nothing but to predict that no other scheme, no outer
reform, no new plan of distribution, can bring a real
change, as every calculation which works with outer
means to secure happiness must remain a psychological
illusion. The change from within is the only promise
and the only hope.
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Ill
THE INTELLECTUAL UNDERWORLD
THE public conscience of the social world has been
stirred hi recent days by the dangers which threaten
from an antisocial world that lurks hi darkness. The
sociologists recognize that it is not a question of vicious
and criminal individuals, but one of an antisocial atmos-
phere, of immoral traditions and surroundings, through
which crime flourishes and vice is fostered. They speak
of a social underworld, and mean by it that whole
pitiable setting in which the gangs of thieves and the
hordes of prostitutes live their miserable lives. The
public discussions nowadays are full of stirring outcries
against the rapid spreading of vice in our large cities;
it is a war for clean living and health. But after all we
ought not to forget that similar dangers surround our
inner culture and our spiritual life, and that an intellec-
tual underworld threatens our time, which demands a
no less rigorous fight until its vice is wiped out. The
vice of the social underworld gives a sham satisfaction
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PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIAL SANITY
to the human desire for sensual life; the vice of the in-
tellectual underworld gives the same sham fulfilment
to the human longing for knowledge and for truth. The
infectious germs which it spreads in the realm of culture
may ultimately be more dangerous to the inner health
of the nation than any physical diseases. The battle
against vice and crime in the world of the body ought
to be paralleled by a battle against superstition and
humbug in the world of the mind. The victory over
the social underworld would anyhow never be lasting
unless the intellectual underworld were subjugated
first. In the atmosphere of sham-truth all the antisocial
instincts grow rankly.
I know of a large, beautiful high school in which the
boys and girls are to receive the decisive impulses for
their inner life from well-trained teachers who have had
a solid college education. I have found out that quite a
number of these teachers are clients of a medium who
habitually informs them as to their future, and for a dollar
a sitting gives them advice at every turn of their lives.
I do not know whether she takes it from the tea leaves
or from an Egyptian dream book or from her own
trance fancies, but I do know that the prophecies of
this fraud have deeply influenced some of their lives
and shaped the faculty of the high school. What does
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THE INTELLECTUAL UNDERWORLD
this mean? Mature educators to whose training so-
ciety has devoted its fullest effort and who are chosen
to bring to the youth the message of earnest thought
and solid knowledge, and whose intellectual life ought
therefore to be controlled by consistent thinking and
real love for knowledge, fall back into the lowest forms
of mental barbarism and really believe in the most illog-
ical prostitution of truth. The double life of Jekyll
and Hyde is more natural than this. The impulse to
virtuous behaviour and the atrocities of the criminal
may after all be combined in one character, but the
desire to master the world by a disciplined knowledge
and to think the universe in ideas of order and law can-
not go together with a real satisfaction and belief in the
chaotic superstitions of mediumistic humbugs. Here
we have truly a twofold personality, one living in a
world of culture and the other in an underworld of in-
tellectual dissipation and vice. It would not be desir-
able for the high school teachers who are to be models
of virtue to live a second life as gamblers and pick-
pockets, but it is more dangerous if they are the agents
of intellectual culture and indulge at the same time in
intellectual prostitution.
