society in general viewed it, and Professor James appeared to agree; at least he did not emphatically disagree. He maintains a healthy skepticism, of course, regarding Spiritualist claims, and all evangelical and enthusiastic religious movements, though he is, at the same time, a highly articulate foe of the “rationalist” position and he believes that psychical research of the kind some of us are attempting will eventually unearth riches—revealing aspects of the human psyche otherwise closed to our scrutiny.
“The fearful thing,” James said, “is that we are at all times vulnerable to incursions from the ‘other side’ of the personality.… We cannot determine the nature of the total personality simply because much of it, perhaps most, is hidden from us.… When we are invaded, then, we are overwhelmed and surrender immediately. Emotionally charged intuitions, hunches, guesses, even ideas may be the least aggressive of these incursions; but there are visual and auditory hallucinations, and forms of automatic behavior not controlled by the conscious mind.… Ah, you’re thinking I am simply describing insanity?”
I stared at him, quite surprised.
“No. Not at all. Not at all,” I said at once.
Reading through my grandfather’s journals, begun in East Anglia many years before my birth. Another world then. Another language, now lost to us. Man is sinful by nature. God’s justice takes precedence over His mercy. The dogma of Original Sin: something brutish about the innocence of that belief. And yet consoling.…
Fearful of sleep since my dreams are so troubled now. The voices of impudent spirits (Immanuel Kant himself come to chide me for having made too much of his categories—!), stray shouts and whispers I cannot decipher, the faces of my own beloved dead hovering near, like carnival masks, insubstantial and possibly fraudulent. Impatient with my wife, who questions me too closely on these personal matters; annoyed from time to time, in the evenings especially, by the silliness of the children. (The eldest is twelve now and should know better.) Dreading to receive another lengthy letter—sermon, really—from Perry Moore re his “new position,” and yet perversely hoping one will come soon.
I must know.
(Must know what …?)
I must know.
10 April 1887. Boston. St. Aidan’s Episcopal Church.
Funeral service this morning for Perry Moore; dead at forty-three.
17 April 1887. Seven Hills, New Hampshire.
A weekend retreat. No talk. No need to think.
Visiting with a former associate, author of numerous books. Cartesian specialist. Elderly. Partly deaf. Extraordinarily kind to me. (Did not ask about the Department or about my work.) Intensely interested in animal behavior now, in observation primarily; fascinated with the phenomenon of hibernation.
He leaves me alone for hours. He sees something in my face I cannot see myself.
The old consolations of a cruel but just God: ludicrous today.
In the nineteenth century we live free of God. We live in the illusion of freedom-of-God.
Dozing off in the guest room of this old farmhouse and then waking abruptly. Is someone here? Is someone here? My voice queer, hushed, childlike. Please: is someone here?
Silence.
Query: Is the penumbra outside consciousness all that was ever meant by “God”?
Query: Is inevitability all that was ever meant by “God”?
God—the body of fate we inhabit, then; no more and no less.
God pulled Perry down into the body of fate: into Himself. (Or Itself.) As Professor James might say, Dr. Moore was “vulnerable” to an assault from the other side.
At any rate he is dead. They buried him last Saturday.
25 April 1887. Cambridge.
Shelves of books. The sanctity of books. Kant, Plato, Schopenhauer, Descartes, Hume, Hegel, Spinoza. The others. All. Nietzsche, Spencer, Leibnitz (on whom I did a torturous Master’s thesis). Plotinus. Swedenborg. The Transactions of the American Society for Psychical Research. Voltaire. Locke. Rousseau. And Berkeley: the good Bishop adrift in a dream.
An etching by Halbrech above my desk, The Thames 1801. Water too black. Inky-black. Thick with mud …? Filthy water in any case.
Perry’s essay, forty-five scribbled pages. “The Challenge of the Future.” Given to me several weeks ago by Dr. Rowe, who feared rejecting it for the Transactions but could not, of course, accept it. I can read only a few pages at a time, then push it aside, too moved to continue. Frightened also.
The man had gone insane.
Died insane.
Personality broken: broken bits of intellect.
His argument passionate and disjointed, with no pretense of objectivity. Where some weeks ago he had taken the stand that it was immoral to investigate the Spirit World, now he took the stand that it was imperative we do so. We are on the brink of a new age … new knowledge of the universe … comparable to the stormy transitional period between the Ptolemaic and the Copernican theories of the universe.… More experiments required. Money. Donations. Subsidies by private institutions. All psychological research must be channeled into a systematic study of the Spirit World and the ways by which we can communicate with that world. Mediums like Mrs. A—— must be brought to centers of learning like Harvard and treated with the respect their genius deserves. Their value to civilization is, after all, beyond estimation. They must be rescued from arduous and routine lives where their genius is drained off into vulgar pursuits … they must be rescued from a clientele that is mainly concerned with being put into contact with deceased relatives for utterly trivial, self-serving reasons. Men of learning must realize the gravity of the situation. Otherwise we will fail, we will stagger beneath the burden, we will be defeated, ignobly, and it will remain for the twentieth century to discover the existence of the Spirit Universe that surrounds the Material Universe, and to determine the exact ways by which one world is related to another.
Perry Moore died of a stroke on the eighth of April; died instantaneously on the steps of the Bedford Club shortly after 2 p.m. Passers-by saw a very excited, red-faced gentleman with an open collar push his way through a small gathering at the top of the steps—and then suddenly fall, as if shot down.
In death he looked like quite another person: his features sharp, the nose especially pointed. Hardly the handsome Perry Moore everyone had known.
