Somnambulistic independence.

— Many people who today perfectly accept magnetism contested somnambulistic lucidity for a long time; the fact is that this faculty did indeed come to confound all the notions we had about the perception of the things of the external world. Yet we had long had the example of natural somnambulists, who enjoyed analogous faculties and who, by a strange contrast, were never studied in depth. Today, somnambulistic clairvoyance is a fact, and if it is still contested by some people, it is because new ideas take time to take root, above all when one must renounce those long cherished. Many people also thought, as is still the case today with Spiritist manifestations, that somnambulism could be tested like a machine, without taking into account the special conditions of the phenomenon. This is why, having failed to obtain at will and at the precise moment results that were always satisfactory, they concluded in the negative. Phenomena so delicate require a long, assiduous, and persevering observation in order to capture their nuances, which are frequently fleeting. It is likewise as a consequence of an incomplete observation of the facts that certain people, while admitting the clairvoyance of somnambulists, contest its independence; according to them, their vision does not extend beyond the thought of the one who questions them; some even claim that there is no vision, but simply intuition and transmission of thought, citing in their support numerous examples. No one doubts that the somnambulist, seeing the thought, can sometimes translate it and be its echo; nor do we even contest that he may influence it in certain cases: were there only this in the phenomenon, would it not already be a fact curious enough and worthy of observation? The question, therefore, is not to know whether the somnambulist is or can be influenced by a foreign thought, which no longer raises doubts, but whether he is always influenced: that is a result of experience. If the somnambulist says only what you know, it is incontestable that it is your thought that he translates; but if, in certain cases, he says what you do not know, contradicts your opinion and your manner of being, his independence becomes evident, for he follows nothing but his own impulse. A single well-characterized fact of this kind would suffice to prove that the somnambulist's subjection to another's thought is not an absolute thing; now, there are thousands of them. Among those that are within our personal knowledge, we shall cite the two that follow:

— Residing in Bercy, on the Rue Charenton, 43, Mr. Marillon had disappeared since the 13th of January last. All the searches to discover his whereabouts were fruitless; none of the people at whose homes he was accustomed to go had seen him; no business could account for his prolonged absence. On the other hand, his character, his position, and his mental state set aside any idea of suicide. There remained the possibility that he had been the victim of a crime or of an accident; in this latter hypothesis, however, he would easily have been recognized and taken to his home, or at least dispatched to the morgue. All the probabilities thus pointed to a crime, and the thought settled upon it, all the more so since Mr. Marillon had gone out to make a payment. But where and how had the crime been committed? No one knew. His daughter then turned to a somnambulist, Mrs. Roger, who in many other similar situations had given proof of remarkable lucidity, which we ourselves observed. Mrs. Roger followed Mr. Marillon from his departure from his home, at three o'clock in the afternoon, until about seven o'clock in the evening, when he was already preparing to return. She saw him go down to the banks of the Seine to satisfy an urgent need, where he was seized by a stroke of apoplexy. She described having seen him fall upon a stone, open a gash in his forehead, and then roll into the water; it was therefore neither a matter of suicide nor of crime; there was still money and a key inside the pocket of his coat. The somnambulist indicated the place of the accident, adding that the body was no longer at the spot, by virtue of having been easily carried off by the current. They found him, indeed, at the place indicated. He had the wound indicated on his forehead, the key and the money were in his pocket, and the position of his clothes clearly indicated that the somnambulist had not been mistaken as to the reason that had led him to the edge of the river. In the face of so many details, we ask where one could see the transmission of any thought whatsoever.

— Here is another fact, in which somnambulistic independence is no less evident.

Mr. and Mrs. Belhomme, farmers in Rueil, at 19 Rue Saint-Denis, had savings of approximately 800 to 900 francs. For greater safety, Mrs. Belhomme placed them in a cupboard, one part of which was reserved for old clothes and another for new clothes; the money was put away in the interior of this latter compartment; at that moment someone came in and Mrs. Belhomme hastened to close the cupboard. Some time later, needing the money, she convinced herself that she had put it together with the old clothes, since that had been her initial intention, imagining that it would tempt thieves less; but in her haste, with the arrival of the visitor, she had put it on the other side. She was so persuaded of having placed it with the old clothes that it did not occur to her to look for it elsewhere; finding the place empty, and recalling the visit, she judged that she had been observed and robbed, and, thus persuaded, her suspicions naturally fell upon the visitor.

Mrs. Belhomme knew Miss Marillon, of whom we spoke above, and told her of her misfortune. The latter had told her in what manner her father had been found, suggesting that she seek out the same somnambulist before taking any other measure. Then the Belhommes went to the home of Mrs. Roger, quite certain that they had been robbed and in the hope that the thief would be pointed out to them, who, in their opinion, could only be the visitor. Such, then, was their exclusive thought. Now, after a meticulous description of the place, the somnambulist said to them: “You have not been robbed; your money is intact in the cupboard; you only think you put it with the old clothes, when, in truth, you put it with the new clothes; return to your home: there you will find it.” Indeed, that is what happened.

In relating these two facts — and we could cite several others, equally conclusive — our aim was to prove that somnambulistic clairvoyance is not always the reflection of a foreign thought; that the somnambulist can also have a lucidity of his own, absolutely independent. From this result consequences of high gravity, from the psychological point of view; here we have the key to more than one problem, which we shall examine later when we treat of the relations existing between somnambulism and Spiritism, relations that cast an entirely new light upon the question.