The Problems of Psychical Research. Hereward Carrington

by Eusapia Palladino at her best. The materialized hands, of varying degrees of density and formation, attached to long, shadowy arms, are exactly like the hands so often materialized at her séances—hands which are at times small, and at other times enormous. They no more resembled the hands of the medium than chalk resembles cheese.

      16. This brings me to a final reflection, which I should like to mention before leaving this branch of our discussion. It concerns the question of darkness and its effect upon genuine mediumistic phenomena. Whether this effect be primarily physical, physiological, or psychological, the fact remains that it exists; and the researches of Dr. Ochorowicz have tended to confirm this very strongly. His work has shown us (or rather confirmed us more strongly in the belief) that the question of light is a highly important one, and that the greater the degree of darkness, ceteris paribus, the better and the more startling the phenomena.

      Now, there has always existed a sort of a priori assumption that this should be so. Light, as we know, does bring about chemical reactions, and even exerts a definite physical force or pressure. Even so gross and so powerful a form of physical energy as wireless telegraphy is greatly interfered with by reason of the sun's rays (ultra-violet rays), and, of course, photographic plates are at once rendered useless by an instant's exposure to the sun. Again, it is known that sunlight has a more or less destructive influence upon all forms of animal and vegetable protoplasm, and it is very soon fatal to many of the lower forms of life. This being so, it has always appeared to me perfectly reasonable to suppose that the energy of the light-rays should interfere most seriously with the delicate and subtle forces and forms of energy which are liberated in the séance room. The old objection: "Why must these things always be done in the dark?" has appeared to me very short-sighted and inconsistent with all the facts above mentioned.

      But, further! It is highly probable that life of any kind can only originate in the dark. Certainly, conception invariably takes place in complete darkness, and the whole period of embryonic development is passed in that condition. Again, inter-stellar space is, of course, absolutely black and devoid of any form of light save the faint twinklings of the far-off stars. Without the surface of some globe to reflect the sun's rays, no light of any kind would be possible; so that if life were conveyed across space, from star to star, upon infinitesimal specks of dust, under the influence of light pressure, as postulated by Arrhenius (Worlds in the Making, pp. 212–30), this life must exist, and in a sense originate, in the blackness of inter-stellar space.[10] And, finally, if life on our globe originated, as many think, in the ocean's depths,[11] this must have been in the densest darkness, since light penetrates but a few fathoms below the surface of the ocean. Below that all is blackness, complete and eternal. No light penetrates to that depth—nor has it for millions of years! Yet it is in this region that life is thought to have originated! As G. W. Warder expressed it (The Universe a Vast Electric Organism, pp. 60–1):