He had come to a meeting of the Society, though it was suggested by Dr. Rowe and by others (including myself) that he stay away. Of course he came to argue. To present his “new position.” To insult the other members. (He was contemptuous of a rather poorly organized paper on the medium Miss E—— of Salem, a young woman who works with objects like rings, articles of clothing, locks of hair, et cetera; and quite angry with the evidence presented by a young geologist that would seem to discredit, once and for all, the claims of Eustace of Portsmouth. He interrupted a third paper, calling the reader a “bigot” and an “ignorant fool.”)
Fortunately the incident did not find its way into any of the papers. The press, misunderstanding (deliberately and maliciously) the Society’s attitude toward Spiritualism, delights in ridiculing our efforts.
There were respectful obituaries. A fine eulogy prepared by Reverend Tyler of St. Aidan’s. Other tributes. A tragic loss.… Mourned by all who knew him.… (I stammered and could not speak. I cannot speak of him, of it, even now. Am I mourning, am I aggrieved? Or merely shocked? Terrified?) Relatives and friends and associates glossed over his behavior these past few months and settled upon an earlier Perry Moore, eminently sane, a distinguished physician and man of letters. I did not disagree, I merely acquiesced; I could not make any claim to have really known the man.
And so he has died, and so he is dead.…
Shortly after the funeral I went away to New Hampshire for a few days. But I can barely remember that period of time now. I sleep poorly, I yearn for summer, for a drastic change of climate, of scene. It was unwise for me to take up the responsibility of psychical research, fascinated though I am by it; my classes and lectures at the University demand most of my energy.
How quickly he died, and so young: so relatively young.
No history of high blood pressure, it is said.
At the end he was arguing with everyone, however. His personality had completely changed. He was rude, impetuous, even rather profane; even poorly groomed. (Rising to challenge the first of the papers, he revealed a shirt-front that appeared to be stained.) Some claimed he had been drinking all along, for years. Was it possible …? (He had clearly enjoyed the wine and brandy in Quincy that evening, but I would not have said he was intemperate.) Rumors, fanciful tales, outright lies, slander.… It is painful, the vulnerability death brings.
Bigots, he called us. Ignorant fools. Unbelievers—atheists—traitors to the Spirit World—heretics. Heretics! I believe he looked directly at me as he pushed his way out of the meeting room: his eyes glaring, his face dangerously flushed, no recognition in his stare.
After his death, it is said, books continue to arrive at his home from England and Europe. He spent a small fortune on obscure, out-of-print volumes—commentaries on the Kabbala, on Plotinus, medieval alchemical texts, books on astrology, witchcraft, the metaphysics of death. Occult cosmologies. Egyptian, Indian, and Chinese “wisdom.” Blake, Swedenborg, Cozad. The Tibetan Book of the Dead. Datsky’s Lunar Mysteries. His estate is in chaos because he left not one but several wills, the most recent made out only a day before his death, merely a few lines scribbled on scrap paper, without witnesses. The family will contest, of course. Since in this will he left his money and property to an obscure woman living in Quincy, Massachusetts, and since he was obviously not in his right mind at the time, they would be foolish indeed not to contest.
Days have passed since his sudden death. Days continue to pass. At times I am seized by a sort of quick, cold panic; at other times I am inclined to think the entire situation has been exaggerated. In one mood I vow to myself that I will never again pursue psychical research because it is simply too dangerous. In another mood I vow I will never again pursue it because it is a waste of time and my own work, my own career, must come first.
Heretics, he called us. Looking straight at me. Still, he was mad. And is not to be blamed for the vagaries of madness.
19 June 1887. Boston.
Luncheon with Dr. Rowe, Miss Madeleine van der Post, young Lucas Matthewson; turned over my personal records and notes re the mediums Dr. Moore and I visited. (Destroyed jottings of a private nature.) Miss van der Post and Matthewson will be taking over my responsibilities. Both are young, quick-witted, alert, with a certain ironic play about their features; rather like Dr. Moore in his prime. Matthewson is a former seminary student now teaching physics at the Boston University. They questioned me about Perry Moore, but I avoided answering frankly. Asked if we were close, I said No. Asked if I had heard a bizarre tale making the rounds of Boston salons—that a spirit claiming to be Perry Moore has intruded upon a number of séances in the area—I said honestly that I had not; and I did not care to hear about it.
Spinoza: I will analyze the actions and appetites of men as if it were a question of lines, of planes, and of solids.
/> It is in this direction, I believe, that we must move. Away from the phantasmal, the vaporous, the unclear; toward lines, planes, and solids.
Sanity.
8 July 1887. Mount Desert Island, Maine.
Very early this morning, before dawn, dreamed of Perry Moore: a babbling gesticulating spirit, bearded, bright-eyed, obviously mad. Jarvis? Jarvis? Don’t deny me! he cried. I am so … so bereft.…
Paralyzed, I faced him: neither awake nor asleep. His words were not really words so much as unvoiced thoughts. I heard them in my own voice; a terrible raw itching at the back of my throat yearned to articulate the man’s grief.
Perry?
You don’t dare deny me! Not now!
He drew near and I could not escape. The dream shifted, lost its clarity. Someone was shouting at me. Very angry, he was, and baffled—as if drunk—or ill—or injured.
Perry? I can’t hear you—
—our dinner at Montague House, do you remember? Lamb, it was. And crepes with almond for dessert. You remember! You remember! You can’t deny me! We were both nonbelievers then, both abysmally ignorant—you can’t deny me!
(I was mute with fear or with cunning.)
—that idiot Rowe, how humiliated he will be! All of them! All of you! The entire rationalist bias, the—the conspiracy of—of fools—bigots—In a few years—In a few short years—Jarvis, where are you? Why can’t I see you? Where have you gone?—My eyes can’t focus: will someone help me? I seem to have lost my way. Who is here? Who am I talking with? You remember me, don’t you?
(He brushed near me, blinking helplessly. His mouth was a hole torn into his pale ravaged flesh.)