No spirit of false tolerance ought any longer to be
permitted, when the treacherous danger has become so
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PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIAL SANITY
nation wide. It is sufficient to take up any newspaper
between New York and San Francisco and run through
the advertisements of the spiritualists and psychical
mediums, the palmists and the astrologers, the spiritual
advisers and the psychotherapists: it is evident that it
is a regular organized industry which brings its steady
income to thousands, and which in the bigger towns has
its red-light districts with its resorts for the intellectual
vice. The servant girl gets her information as to the
fidelity of her lover for fifty cents, the clerk who wants
to bet on the races pays five dollars, the great banker
who wants to bet on stocks pays fifty dollars for his
prophetic tips, and the widow who wants messages from
her husband pays five hundred dollars, but they all
come and pay gladly. If this mood permeates the pub-
lic of all classes, it is not surprising that the cheapest
spiritualistic fraud creeps into religious circles, that the
wildest medical humbug is successfully rivalling the
work of the scientific physician, and that the intellectual
graft of psychical research is beginning to corrupt the
camps of the educated. Surely it is a profitable busi-
ness, and I know it from inside information, as not long
ago a very successful clairvoyant came to the Harvard
Psychological Laboratory and offered me a partnership
with half his income, not because he himself believed
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THE INTELLECTUAL UNDERWORLD
much in my psychology, but because, as he assured me,
there are some clients who think more highly of my
style of psychology than of his, and if we got together
the business would flourish. He told me just how it
was to be done and how easy it is and what persons fre-
quent his parlours. But I have inside information of
a very different kind before me, if I think of the victims
who come to me for help when superstition has broken
their mental springs. There was a young girl to whom
life was one great joy, until for ten dollars she got the
information that she would die in a very big building,
and now she goes into hysterics when her family tries
to take her into a theatre or a hotel or a railway station
or a school.
Indeed the psychologist has an unusually good chance
to get glimpses of this filthy underworld, even if he does
not frequent the squalid quarters of the astrologers.
Bushels of mail bring this superstition and mental
crookedness to his study, and his material allows him to
observe every variety of illogical thought. If a letter
comes to his collection which presents itself as a new
specimen that ought to be analyzed a little further,
nothing is needed but a short word of reply. It will
at once bring a full supply of twisted thought, sufficient
for a careful dissection. It has been said repeatedly
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PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIAL SANITY
in the various vice investigations that no one can under-
stand the ill fate of the vicious girls, unless he studies
carefully the men whom they are to please. An in-
vestigation into mental vice demands still more an
understanding of those minds which play the part of
customers. There are too many who cannot think in
straight lines and to whom the most absurd linking of
facts is the most satisfactory answer in any question.
The crudeness of their intellect, which may go together
with ample knowledge in other fields, predestines them
to be deceived and puts a premium on the imposture.
I may try to characterize some varieties of crooked
thinking from chance tests of the correspondence with
which the underworld has besieged me. I have only
the letters of most recent date in hand.
I abstract, of course, from those written by insane
individuals. They come plentifully and show all sorts
of distortions and impossible ideas. But they do not
belong here. The confused mind of the patient is not
to be held responsible. His absurdities are symptoms
of disease, and they are sharply to be separated from the
lack of logic in the sound mind, just as the impulse to kill
in paranoia is to be distinguished from the murderous
schemes of the criminal. It is generally not difficult to
recognize at once which is which. I find the most fre-
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THE INTELLECTUAL UNDERWORLD
quent type of letters from evidently diseased persons
to be writings like this: "Dear Sir: I wish to let you
know that some young men have a sort of a comb ma-
chine composed of wireless telephone and reinforced
electricity. They can play this machine and make a
person talk or wake or go to sleep. They can tell
where you are, even miles away. They play in the
eyes and brain, I think. They have two machines; so
they know when the police or anybody is coming to-
ward their house. They keep talking most of the time
so as to take up a person's mind. It is about time it
was stopped, but people don't understand such things
around here. Could a wireless telephone get their
voices? Hoping you will do something to stop them,
I am yours, ONE WHO HAS BEEN ANNOYED VERY
MUCH."
There is no help for such a poor sufferer except in the
asylum. Here we want to deal not with the patients,
but only with the sinners who sin against logic, while
their minds are undiseased.
