Hélène Smith's Ultra-Martian Insects

  "Palais martiens" (Martian palaces) by Hélène Smith

 

 This is a view of the surface of Mars, as recorded by Catherine-Elise Müllerin Martigny, a late nineteenth-century Swiss medium who claimed to have conscious recollection not only of previous lives on Earth, but of contemporary life on other planets.

 

"paysage ultramartien avec bipèdes" (Beyond-Martian countryside with bipeds)

 

 The details of her space séances – including "houses with fountains on the roof", and "carriages without horses or wheels, emitting sparks as they glide by" – were recorded by a sympathetic psychology professor from the University of Geneva called Théodore Flornoy. It was Flornoy who suggested Müller adopt the pseudo nym "Hélène Smith". They really were proper séances too: conducted around a table, and with assembled mourners, like Mme. Mirbel, whose dead son Alexis was apparently – according to Smith – now attending lectures at a Martian university. Flornoy records Alexis' newly Martian ghost berating his mother through Smith 'for not having followed the medical prescription which he gave her a month previously: "Dear mamma, have you, then, so little confidence in us ? You have no idea how much pain you have caused me !"' He does not go into detail about the argument which then breaks out between mother and son "by means of the table".

"insecte ultramartien" (Beyond-Martian insect)

 

 From India to the Planet Mars, a full tanslation of Flornoy's account of Smith's visions – including black-and-white plates of these illustrations – was posted on the ever excellent Public Domain Review blog in celebration of the latest Mars landing, which is how I know about it. Also included in the book are examples of Martian typography that Smith took down – essentially French in code, as deciphered by Flornoy:

 

 

 It reminds me of the man who claimed in an interview with Patrick Moore to be able to speak Venusian, although the latter was adamant that the process by which his particular aliens communicated was mechanical, not mental – "through rays" – and he'd never personally heard from a Martian. Nor had he ever been Marie Antionette in a previous life, now I think of it, unlike Smith. (Or if he had, it hadn't come up.)

 

"insecte ultramartien" (another insect from further away than Mars)

 

  It also reminds me of the Voynich Manuscipt, lending credence perhaps to David Reed's theory that the manuscript is just the work of a bored princess in a tower... Colour reproductions of Hélène Smith's sometimes beautiful illustrations (very popular later on with the surrealists) were a little harder to find, until I started looking in French – typing "martien" instead of "martian – and hit upon this post, from which most of these images have come. 

 Here is one exception:

 This I found in a lovely summary of Smith's life on the blog "Burials and Beyond". I believe it shows a Martian accompanied by one of the planet's many "dog-like creatures with heads that looked like cabbages that not only fetched objects for their masters, but also took dictation." Good boy! No wonder he's patting it.

 Here's the real thing: