Smith, Hélène (1861-1929)

Pseudonym of Catherine Elise Muller of Geneva, the medium whose case caused much dissension among continental psychologists for many years and was considered as the Dreyfus case of science by some. Had Theodore Flournoy not written his brilliant work Des Indes à la Planète Mars (English ed. as From India to the Planet Mars, 1900), in which he psychoanalyzed and presented the more mundane explanations of some of her more extraordinary phenomena, she might have been acclaimed as the greatest medium of her time, the first human being to whom the glory was due of having established intelligent communication with Mars and of having revealed the language and writing of the red planet. Her work occurred, of course, long before the modern triumphs of interplanetary research and space probes that have revealed the actual nature of the surfaces of Mars and Venus.

Smith's father, a merchant, was a Hungarian who possessed a remarkable facility for languages; her mother had sporadic visions but showed no mediumistic powers. As a young girl, Smith was always fond of indulging in daydreams. She used to see highly colored landscapes, a lion of stone with a mutilated head, and fanciful objects on pedestals. These visions made her discontented. She asked her parents on one occasion whether she was really their child or a changeling. When 14 or 15 years old, she saw a bright light thrown against the wall of her room, which then seemed to be filled with strange and unknown things.

She heard of Spiritualism for the first time in the winter of 1891-92. An acquaintance lent her the book D'Après la Mort by Leon Denis. It excited her curiosity and led her to a Spiritualist circle. At the second séance that she attended, her hand moved automatically. Soon the table began to move and in April 1892, a spirit communicated through typtology and said that he was Victor Hugo, her guide and protector. His reign as a control lasted undisturbed for about six months. Then another control appeared, "Leopold," who, against the warning of "Victor Hugo," forced the medium into trance and, after a struggle lasting for a year, completely ousted his predecessor.

At this period Smith possessed every attribute of a powerful medium. She produced telekinesis phenomena and strange apports, found lost objects, predicted future events, saw spirit visitors, clairaudiently heard their names, and received the explanation of visions that unfolded before her eyes by raps.

Flournoy was admitted to her circle in the winter of 1894-95. The séances that he attended for five years alternated with a series given to August Lemaitre and one Professor Cuendet, vice president of the Geneva Society for Psychic Studies. In his book From India to the Planet Mars (1900), Flournoy notes,

"I found the medium in question to be a beautiful woman about thirty years of age, tall, vigorous, of a fresh, healthy complexion, with hair and eyes almost black, of an open and intelligent countenance, which at once invoked sympathy. She evinced nothing of the emaciated or tragic aspect which one habitually ascribes to the sybils of tradition, but wore an air of health, of physical and mental vigour, very pleasant to behold, and which, by the way, is not often encountered in those who are good mediums."

In describing her triple mediumship (visual, auditive and typtological) he admitted:

"Speaking for myself alone … I was greatly surprised to recognize in scenes which passed before my eyes events which had transpired in my own family prior to my birth. Whence could the medium, whom I had never met before, have derived the knowledge of events belonging to a remote past, of a private nature, and utterly unknown to any living person?"

The professor made good friends with the spirit control "Leopold." The secret of his identity, which for a long time he refused to reveal, was already known. He claimed to have been Guiseppe Balsamo, alias Cagliostro. With the exception of Flournoy, everybody believed in his existence as a spirit. Even he admitted that "it would be impossible to imagine a being more independent and more different from Smith herself, having a more personal character, and individuality more marked, or a more certain actual existence."

When "Leopold" wrote with Smith's hand she held the pen in a different way and her handwriting differed from her usual calligraphy and showed the style of the last century. The voice of "Leopold" was a deep bass. He had a strong, easily recognizable Italian accent.

But Flournory was firm in his conviction that "there is no reason to suspect the real presence of Joseph Balsamo behind the automatisms of Mlle. Smith." He traced the psychogenesis of "Leopold" to a great fright that she had when ten years old. She was attacked in the street by a big dog. She was terrified but the terror was dispelled by the sudden appearance, as if by a miracle, of a personage clothed in a long brown robe with flowing sleeves and with a white cross on the breast who chased the dog away and disappeared before she had time to thank him.

"Leopold" claimed that this was his first appearance. Whenever some unpleasant sight or a dangerous encounter lay in her way the phantom always rose at a distance of about ten yards, walked or glided in silence at the same rate as she advanced toward him, attracting and fascinating her gaze in such a manner as to prevent her turning her eyes away either to the right or left, until she passed the place of danger.