There is another large class of correspondents, which
is not to be blamed, and which is one of the most inter-
esting contributors to the psychologist's files. People
write long discussions of theories which they build up
on peculiar happenings in their minds. The theories
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PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIAL SANITY
themselves may be entirely illogical, or at least in con-
tradiction to all acknowledged science, but such letters
are interesting, because they disclose abnormal mental
states. Here it is not real insanity; but all kinds of
abnormal impulses or ideas, of psychasthenic emotions,
of neurasthenic disturbances, of hysteric inhibition, are
the starting points, and it is only natural that such
pathological intrusions should bewilder the patient and
induce him to form the wildest theories. Again, he
may believe in the most improbable and most fantastic
connection of things, but this is due to the overwhelm-
ing power of disturbances which he is indeed unable to
explain to himself. I have a whole set of letters from
women who explain in fantastic theories their magical
power to foresee coming events; and yet it is not difficult
to recognize as the foundation of all such ideas some
well-known forms of memory disturbance. Commonly
it is the widespread tendency of women to accompany
a scene with the feeling that they have experienced it
once before. They are few who never have had it,
especially in states of fatigue; many have it very often;
and some are led to trust it and to become convinced
that they really experienced the scene, at least in their
minds, beforehand. This uncanny impression then
easily develops into untenable speculations on the
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THE INTELLECTUAL UNDERWORLD
borderland of normal intellect. The letters which
approach those of the insane most nearly come from
persons who try to work out a theory to account for
hysterical experiences which break into their normaj
life. Sometimes the most absurd explanations must be
acknowledged as justified from the standpoint of the
patient. A woman wrote to me that she had the ab-
normal power to produce railroad wrecks by her mere
will, while she was lying at home in bed. She wanted
me to hypnotize her in order to relieve her from this
uncanny power. She had elaborated this thought in
full detail. She did not know, what I found out only
slowly, that hi hysterical attacks at night, for which
every memory was lost the next morning, she used a
stolen switch key to open a switch, because she was
angry with a railway official. I will ignore all such
cases with an abnormal background here and confine
myself to the healthy crowd.
If I were to characterize their writings from an out-
side point of view, I might first say that their expres-
sions are expansive. There is no limit to their manu-
scripts, though I have to confess that an exposition of
eighty-five hundred pages which has just been an-
nounced to me by its author has not yet reached me.
Nor can it be denied that their relation to old-
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PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIAL SANITY
fashioned or to new-fashioned spelling is not always a
harmonious one. Nor should I call them always polite :
the criticism of my own opinions, which they generally
know only from some garbled newspaper reports, often
takes forms which are not the usual ones for scholarly
correspondence. "Whether it is your darkness or if it
is the badness of the police that go around calling them-
selves the government, that probably ordered you to
put such ignorance in the Sunday article, I do not
know." Or more straightforward are letters of this
type: " Greeting You take the prize as an educated
fool. According to reports to me by less stupid and
more honest men than you, the matter is . . ."
It is surprising how often the handwriting is pretty,
coquettish, or affected, but almost half of my crank
correspondence is typewritten.
When the newspapers tell of a mysterious case, minds
of this type immediately feel attracted to mix in.
When a few years ago I published an article disclosing
the tricks of Madame Palladino, I was simply flooded
with letters of advice and of explanation. The same
thing occurred recently when the papers reported that I
was experimenting with Beulah Miller. Now it is
easy to understand that those who fancied that the
Miller child had supernatural gifts of telepathy and
THE INTELLECTUAL UNDERWORLD
clairvoyance would wish to bring their questions to me
so that I might make Beulah Miller trace their lost
bracelets or predict their fortune in the Stock Exchange.
But I was at a loss to understand why so many persons
from Maine to California felt tempted to write long
letters to me in which they told me what kind of ques-
tions I ought to ask the child, as if I could not formulate
a question for myself. Every one expected a special
report for himself with exact statements of her answers.
The whole performance showed a lack of judgment
which is typical of that lower intellectual layer; and
yet the letters were often written on beautifully mono-
grammed letter paper. More often, however, my own
writings or doings have nothing to do with the case.
I am the perfectly innocent receiver of written messages
about anything between heaven and earth, while the
messages which my correspondents receive from me are
not always authentic. One of my psychically talented
writers reports: "On May 31st at eight forty-nine
A. M. in the midst of a thunderstorm I came into com-
munication with Doctor Miinsterberg and asked him
to send me a message. He said, 'The name of my son
is Wilhelm Miinsterberg.'" It is improbable that I
lied so boldly about my family, even in a telepathic
message.
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PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIAL SANITY
I may select a few typical theories, which all come
from evidently otherwise normal and harmless people.
I have before me a whole series of manuscripts from a
druggist who is sure that his ego theory is "very near
the truth." It is in itself very simple and convincing.
"The right and the left cerebral egos united with one
sublime ego are in the body in a loose union in posses-
sion of an amoeboid cell. During sleep they may
separate. The sublime ego wanders through nerve
paths to the bowels, and the bowel experiences are the
dreams." An experiment brought a definite proof of
this. The druggist dyed some crackers deep blue with
methylene blue, and later dreamed that a large train of
blue food was passing by. As each carriage of the train
corresponded to a granule of starch in the crackers, he
was able to figure that the ego which saw those parts of
the crackers was about one thousandth of an inch large.
"The fact of seeing in dreams is due to vital force, the
peculiar low speed to the high vibration force of living
albuminoids emitted from every tendril of bioplasm
and perceived by the eye of the ego-bion during its
visit." "Within the ego-bion is the ego itself, which is
much simpler looking, about one hundredth of a mi-
cromillimeter." I do not want to go into details of how
these egos can be transmitted "by kiss or otherwise"
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THE INTELLECTUAL UNDERWORLD
from one generation to another, but I can say that as
soon as the reader has grasped the fundamental thesis
of the author, everything follows with perfect logic.
The good man, who is doubtless a faithful druggist and
whose mind is perfectly clear, has simply twisted some
of the ideas which he has gathered from his ample read-
ing and developed his pet theory.
His case is very similar to that of a dignified, elderly
trained nurse who is faithfully devoted to her noble daily
work and who follows her vocation without indicating
to any one that she is the author of a great unpub-
lished philosophical work. She has spent twenty-five
years of her life on the elaboration of this magnum
opus, which is richly illustrated. Everything in the
book is consistent and in harmony with its presupposi-
tions. The theory again is very simple; every detail is
perfectly convincing, if you acknowledge the starting
point. As to this, there may be difference of opinion.
The fundamental thought is that all human souls are
born in the forests of Central Africa. " Souls are sexless
forces. Never is one soul born into life. There are
always two. Often we find three pairs of almost the
same type with but a shadow of density to distinguish
each pair. Man evolutes upward on the scale of life
by two tribes of apes. Ere man becomes human, he
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PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIAL SANITY
represents one cell force. When man takes the human
form as Maquake, he becomes a double life cell." I do
not claim to be an expert in this system, but if I under-
stand the whole work rightly, the idea is that any
human soul born there by the monkeys in Africa has to
pass in circles of one thousand years from individual to
individual, becoming at first negro, then Indian, then
Malayan, then Hindu, then Greek, Celt, and Roman,
then Jew, and finally American. After a thousand
years the soul begins to degenerate and enters sinners
and criminals. Which stage the soul has reached can
easily be seen from the finger nails. The chief illus-
trations of the great work were therefore drawings of
finger nails of all races. It is a side issue of the theory
that "souls once matured generally pass on to another
star. The nearer the sun is to the star holding life, the
denser is all growth in nature." I acknowledge that
this view of evolution does not harmonize exactly with
my own, but I cannot deny that the whole system is
worked out with perfect consistency, and wherever I
asked the writer difficult questions as to some special
problems, she was at once ready to give the answers
with completely logical deduction from her premises.
She is by no means mentally diseased, and she does not
mix her theories with her practical activity. If she sits
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THE INTELLECTUAL UNDERWORLD
as nurse at the bedside of a patient, she recognizes of
course from the finger nails that this particular soul
may be three or five thousand years old, and accord-
ingly in a decaying state, but that does not interfere
with her conscientious work as a nurse and helper.
