Broad daylight rules out clever puppetry. That Monk was standing only a few feet from Wallace, in the middle of an ordinary room, rules out the production of the form by stage apparatus. Wedgwood told Wallace that on other occasions a tall, robed, male figure appeared alongside Monk. This figure would remain for up to half an hour, and allowed himself to be touched by Wedgwood and his colleagues, who carefully examined his body and clothes. Furthermore, the figure could exert force on material objects. Once the figure went so far as to lift a chair upon which one of the investigators was seated (Wallace 1905, v. 2, p. 331).
Exchanges with Romanes
In 1880, nature published a letter from an anonymous scientist expressing an interest in carrying out experiments to verify paranormal phenomena. Wallace deduced that the scientist was George J. Romanes. He wrote to him, pointing out that several scientists had already performed such experiments but had met with “only abuse and ridicule” (Wallace 1905, v. 2, p. 310). On February 17, 1880, Romanes replied that he was aware of such scientific prejudice, but he was hopeful that further proofs would have the desired effect. He suggested that Wallace did not realize the extent to which his own work had created within the scientific community a climate favorable to the eventual acceptance of spiritualistic phenomena (Wallace 1905, v. 2, p. 311). When Romanes repeated his desire to carry out some experiments, Wallace gave him some practical advice.
Wallace paid Romanes a visit in London. Romanes told Wallace how he had become interested in spiritualism (Wallace 1905, v. 2, pp.
314–315). A relative of his—a sister or cousin—happened to be a medium. At séances with her, Romanes witnessed the communication of messages by rapping not produced by any of those present. At times, the messages contained answers to the mental questions of Romanes. Romanes was impressed, and in 1876 he had written some letters to Darwin, giving a positive account of his experiences. Wallace was later shown these letters by a friend (Wallace 1905, v. 2, p. 315).
A year or two after his visit to Romanes, Wallace (1905 v. 2, p. 330) was surprised to read in a London newspaper some remarks by Romanes very unfavorable to thought reading. Wallace did not, however, reply. But in 1890, Wallace and Romanes became involved in a controversy about evolution. In his criticism of Wallace’s book Darwinism, published in the journal nineteenth Century (May 1890, p. 831), Romanes said that in the last chapter “we encounter the Wallace of spiritualism and astrology
. . . the Wallace of incapacity and absurdity” (Wallace 1905, v. 2, p. 317).
Wallace replied privately in a letter dated July 18, 1890: “As to your appeal to popular scientific prejudice by referring to my belief in spiritualism and astrology (which latter I have never professed my belief in), I have something to say. In the year 1876 you wrote two letters to Darwin, detailing your experiences of spiritual phenomena. You told him that you had had mental questions answered with no paid medium present. You told him you had had a message from Mr. J. Bellew. . . . And you declared your belief that some non-human intelligence was then communicating with you. You also described many physical phenomena occurring in your own house with the medium Williams. You saw ‘hands,’ apparently human, yet not those of any one present. You saw hand-bells, etc., carried about; you saw a human head and face above the table, with mobile features and eyes. Williams was held all the time, and your brother walked round the table to prove that there was no wire or other machinery (in your own room!), yet a bell, placed on a piano some distance away, was taken up by a luminous hand and rung and carried about the room! Can you have forgotten all this? In your second letter to Darwin you expressed your conviction of the truth of these facts, and of the existence of spiritual intelligences, of mind without brain. You said these phenomena had altered your whole conceptions. Formerly you had thought there were two mental natures in Crookes and Wallace—one sane, the other lunatic! Now (you said) you belonged in the same class as they did” (Wallace 1905, v. 2, pp. 317–318). Wallace therefore thought it unfair that Romanes should have written as he did in the nineteenth Century article. In subsequent letters to Wallace, Romanes replied that his letters to Darwin were private and contained only a provisional acceptance of the phenomena he witnessed. Romanes claimed he later suspected that the medium Williams was cheating. To test this, he placed him inside a metal cage, and in this circumstance none of the usual phenomena occurred. Romanes thereupon withdrew the opinions expressed in his letters to Darwin (Wallace 1905, v. 2, pp. 319, 321).
Wallace answered that the experiment with the cage did not discredit the experiences Romanes reported in his letters (Wallace 1905, v.2, pp. 320–321). Wallace would accept that they were fraudulent only if Romanes could explain how they were produced, under the circumstances he described. After all, the phenomena took place in Romanes’s own house, with the medium held all the time, and with Romanes’s brother walking around the room to make sure no wires or other tricks were being employed. Romanes admitted the events were inexplicable (Wallace 1905, v. 2, p. 322).
Wallace also pointed out that some mediums had passed the cage test: “Mr. Adshead, a gentleman of Belper, had a wire cage made, and Miss Wood sat in it in his own house, many times, and under these conditions many forms of men, women, and children, appeared in the room. A similar cage was afterwards used by the Newcastle Spiritual Evidence Society, for a year or more, and Miss Wood sat in it weekly. It was screwed up from the outside, yet all the usual phenomena of materialization occurred just the same as when no cage was used” (Wallace 1905, v. 2, pp.322–323).
Romanes was not the only scientist to denigrate Wallace’s research in spiritualism. One evening, while having tea after a lecture at the Royal Institution, Wallace found himself standing behind Dr. Ansted, who was conversing with a friend. The topic of spiritualism came up, and Dr. Ansted, unaware that Wallace was standing nearby, said, “What a strange thing it is such men as Crookes and Wallace should believe in it!” Ansted’s friend laughed and said, “Oh, they are mad on that one subject” (Wallace
1905, v. 2, p. 314).The spreading of such talk is one way by which a scientific orthodoxy can maintain itself—members are subtly reminded that certain kinds of research can be damaging to one’s professional reputation.
Spiritualistic encounters in America
During the years 1886 and 1887, Wallace traveled in the United States on a scientific lecture tour. In the course of his visit, he also met many American spiritualists, such as Professor William James of Harvard, and attended several séances. One series of séances took place at the Boston home of Mrs. Ross, a medium famous for materializations (Wallace 1905, v. 2, pp. 338–339). To make a space for the medium, a curtain was placed across the corner of a front downstairs room. The sides of this corner were an outside wall of the house and an inside wall, on the other side of which was a back room. The inside wall was occupied by a cupboard filled with china. Wallace carefully inspected the walls and floor, from within the front room, the back room, and the basement. He determined that there were no openings through which anyone could enter, other than a sliding door to the back room. This door was sealed with sticking plaster, and the witnesses secretly marked the plaster with pencil, so that if the plaster were moved they would be able to tell. The ten witnesses, including Wallace, sat in dim light in a circle in front of the curtain. The light was sufficient for Wallace to see the hands of his watch and to see the forms of everyone in the room. Under these circumstances, three figures emerged from behind the curtain—a female figure in White, Mrs. Ross dressed in black, and a male figure. When these retired, three female figures, of different heights and dressed in white, came out. These were followed by a single male figure. One of the gentleman witnesses identified him as his son. Later, a figure dressed as an American Indian came out from behind the curtain. He danced, spoke, and shook hands with some of those present, including Wallace. Finally, a female figure holding a baby appeared in front of the curtain. Wallace, on being invited by her, came up and touched the baby, and found it to be real. “Directly after the séance was over,” wrote Wallace, “the gas was lighted, and I again examined the bare walls of the cabinet, the curtains, and the door, all being just as before, and affording no room or place for disposing of the baby alone, far less of the other figures” (Wallace 1905, v. 2, p. 339).