Flournoy found some curious analogies between what is known to us of Cagliostro and certain characteristics of "Leopold," but he believed that they accorded well with the subliminal medley. "Leopold" did not know Italian and turned a deaf ear if anyone addressed him in that language. His handwriting showed striking dissimilarities to that known of the real Cagliostro. His answers to questions regarding his terrestrial existence were evasive or vague. He did not furnish a single name, date, or precise fact. He was, on the other hand, as archaic in his therapeutics as in his orthography and treated all maladies in an old-fashioned way. He claimed that his sentiments for Smith were only the continuation of those of Cagliostro for Marie Antionette.

Marie Antoinette was the first great romance of Smith's mediumship. Flournoy called it the "Royal Cycle." It was roughly outlined at séances in the house of Cuendet in December 1893. The announcement that Smith was the reincarnation of the late queen was made by the table on January 30, 1894. In the interval she had for some time believed herself to be the reincarnation of Lorenze Feliciani. When, however, she was told that Lorenze Feliciani only existed in the fantasy of novelist Dumas, she quickly dropped this role.

There was less difference between the autograph of Cagliostro and "Leopold" than between the handwriting of the real Marie Antoinette and the somnambulistic one. The role of the queen was acted in a very lifelike manner. Probably Smith's tastes for everything that was noble, distinguished, and elevated made the task easier. In the surroundings of the queen, the king was conspicuous by his absence. Three personages figured most often. "Cagliostro" ("ce cher sorcier"), "Louis Philippe d'Orleans," and the "Marquis de Mirabeau." They were discovered reincarnated in two sitters: M. Eugene Demole and M. August de Morsier. For the spectators, the royal somnambulism was the most interesting on account of the brilliancy and life of the role and the length of time during which it was sustained. But for lovers of the paranormal it was not in the least extraordinary.

The Hindu dream in which Flournoy was cast in the role of Prince Sivrouka Nayaka began on October 16, 1894, eight weeks before his admission to the circle. The Martian romance dated from the same period and was to be attributed, in Flournoy's view, to an involuntary suggestion of one Professor Lemaitre. In the Oriental Cycle, Smith was Simandini, the daughter of an Arab sheik in the sixth century, and was courted and married by Prince Sivrouka, lord of the fortress of Tchandraguiri built in the province of Kanara, Hindustani, in 1401. After many years of married life she was burned alive on her husband's funeral pyre.

In enacting the role of the Oriental princess, Smith spoke Hindustani and wrote a few words in good Arabic. She did not speak it. While recovering in trance the use of Hindustani, which she formerly spoke at the court of Sivrouka, she appeared to have forgotten her mother tongue. Her Hindustani was a mixture of improvised articulations and of veritable Sanskrit words well adapted to the situation. This means that it expressed personal thought and was not merely a series of senseless phrases. Besides Flournoy, Professor Seipel, another investigator, also figured in the Oriental romance. He was an Arab slave.

Historians appeared to be singularly ignorant of Kanara, Sivrouka, and Simandini. One day, however, Flournoy accidentally came across an old history of India by De Marles printed in Paris in 1828 and found in it a confirmation of the main facts. It was objected that De Marles was a very unreliable historian. The fact was, however, that only two copies of the work existed in Geneva, both covered with dust. Only in a combination of absolutely exceptional and almost unimaginable circumstances could the work have found its way into Smith's hands.

Flournoy saw himself forced to admit that the precise historical information given by "Leopold" and the language spoken by "Simandini" defied normal explanation. He said:

"The Hindoo romance, in particular, remains for those who have taken part in it a psychological enigma, not yet solved in a satisfactory manner, because it reveals and implies in regard to Hélène, a knowledge relative to the costumes and languages of the Orient, the actual source of which it has up to the present time not been possible to discover."

The Martian romance, one of the outstanding modern claims of planetary travels, was the most striking of all. In November 1894, the spirit of the entranced medium was carried to the planet Mars. She described the human, animal, and floral life of the planet from night to night and supported her story by writing in Martian characters and speaking fluently in that language. Suggestive of xenoglossis, the characters were unlike any written characters used on the Earth, and the language had many characteristics of genuineness. From the translation she furnished in French, Flournoy concluded that the Martian language was a subconscious elaboration.

