Salter: Zoar
W. H. Salter: Zoar; or the Evidence of Psychical Research Concerning Survival. London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1961. 238 pp., 2is (out of print)
Book Review - C. D. Broad
(From Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, 1961;41:203-210, reproduced with permission)
A book on psychical research by Mr W. H. Salter must be of interest and importance to all who are concerned with the subject, for he has known intimately and has cooperated with many of its most distinguished English representatives from the early 1900’s to the present day. It is of special domestic interest to members of the S.P.R. Mr Salter has been a member since 1916, was Hon. Secretary from 1924 to 1958, and President for the years 1947 and 1948. In those capacities he has devoted a very large part of his active life to voluntary service to the Society, with no reward save the knowledge of work well done and the approval and affection of those members especially who realize what that work must have involved. Through most of that period, until her lamented death, Mrs Salter, daughter of Mrs Verrall, and herself involved as an automatic writer in the famous 'cross-correspondences', actively cooperated with him in psychical research in general and in the work of the Society in particular.
The title of the book—'Zoar'—may puzzle some who have not been so well instructed in Biblical knowledge as were English children of respectable parents in Mr Salter's young days. Mr Salter supplies the necessary references (Genesis XIX, 20-22, and Deuteronomy XXXIV, 3). For the benefit of those who have not their Bibles to hand, I would say that, if we may (without prejudice) compare Oxford and Cambridge respectively, with Sodom and Gomorrah, then Zoar would correspond to Bletchley. It was the smallest of the cities of the Plain—'but a little one'; to which Lot gained leave from the Elohim to betake himself with his family, when the larger cities were to be destroyed with fire and brimstone; and on the way to which his wife (looking back wistfully to the pleasures she was leaving) was turned into a pillar of salt.
The point of the reference is this. Mr Salter argues that certain facts have been established by psychical research, which make it reasonable to believe (in spite of all the obvious difficulties arising from certain other well established, and more generally recognized and admitted, facts) that some parts of the minds of some human beings have persisted for at least some time after the death of their natural bodies. This, no doubt, is 'something to be going on with'. But it 'is but a little one'. It would, as Mr Salter says, 'be sheer mockery to offer this ... as a satisfaction of, or an alternative to, the hope of immortality—to ask seekers for Zionto be content with Zoar.'
The book consists of sixteen chapters. The first of these is a general introduction; and the second, which deals with the scope of psychical research and the nature of the evidence available, may also be regarded as introductory.
Chapters III and IV are concerned with Apparitions. In the first of them Mr Salter considers and rejects (at any rate as regards single apparitions seen by a single percipient) the view that apparitions of the dead, corresponding significantly to relevant facts which could not be normally known to the percipient, imply the persistence of a quasi-material body, associated in earthly life with the natural body of the deceased. In the second of them he considers certain special types of apparition, which might seem prima facie to support or to require that hypothesis. Under this heading he discusses (1) Collective Cases, (2) Iterative Cases, and (3) Cases that seem to involve Post-mortem Activity.
Under the head of Collective Cases Mr Salter considers, and rejects as illusory, the Versailles 'Adventure’ and the Borley 'nun'. He attaches more weight to the Wilmot case, but points out certain evidential weaknesses in it. He quotes the Fatima vision, seen in Portugal in 1917, as an example of a large-scale collective hallucination, which certainly did not correspond to any objective physical occurrence; and he quotes the Dieppe Raid case (1951) as a collective hallucination, corresponding pretty well to a certain series of localized events on a certain occasion in the past, but not suggestive of post-mortem activity on the part of anyone in particular.
As a good example of an Iterative case, Mr Salter quotes the successive appearances of Captain Bowyer-Bower after his death on the Western Front in March 1917. As examples of cases that seem prima facie to suggest post-mortem activity, he cites two well known stories, in the second of which (the Chaffin Will Case) he was concerned as an investigator on the S.P.R.'s behalf.
