Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 18.djvu/531

* SPIRITUALISM. 457 SPIKULA. average trickster, belonged David D. Home, wlio created an enormous sensation throughout Ameri- ca and Europe. He received the attention of Sir William Crookes, and a system of experiments involving all sorts of physical 'miracles,' which still mystify students who have confidence in Crookes. What the Society for Psychical Research has accomplished tends to show that the methods of physical science which had captivated the last generation are not adequate to cope with the problem. It has been shown to be a psychological problem that must comprehend the whole field of normal and abnormal psychology, including in the latter all the phenomena of automatism, sensory and motor, illusion, hallucination, secondary per- sonality, hysteria, insanity of the functional sort, and the various hyperoesthesias. The consequence of all this has been to suggest that neither fraud nor spirits are always necessary to account for seemingly supernormal phenomena. We arc being made acquainted with a vast fund of facts in connection with subliminal consciousness which are well calculated to strike the unwary as having a spiritistic significance, but which are only the strange productions of irresponsible secondary personalities. These personalities, like the dream life of normal people, are apparently quite as liable to deception as are the states of conscious- ness of every-day life. However, the range and ca- pacity of the powers of subliminal states have not yet been exactl_y determined. About the same time that the Society for Psy- chical Research was founded a Mr. Seybert gave a fund to the University of Pennsylvania for the investigation of spiritualism, and the Seybert Commission was appointed for the purpose. The commission exposed many of the ordinary frauds of professional mediums, and its conclusions were adverse to the usual spiritistic claims. After publishing a Report, the commission was allowed to lapse. In Germany and France the movement has had a similar history and outcome. In Germany Reichenbach was the most important investigator, and in France Cahagnet and Du Potet are the principal men of interest. This was in the earlier period. Later we have Karl du Prel, A. N. AksakofT, a Russian, and Sclirenck-Notzing, who manifested interest in the subject and wrote freely upon it. In recent years the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research have recorded data, espe- cially in the phenomena of coincidental appari- tions and experiments with a Mrs. Piper, a Bos- ton 'medium,' which some of the members have thought favorably confirm the possibility of the spiritistic theory. She has been the subject of ex- periment for nearly eighteen years. This, with two recent volumes of Mr. F. W. H. Myers, has had the effect of reviving an interest in the gen- eral problem. But the subject must still run the gauntlet of scientific skepticism and investi- gation. The early history of the movement has been so infected with charlatanism, fraud, half- baked science, and various forms of radicalism in religious and social matters as to put it under abeyance by the intelligent part of the com- munity. It is not possible to determine with any accu- racy the number of adherents to the spiritualistic belief. They are certainly very numerous, and have many thriving organizations. These take the form of the ordinary church. It is claimed that they have nearly 350 churches and over 200,000 members. It is probable that tlie num- ber of believers far exceeds this figure. There is nothing in the belief to suggest the necessity of organization as in the orthodox Christian Church. Their periodicals are quite numerous. There are few, however, of first class character. Light, a weekly, published in London, England, is, per- haps, the best. The Banner of Light is published in Boston, Mass. The literatvire on the subject is a verj* large one, but most of it is not of much importance. Even the best of it has to be read with more than the usual caution. The following, in addition to those mentioned in the body of the article, is a brief list of the most important works connected with the claims of s^iiritualism and dealing with various phases of it: Edmonds and De.xter, Spiritualism (New York, 18.i4-55) : Allan Kar- dec, Livre des es^yrits (Paris, 18.53); Mrs, De ^Morgan, From Hatter to Spirit (London, 1863) ; Alfred Russel Wallace, Miracles and Modern Spiritualism (ib., 1S70) ; Karl Du Prel. Philoso- phy of Mysticism (Eng. trans., ib., 1889) ; Frank Podmore. Aspects of Pst/chical Research (ib., 1807) ; id., Modern Sinritualism (ib., 1902) ; Frederick W. H. Myers, Human Personalitri and Its Survival of Bodily Death (ib., 1002) ; Flam- marion, L'ineonnu (Paris, 1890) ; Flournoy, Dcs hides a la planete Mars (Geneva, 1900) ; Parish, Hallucinations and Illusions (London, 1897). SPIROPHYTON (Xeo-Lat., from Gk. vT6i>, phijton, plant). A fossil alga found in rocks of Devonian age. It presents a flabellate expansion with a central pit from which radiate curved ribs as from the cen- tre of a vortex. The surfaces of the Esopus grit of Lower Devonian age in eastern New York and Penns^'lvania are covered with these algal fronds. The genus is known also in the Carboniferous rocks, and it has been described from European localities under the name of Taonurus. SPIRXTLA (Lat., diminutive of spira. coil, spire). A genus of small decapod, dibranchiate cephalopods, comprising two or three species, and constituting the family Spirulidie, in which the internal skeleton is in the form of a na- creous, discoidal shell, the whorls of which are not in contact with one another, and which are divided into a series of chambers by partitions pierced by a ventral tube or siphuncle. The animal has minute lateral fins, and there are six rows of small suckers on the arms. The three species consti- tuting the family dwell in the deep waters of the tropical seas. In internal anatomj' Spirula is a true dibranchiate. having two branchi;c and an ink-bag. It has the peculiar feature that the hinder end of the body acts as a suctorial disk for fastening itself to foreign bodies. SPIRULA. 1, Animal, ehnwiDg position ot shell; s, shell; m. Bipbon nmselea; 2. shell enlarged.