The vowels and consonant sounds were the same as in French, and the grammar, the inflections, and the construction were modeled on French. As a work of art Flournoy considered the subconscious construction of this language infantile, as a feat of prodigious transpose memory. The Martian descriptions he found similarly childish and the landscapes suggested Japanese lacquer and Nankin dishes.

Curiously enough, when the defects were pointed out to the medium by Flournoy, her subconscious mind appeared to be impressed and set a new task before itself. Not long afterwards an Ultra-Martian romance developed and descriptions were given of the life of still another, more distant planet (Uranus), with grotesque inhabitants and a language totally different from the former one and having apparently no relationship with the known languages of the Earth.

The medium and the other investigators of the phenomena did not share Flournoy's view of the earthly origin of the Martian romance. In articles published in the Annales des Sciences Psychiques (in March-April and May-June, 1897), Lemaitre argued for the extraterrestrial origin of Smith's Martian language. The medium's defense was also taken up in an anonymous volume (Autour des Indes à la Planète Mars ) published under the auspices of the Societé d'Etudes Psychiques de Genève (1901). On the other hand, V. Henry, professor of Sanskrit at the Sorbonne, completely vindicated Flournoy's conclusions in his book La Language Martien (1901) and showed how the Martian words, with the exception of a residue of two percent, were derived from known terrestrial words.

Flournoy did not stop at the claim that all the controls of the medium were secondary personalities. He proposed that the source of the incarnation dreams was to be found in the influence Allan Kardec 's belief in reincarnation exercised on the minds of various automatic writers. Flournoy also disputed the paranormal character of the other manifestations. He stated:

"As to the Supernormal, I believe I have actually found a little telekinesis and telepathy. As to lucidity and spiritistic messages, I have only encountered some brilliant reconstructions, which the hypnoid imagination, aided by latent memory, excels in fabricating in the case of mediums."

At a séance in 1899, Smith had a vision of a village and a landscape that she could not recognize. At the same time, an old man whom she also saw possessed her hand and wrote: "Chaumontet Syndic." Later, further information was divulged. The old man was syndic of Chessenaz in 1839. At another séance these words came: "Burnier, Curé de Chessenaz." Flournoy made inquiries and found out there was a little village named Chessenaz in Haute Savoie, that in 1839 the syndic of the village was Jean Chaumontet, and the curé was named Burnier; furthermore the signatures resembled the authentic signatures of these two people. Nevertheless he dismissed the case, as he found out that Smith had relations in a neighboring village and had been to visit them.

To the physical phenomena of the mediumship he devoted little attention. He was inclined to admit that a force may radiate from the medium that may be capable of attracting or repelling objects in the neighborhood. How such a force could be employed to levitate a table, play on distant instruments, or apport branches of trees, leaves of ivy bearing the name of the control, shells filled with sand and still wet from the sea, a China vase full of water containing a rose, or Chinese money, he did not even attempt to explain. The physical phenomena did not last long and ceased at an early period.

In 1901, Flournoy published another extensive study on some further developments in the Archives de Psychologie (Nouvelles Observations sur un case de Somnambulisme avec Glossolalie). He related that owing to the sensation that his previous work created, Smith was inundated with letters and requests for sittings. A rich American lady provided her with a life income. Smith resigned her position and gave many sittings to her new friends, but Flournoy and Lemaitre were not among the invited ones. In the summer of 1900 there came a complete break. Flournoy was no more accorded facilities for study. The material that he dealt with in his new book hardly covered the period of a year.

He stated that the Martian romance passed into oblivion, but the Martian personalities "Astané" and "Ramier" were retained as guides and interpreters in the exploration of the Ultra-Martian and Uranian worlds. A Lunarian phase also developed at a later period, with descriptions, language, and writing. But of this Flournoy had no firsthand information. The Ultra-Martian romance was accompanied by several painted scenes. The writing was ideographic. Its curious hieroglyphs did not express letters but words. The ideograms showed no resemblance to the objects that they represented.

In this, Flournoy found another proof of infantile imagination. This essential characteristic was omitted because the medium strove to create something defying all analysis. The Uranian language and writing differed totally from the Ultra-Martian. But, stated Flournoy, the phonetic and alphabetic system was a copy of the Martian, and the Uranian language differed less from French than French from the languages of the neighboring countries. The origin of the strange notion of Lunarian inhabitants presumably sprung from Smith reading an article in La Paix Universelle in which, after flattering allusions to Smith, mention was made of the claims of certain yogis of psychic visits to the inhabitants of that side of the moon that is turned away from the Earth.

