The Ghost Hunters - Deborah Blum [107]
The spiritual version rested on an idea from the science of physics, dating back to Isaac Newton, that an unknown material might fill unoccupied space and serve as a conducting medium for light and heat. Oliver Lodge was among those who’d looked for evidence of such mysterious matter, and he’d also helped discredit the idea of Madame Blavatsky’s kind of spiritual ether. The previous year a British shipbuilder and spiritualist had provided money for Lodge to design a machine specifically to test for the psychic ether.
Lodge’s machine used a pair of powerful dynamos to spin metal disks into a blur, whirling them 4,000 revolutions per minute, producing a sizzling electrical charge. Its purpose was to test a favorite theory of the spirit believers, that the ether had a natural affinity for charged atoms, that its ability to carry electrical energy might be thus responsible for psychic powers. The machine contained instruments to measure any “etheric” effect on the sparking, electrically charged disks.
The instruments registered absolutely nothing.
Resurrecting the ether was likely to make them all look like fools, James wrote to Myers; already it made Lombroso appear as “the greatest donkey of the age.” Prematurely advocating for Eusapia Palladino, without thoroughly eliminating all the suspect parts of her seances, would be a mistake. The SPR didn’t really understand her—any more than Lombroso did—and until then, James urged self-restraint. “You ask what I think about popular publication? I must confess myself extremely averse,” he wrote to Lodge. “The more startling the secrets we have to disclose, the more, in my opinion, should we calmly pursue the tenor of our ways and publish proceedings at their due date. The stuff will keep and the bigger the bomb to be exploded at once in the proceedings, the greater the shock.”
IN THE WARM AUTUMN of 1894, Dick Hodgson was running like a dynamo himself, hunting ghost stories, reading journals, writing letters, speaking, holding meetings, and writing up the G.P sittings for his next Piper report.
He thrived on the work, along with what recreation he could sneak into his days: handball and pool at the Union Boat Club, drinking beer with friends, hurrying through his favorite bachelor meals of eggs, bread, and tea. His letters to his friend Jimmy Hackett rang with optimism; psychical research looked more promising than it had ever seemed before.
The news that Myers and Lodge wanted to gamble the reputation of the whole enterprise on a rather shady medium ruined that sense of well-being. Hodgson understood that everyone wanted a base of psychics that extended beyond Leonora Piper. But they were fooling themselves if they thought that this woman would ever be credible.
He immediately cabled to Myers, imploring him to back away from Eusapia Palladino. Myers was beginning to feel beleaguered. His reply had a snap to it. Hodgson hadn’t been there, Myers wrote back, so the ASPR secretary couldn’t properly evaluate what had happened.
Now a little angry, Hodgson stayed up late for several nights running to write a crisp—and undiplomatic—analysis of how the Ile Roubaud group had been deceived. They might think they could see through Eusapia’s little cheats to a bigger truth. But in fact, Hodgson concluded, that was upper-class arrogance. She might not be Cambridge educated, but she was far more cunning than they.
He mailed his report to Nora Sidgwick, along with another tirade in the form of a letter. He dismissed Lodge as a poor investigator, despite training in physics, and Myers as easily gulled once