To be sure, not every one spends twenty-five years
on the elaboration of some twisted fancies. Most of
my correspondents write the monumental thoughts of
their systems with decisive brevity. A physician in-
forms me that every thought and act of our lives is
transfixed on the etheric vapours that surround our
earth, and that it is therefore only natural that a clair-
voyant is able to see those fixed events and write them
down afterward from the ethereal inscriptions. An-
other tells about his discovery that the human body
is a great electrical magnet. I am the more glad to
make this fact widely known, as the author writes that
he has not given it to the public yet, as he is not finan-
cially able to advertise it. Yet he himself adds that
after all it is not necessary to advertise truth. On
eight quarto pages he draws the most evident conse-
quences of his discovery and shows how he is able to
explain by it the chemical change of each cell in the
brain and to prove that "foolish so-called spirits are
simply electrical demonstrations." "I can demon-
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PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIAL SANITY
strate every current, nerve cell, and atom of the human
body. It may seem strange to you that I claim so
much, but with the induction every investigation has
been so easy for me. I have never been puzzled for
any demonstration yet, but I am still searching for
more knowledge. Yours for investigation. . . ."
I may say that this is a feature common to most of my
correspondents of this metaphysical type. They are
never "puzzled."
Nearly related to this type of theories are the sys-
tems of astrology; and in our upper world very few are
really aware what a role astrology is still playing in the
intellectual underworld. Some of the astrological com-
munications I receive periodically go so far beyond
my understanding that I do not even dare to quote
them. But some of the astrological authors present
very neat and clean theories which are so simple and
so practical that it is almost a pity that they are ab-
surd. For instance, I am greatly interested in the
question of determining how far the mind of individuals
is predisposed for particular vocations, and in the psy-
chological laboratory we are busy with methods to
approach the problem. The astrologers have a much
more convincing scheme. My friend writes that he has
observed "over two thousand cases wherein the dates of
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THE INTELLECTUAL UNDERWORLD
birth have been the means to give the position of the
planets at the hour of birth, the purpose being to ascer-
tain the influence they had on man. Now the furni-
ture business calls /or an artistic temperament, and after
careful observation through birth dates it is found that
the successful furniture men have the planet Venus in
their nativities. But the Venus influence is prominent
also in other lines of business such as art, jewellery, and
in all lines where women's necessities are manufac-
tured. Other planetary influences on success in busi-
ness are : Saturn for miners, tanners, gardeners, clowns,
and beggars; Mercury for teachers, secretaries, sta-
tioners, printers, and tailors; Jupiter for clergymen,
judges, lawyers, and senators; Mars for dentists, bar-
bers, cutlers, carpenters, and apothecaries; Uranus for
inventors, chemists, occultists, and others."
One system which is still more frequent than the
astrological is the strictly spiritualistic one, which ex-
presses itself in spirit returns and messages from the
other world. Geographically the most favoured sta-
tions for wireless heavenly connections seem to be
Brooklyn, New York, and Los Angeles, California.
The adherents of this underworld philosophy have a
slang of their own, and the result is that their letters,
while they spring from the deepest emotions, sound as
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PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIAL SANITY
if they were copied from the same sample book. The
better style begins about like this: "Knowing that
you are intensely interested in things psychological, I
beg to enclose you copies of some, of the automatic
letters which I have received. I have a young lawyer
friend in the city, and he and I can throw down fifteen
or twenty sheets of paper on a table, take hold of hands
and get them written full, and in this way I have re-
ceived letters from Pericles, Aristides, Immanuel Kant,
and many others. I got letters from Julia Ward Howe
a week after her transition, and I got letters from Emer-
son and Abraham Lincoln by asking for them. I enclose
copy of the last letter which I received from Charlotte
Cushman, and I think you will agree there is nothing
foolish about it or indeed about any of the letters. I
have recently married again, and my present wife is a
wonderful trance medium, probably the best means of
communication between the two worlds living to-day."
This is not exceptional, as practically every one of my
spiritualistic correspondents has some "best means of
communication between the two worlds." The mes-
sages themselves usually begin: "My loved one, out of
the realms of light and truth, I come to you . . ."
and so on. If the letters do not come from the spirit-
ualists themselves, some of their friends feel the need of