The duration of the astronomic cycle was not long. It was superseded, after a complete break with the Spiritualists, by a religious cycle in which Christ, the Virgin, the apostles, and the archangels played the dominant roles. In 1903, a luminous vision filled Smith's room. "Christ" appeared and she heard the voice of "Leopold": "You will draw him." Two years later, Smith began with crayon. This was later changed to oil. On large wooden boards, in a state of trance, she executed 12 religious tableaus.

Lemaitre stated in a study that, according to certain mediumistic communications she had received, Smith was a reincarnation of "Raphael," or of "Michaelangelo"; the medium herself, however, did not accept his conclusion.

In May 1913, at the International Congress for Psychical Research at Geneva, eight of her striking pictures were exhibited. In a statement to Light (October 11, 1913) she said:

"On the days when I am to paint I am always roused very early—generally between five and six in the morning—by three loud knocks at my bed. I open my eyes and see my bedroom brightly illuminated, and immediately understand that I have to stand up and work. I dress myself by the beautiful iridescent light, and wait a few moments, sitting in my armchair, until the feeling comes that I have to work. It never delays. All at once I stand up and walk to the picture. When about two steps before it I feel a strange sensation, and probably fall asleep at the same moment. I know, later on, that I must have slept because I notice that my fingers are covered with different colours, and I do not remember at all to have used them, though, when a picture is being begun, I am ordered to prepare colours on my palette every evening, and have it near my bed."

A brush was very seldom used in these pictures. She put on the first coating of paint with her three middle fingers. For the second coating, she moved the same fingers very lightly from right to left and back, thus producing a very smooth surface. The outlines were made by the nails and the sky with the palm of her hand.

This last phase of Smith's mediumship was exhaustively dealt with by W. Deonna in his book De La Planète Mars en Terre Sainte (1932). As the medium did not again subject herself to scientific investigation, Deonna's psychoanalytic examination was based on the voluminous correspondence that Smith left behind and on the paintings themselves. The religious cycle was arrested in 1915 in its further progress by the shock that the medium received when her dearest Italian friend died. Her later years were dominated by visions and automatic communications of and from this friend.

Deonna attached no particular value to the paintings. He stated that their inspiration did not surpass the usual level of religious imagery. The tableaus did not have an elevating effect, indeed a striking mediocrity was often noticeable. But he also admitted certain qualities and said that the paintings were far above what Smith could produce normally. He looked for an explanation to the regression of infantile memories. He offered no explanation for certain paranormal features.

It was Smith's habit to have photographs taken of the successive stages of the pictures. To her utter despair, some of the negatives of the painting "Judas" were spoiled. Her guardian angel appeared and announced a miracle. Two days later, the portrait began to fade out. The beards, the moustache, the tears of Judas, and other details gradually disappeared until the painting returned to the stage where it was last successfully photographed. Then an inscription appeared: "God's will, November 18, 1913." The photographs were taken again. The inscription vanished and Smith finished the picture as before.

She always painted from visions. The eyes appeared first. But Judas was painted into the landscape from the leg upward. The visions were accompanied by luminous phenomena. They began with a ball of light that expanded and filled the room. This was not a subjective phenomenon. Smith exposed photographic plates that indeed registered strong luminous effects. But to Deonna, they had no scientific value as they were only supported by the good faith of the medium.

The Smith case is, on perspective, one of the more important in parapsychology. It illustrated many of the phenomena encountered by parapsychologists as they dealt with Spiritualist claims. Flournoy proved the equal of the task and was able, through his long-term observation and study, to understand the dynamics operating in Smith's life. He was able to show the mundane sources for her extraordinary material without falling into name calling and charges of fraud and to present the material fully without the need of an exposé format.

Sources:

Flournoy, Theodore. Des Indes à la Planète Mars. English ed. as From India to the Planet Mars: A Study of a Case of Somnambulism with Glossolalia. New York: Harper, 1900. Reprint, New Hyde Park, N.Y.: University Books, 1963.

Maxwell, J. Metapsychical Phenomena: Methods and Observations. London: Duckworth, 1905.