809. Further illustrations might easily be here given. But for brevity's sake I pass on to the automatic messages which form our special subject, trusting that the specimens above given of motor externalisations of unexpected kinds may have led the reader to feel that experiment alone can tell us how far such delicate motor indications may in fact be traceable; how much of information may pass from one stratum of our consciousness to another, and in a form how strangely transmuted. And having now to deal with what I define as messages conveyed by one stratum in man to another stratum, I must first consider in what general ways human messages can be conveyed. Writing and speech have become predominant in the intercourse of civilised men, and it is to writing and speech that we look with most interest among the communications of the subliminal self. But it does not follow that the subliminal self will always have such complex methods at its command. We have seen already that it often finds it hard to manage the delicate co-ordinations of muscular movement required for writing, - that the attempt at automatic script ends in a thump and a scrawl.

Does the history of animal communication suggest to us to try any easier, more rudimentary plan?

The first communications of animals are by gesture; and even when sound is added this is at first only a specialised kind of gesture. The higher animals discriminate their calls; man develops speech; and the message-giving impulse parts into the main channels of movement - movement of the throat and movement of the hand. The hand-gestures - "high as heaven," "horned like a stag," and so forth - develop in their turn into the rude drawing of objects; and this graphic impulse again divides along two channels. On the one hand it develops into the pictorial and plastic arts, conveying its messages through what may be termed a direct, as opposed to an arbitrary symbolism. On the other hand it assimilates itself to the laws of speech, it becomes ideographic; and gradually merging direct into arbitrary symbolism it becomes alphabetical script, arithmetic, algebra, telegraphy.

But the word telegraphy suggests to us that in recent times a fresh beginning has had to be made in human communication; modes have had to be invented by which a civilised man, disposing only of a few simple movements, - the deflections of the indicating needle, - might attain to the precision of grammatical speech. This, as we know, has been easily effected; and the mere repetition of one or two simple movements at varied intervals suffices, to eye or ear, for all the purposes of an alphabet.

Now we shall find, perhaps, among the communications of the subliminal self parallels to all these varying modes of communication. But since the subliminal self, like the telegraphist, begins its effort with full knowledge, indeed, of the alphabet, but with only weak and rude command over our muscular adjustments, it is a priori likely that its easiest mode of communication will be through a repetition of simple movements, so arranged as to correspond to letters of the alphabet.

And here, I think, we have attained to a conception of the mysterious and much-derided phenomenon of "table-tilting" which enables us to correlate it with known phenomena, and to start at least from an intelligible basis, and on a definite line of inquiry.

A few words are needed to explain what are the verifiable phenomena, and the less verifiable hypotheses, connoted by such words as "table-turning," "spirit-rapping," and the like.

If one or more persons of a special type, - at present definable only by the question-begging and barbarous term "mediumistic," - remain quietly for some time with hands in contact with some easily movable object, and desiring its movement, that object will sometimes begin to move. If, further, they desire it to indicate letters of the alphabet by its movements, - as by tilting once for a, twice for b, etc, it will often do so, and answers unexpected by any one present will be obtained.

Thus far, whatever our interpretation, we are in the region of easily reproducible facts, which many of my readers may confirm for themselves if they please.

But beyond the simple movements - or table-turning - and the intelligible responses - or table-tilting - both of which are at least prima facie physically explicable by the sitters' unconscious pressure, without postulating any unknown physical force at all, - it is alleged by many persons that further physical phenomena occur; namely, that the table moves in a direction, or with a violence, which no unconscious pressure can explain; and also that percussive sounds or "raps" occur, which no unconscious action, or indeed no agency known to us, could produce. These raps communicate messages like the tilts, and it is to them that the name of "spirit-rapping" is properly given. But spiritualists generally draw little distinction between these four phenomena - mere table-turning, responsive table-tilting, movements of inexplicable vehemence, and responsive raps - attributing all alike to the agency of departed spirits of men and women, or at any rate to disembodied intelligences of some kind or other.

I am not at present discussing the physical phenomena of Spiritualism, and I shall therefore leave on one side all the alleged movements and noises of this kind for which unconscious pressure will not account. I do not prejudge the question as to their real occurrence; but assuming that such disturbances of the physical order do occur, there is at least no primo facie need to refer them to disembodied spirits. If a table moves when no one is touching it, this is not obviously more likely to have been effected by my deceased grandfather than by myself. We cannot tell how I could move it; but then we cannot tell how he could move it either. The question must be argued on its merits in each case; and our present argument is not therefore vitiated by our postponement of this further problem.