Chapter V is concerned with Haunts and Poltergeists. The main instance cited under the former heading is the Cheltenham (Miss Morton) Case. Mr Salter points out that the apparition here was not identified, and that it conveyed no new information to the percipients. As to Poltergeists, he mentions Mr Lambert's theory, and points out that there are reported phenomena which it will not cover. Under this heading Borley Rectory appears again, and is dismissed with the contempt which the case deserves. Mr Salter is strongly inclined to think, with Podmore, that all Poltergeist cases which have not some ordinary physical explanation, originate in trickery, sometimes deliberately undertaken by a normal individual, and sometimes associated with a person in an abnormal mental condition.
This chapter concludes with a set of eighteen propositions, concerning apparitions, which Mr Salter would accept. Perhaps the most important of them may be summarized as follows, (i) Veridical para-normal experiences, which take the form of ostensible sense-perceptions, occur at one end of a series, at the other end of which occur veridical intuitions devoid of quasi-sensory content. For this, and for other reasons given, it is unplausible to regard the former as perceptions of some kind of non-physical quasi-material existent. It is safest to regard all alike as of telepathic origin, but to bear in mind that telepathy is 'transfusion of minds' rather than 'transmission of ideas', (ii) Reliable cases of veridical apparitions seen simultaneously by more than one percipient are so rare that no general conclusions can safely be based on such cases, (iii) Only those apparitions which convey information strongly suggestive of post-mortem activity are directly relevant to the question of survival; and even then it is the nature of the information, and not the fact that it is conveyed by an apparition, which is relevant.
Chapter VI is entitled 'Materialisations'. It in fact deals, not only with these, but also with spirit-photography and the 'independent voice'. In it are described and discussed the case of 'Katie King' and Sir Wm. Crookes, and the phenomena associated with Eva C., Mrs Helen Duncan, Kluski, and Margery Crandon. As to all these allegedly paranormal phenomena Mr Salter is highly sceptical, and for good reasons, which he gives. As to spirit-photography he is more than sceptical. The chapter ends with an unfortunate misprint (Corrected in later reprints — Ed. [JSPR]), viz. 'dishonourable', where the author obviously meant 'honourable'. I suspect a Freudian lapse on the part of someone, and I am assured it is not on that of Mr Salter.
Chapter VII deals interestingly with a very interesting topic, which has been rather neglected by psychical researchers since Myers treated it in 'Human Personality', viz. 'Ecstasy and Inspiration'. Under this heading Mr Salter considers ordinary dreams (in regard to which he is largely in agreement with Freud); 'out-of-the-body' experiences (e.g. those of Dr Wiltse and of Mr 'Kenwood') ; the experiences as of mental activity independent of themselves, described by certain writers of fiction (e.g. Dickens and R. L. Stevenson) in connexion with some of the characters they create and the stories which they spin; and experiences of inspiration and ecstasy described by certain poets (e.g. Milton, Blake and Tennyson).
The main conclusions which Mr Salter draws here may be summarized as follows, (i) Common to all these experiences are (a) the partial or complete withdrawal of the mind from the preoccupations of ordinary life: and (b) a sense of existing and functioning at a higher level than the normal, and a distaste (amounting sometimes to deep disgust) at returning to normal consciousness, (ii) What may well be happening in such cases is a temporary fusion of the normally conscious level of a person's mind with a part of it which is normally unconscious; it being presupposed that the latter is by no means identical in content or in capacity with the Freudian 'unconscious', and that it may mediate telepathically between the mind of the person concerned and those of other conscious individuals or groups of such.
Chapter VIII, entitled 'Dissociation', gives a brief sketch of typical cases, not involving mediumship, e.g. the Ansel Bourne case, the Beauchamp case, and the Doris Fischer case. The last of these is transitional, since there were claims to mediumship on the part of Doris Fischer (or Theodosia Prince, as she became in later life). So Mr Salter passes on to cases where such claims were an integral part of the case, e.g. the 'Watseka Wonder’ and Mlle 'Helene Smith'. The chapter ends with a useful reminder that not all those who have been thoroughly familiar with such cases, and have admitted that there are genuinely paranormal features in some of them, have accepted Myers's view of the structure of human personality or some modern equivalent of that view. A notable dissentient was Gerald Balfour, to whose important paper in Proceedings, Vol. XLIII Mr Salter refers. Another was the late Professor McDougall.
This leads on naturally to the topic of Chapter IX, entitled 'The Controls of Mediums'. Omitting any elaborate description of mediumship in which physical phenomena play an essential part Mr Salter considers in turn the mediumship of Stainton Moses (with the 'high-brow’ controls 'Rector', 'Imperator', etc., and the more homely and somewhat mischievous 'Little Dicky'); of Mrs Piper, in its five successive phases; of Mrs Leonard; of Mrs Garrett; and of the S.P.R. automatists, such as Mrs 'Willett'. The general conclusion of the chapter may be summarized by quoting the final words of it: '... the case for survival is not strengthened by the very doubtful claims to independent existence made by "Controls", so far as they can be differentiated from Communicators'.
Chapters X, XI, and XII are all concerned with the general topic of communications through mediums, under the successive headings of (i) as affected by Normal Causes, (2) as affected by Paranormal Faculties of the Living, and (3) as not prima fade fully explicable under either of the two previous rubrics. Under the first heading are given some interesting cases, where the most likely source of the information supplied by the medium is latent memories of something unwittingly conveyed to her by a sitter (and also no longer remembered by the latter), or of something she has unwittingly had before her eyes when reading some book or newspaper. Under the second heading come cases where the content of the communications can be most plausibly explained by telepathy between the medium and the sitter. Mr Salter cites as a probable example certain communications received by Mr Clarke through Mrs Piper. He rightly emphasizes the fact that the conditions and the results of quotitative experiments in card-guessing are so utterly unlike the conditions which prevail and the communications which are given in a sitting with a medium, that it is difficult to employ the concept of 'telepathy’ appropriate to the former, in formulating a 'telepathic’ explanation of the latter. At the end of Chapter XI there are brief references to 'clairvoyance' and to 'precognition', as evidenced in certain experiments, with a warning that we at present know so little about these alleged paranormal sources of cognition and the conditions under which they operate that it is rash to appeal to them as explanatory hypotheses in connexion with mediumistic communications.
All this is developed in further detail in Chapter XII. Mr Salter begins with the communications through Mrs Piper, ostensibly coming from the deceased George 'Pelham'. He points out that, even when the contents of such communications may be plausibly accounted for in terms of 'telepathy', in the ordinary sense of the word, that notion has to be extended and modified out of all recognition, if it is appealed to in order to explain the following facts. A mediumistic control (such as 'G.P.' with Mrs Piper, 'Gurney' and CA. W. Verrall' with Mrs Willett) will sometimes faithfully reproduce the mannerisms, habits of speech, characteristic sense of humour, etc., of a certain deceased person, whom the medium has not met in the flesh. And this may continue consistently throughout a long series of sittings held at considerable intervals.
Mr Salter next gives a fairly full account of the three successive stages of the 'One-horse Dawn' case, where Dr Verrall in his lifetime tried (with apparent partial success) to influence the contents of his wife's automatic script in a certain direction, and would appear to have influenced it unwittingly in certain other ways which escaped notice until after his death.
From this Mr Salter passes to an account of various types of sitting which have been designed to eliminate the possibility of telepathy from the sitter. Under this head he describes Proxy Sittings, Book Tests, and messages left by persons in their life-time in the hope that the contents may be revealed after death in mediumistic communications. To account for the results of Book Tests in terms of the paranormal faculties of the living, it would seem that we should have to pass beyond telepathy to clairvoyance. Mr Salter therefore gives a brief account of the experimental evidence which has been adduced for this and also for precognition. The chapter ends with a consideration of the results of communications ostensibly referring to the sealed message left by Myers. Mr Salter's conclusion here is that some kind of paranormal hypothesis is required, and that the hypothesis of straightforward clairvoyance on the part of the sensitives concerned, will not cover the facts.
Chapters XIII and XIV deal with the Cross-Correspondences, a subject on which Mr Salter is the best equipped expert now living. An essential feature of the cross-correspondences is this. If we admit that at any rate the best of them represent something more than chance-coincidence in a very large mass of highly allusive and disjointed material, then they point, not merely to the post-mortem persistence of certain memory-traces, but to contemporary design and intention on the part of someone or other. And that someone seems prima facie to be the surviving spirit of an identifiable deceased person (e.g. Myers or Gurney or Dr Verrall), or of a cooperating group of such spirits. For that reason they are of extreme importance.
It is very difficult to present such cases at once fairly and succinctly to the general reader. If one gives all the ramifications even of a single case, one inevitably bores and puzzles even sympathetic readers. If, on the other hand, one selects, one lays oneself open to the charge of making the case seem stronger than it really is. Mr Salter does his best in these two chapters to steer between these two reefs. I suspect that we really are faced here with the following unavoidable dilemma. On the one hand, no one is qualified to judge this material and its implications, unless he has steeped himself for years in it, and has at his back an immense and readily available knowledge of the classical writings both of antiquity and of modern times. On the other hand, anyone who fulfils those conditions (as Gerald Balfour and Piddington preeminently did, and as Mr Salter does) inevitably runs the risk of seeing allusions and connexions which may be quite fortuitous; and of suffering in a mild form from that disease which, in its acute symptoms, is manifested in the works of the Baconians and in Swedenborg's symbolical interpretations of the Scriptures.
In Chapter XIII Mr Salter describes the Ave Roma Immortalis cross-correspondence, which purports to be the work of the deceased Myers, but might conceivably have been the unwitting product of some level of the then living Dr Verrall's mind. He also describes and discusses the very interesting 'Sevens' Case, which looks prima facie like a mere telepathic leakage from the mind of the then living Piddington, but has certain other features suggesting the agency of the deceased Myers.
The transition to Chapter XIV, which is entitled 'Cross-correspondences: New Evidence' is to be found at the end of Chapter XUL Mr Salter says there that the deceased persons, ostensibly responsible for the cross-correspondences, claimed to be aiming at something much more important than merely to provide evidence for their survival. Had their intention been confined to the latter object, 'they would have been almost as worthily occupied in banging tambourines in the darkness of a seance room.' Their ultimate intention, as intimated in the scripts, 'was the bringing about of a world-order based on international peace and justice*. The grounds for this latter statement are presented in Chapter XIV, and the reader must judge their adequacy for himself. Mr Salter sums up his own view of p. 207: '... There is a consistent scheme set out in the scripts of the S.P.R. group of automatists from 1901 to 1930, comprising both a Story of past events and a Plan for the future. The scheme is really there, and not an invention of the perfervid ingenuity of the interpreter...."
The scheme, so far as I can understand, involved as an essential part the gestation, by some sort of paranormal genetics, under the superintendence of the spirit of the distinguished biologist Francis Maitland Balfour, of a kind of Messiah, who should inaugurate the New Jerusalem and be to it what Augustus, as idealized by Virgil, was to the Roman empire. If such a scheme really existed, and if the members of the group have really been trying to carry it out, we need not be surprised that they have not as yet wholly succeeded. Perhaps Hitler and Stalin may be regarded as the products of their 'prentice hands'. Certainly we have not lacked for Messiahs, of a kind, since 1914, and there seems no immediate prospect of the supply drying up.
Mr Salter gives a reasoned summary in Chapters XV and XVI ('To what does the Evidence point' and 'Zoar: "Is it not a little one?"') of the conclusions which he thinks may reasonably be accepted. The most essential points are summarized in a paragraph of the second of these chapters (p. 224). There can be no reasonable doubt of the reality of telepathy 'as a force working interpersonally among a living group'. Whether or not it has a physical basis, it is certain that it 'can give rise to mental activities so distinctly characteristic of a dead member of the group as to be best described as due to his discarnate intelligence'. And those activities include, not only what must be described as 'memories of verifiable events known to few besides himself', but also the postmortem 'initiation and execution of designs' such as the more impressive of the cross-correspondence cases bear witness to.
That Zoar is not Zion is obvious, and Mr Salter explicitly emphasizes it. But, bearing in mind the analogy and the continuity of experiences of ecstasy and of poetic inspiration with some of these which form the basis of the argument for some kind of survival, he is inclined (as a personal speculation) to think that 'Zoar, though it is not Zion, may not be so far from it after all'.
Charles Dunbar Broad (1887-1971)
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