MY EXPERIMENTS WITH EUSAPIA PALADINO.
In the earlier pages of this volume some of my later experiments with the
Neapolitan medium, Eusapia Paladino, have been described. We shall now
revert to the earlier ones.
My first experimental seance with this remarkable medium took place on the
27th of July, 1897. In response to the invitation of an excellent and
honorable family,--that of Blech,--the name of which has for a long time
been happily associated with modern researches in theosophy, occultism,
and psychological studies, I betook myself to Montfort-l'Amaury, to make
the personal acquaintance of this medium, whose case had already been
studied in several particulars by MM. Lombroso, Charles Richet,
Ochorowicz, Aksakof, Schiaparelli, Myers, Lodge, A. De Rochas, Dariex, J.
Maxwell, Sabatier, De Watteville, and a great number of other scholars and
scientists of high standing. Mme. Paladino's gifts had even been made the
subject of a work by Count de Rochas upon _The Externalization of
Motivity_, as well as of innumerable articles in the special reviews.
The impression that results from the reading of all the official reports
is not altogether satisfactory, and besides leaves us with our curiosity
entirely ungratified. On the other hand, I can say, as I have already had
occasion to remark, that, during the last forty years, almost all the
celebrated mediums have been present at one time or another in my salon in
the avenue l'Observatoire in Paris, and that I have detected them nearly
all in trickery. Not that they always deceive: those who affirm this are
wrong. But, consciously or unconsciously, they bring with them an element
of trouble against which one is obliged to be constantly on guard, and
which places the experimenter in conditions diametrically opposed to those
of scientific observation.
Apropos of Eusapia I had received from my illustrious colleague, M.
Schiaparelli, director of the observatory at Milan, to whom science is
indebted for so many important discoveries, a long letter from which I
will quote a few passages:
During the autumn of 1892 I was invited by M. Aksakof to be present at
a certain number of Spiritualistic seances held under his direction
and care, for the purpose of meeting the medium Eusapia Paladino, of
Naples. I saw a number of very surprising things, a part of which, to
tell the truth, could be explained by very ordinary means. But there
are others the production of which I should not know how to explain by
the known principles of natural philosophy. I add, without any
hesitation, that, if it had been possible to entirely exclude all
suspicion of deceit, one would have had to recognize in these facts
the beginning of a new science pregnant with consequences of the
highest importance. But it must be admitted that these experiments
have been made in a manner little calculated to convince impartial
judges of their sincerity. Conditions were always imposed that
hindered the right comprehension of what was really taking place. When
we proposed modifications in the program suited to give to the
experiments the stamp of clearness and to furnish evidence that was
lacking, the medium invariably declared that, if we did so, the
success of the seance would thereby be made impossible. In fine, we
did not _experiment_ in the true sense of the word: we were obliged to
be content with _observing_ that which occurred under the unfavorable
circumstances imposed by the medium. Even when mere observation was
pushed a little too far, the phenomena were no longer produced or
lost their intensity and their marvellous nature. Nothing is more
offensive than these games of hide-and-seek to which we are obliged to
submit
All that kind of thing excites distrust. Having passed all my life in
the study of nature, which is always sincere in its manifestations and
logical in its processes, it is repugnant to me to turn my thoughts to
the investigation of a class of truths, which it seems as if a
malevolent and disloyal power was hiding from us with an obstinacy the
motive of which we cannot comprehend. In such researches it is not
sufficient to employ the ordinary methods of natural philosophy, which
are infallible, but very limited in their action. We must have
recourse to that other critical method, more subject to error, but
more audacious and more powerful, of which police officers and
examining magistrates make use when they are trying to bring out a
truth in the midst of disagreeing witnesses, a part at least of whom
have an interest in hiding that truth.
In accordance with these reflections, I cannot say that I am convinced
of the reality of the things which are comprised under the ill-chosen
name of Spiritualism. But neither do I believe in our right to deny
everything; for, in order to have a good basis for denial, it is not
sufficient to _suspect_ fraud, it is necessary to _prove it_. These
experiments, which I have found very unsatisfactory, other
experimenters of great confidence and of established reputation have
been able to make in more favorable circumstances. I have not enough
presumption to oppose a dogmatic and unwarranted denial to proofs in
which scientists of great critical ability, such as MM. Crookes,
Wallace, Richet, Oliver Lodge, have found a solid basis of fact and
one worthy their examination, to such an extent that they have given
to it years of study. And we should deceive ourselves if we believed
that men convinced of the truth of Spiritualism are all fanatics.
During the experiments of 1892 I had the pleasure of knowing some of
these men. I was obliged to admire their sincere desire to know the
truth; and I found, in the case of several of them, philosophic ideas
very sensible and very profound, joined to a moral character
altogether worthy of esteem.
That is the reason why it is impossible for me to declare that
Spiritualism is a ridiculous absurdity. I ought, then, to abstain from
pronouncing any opinion whatever: my mental state on this subject may
be defined by the word "agnosticism."
I have read with much attention all that the late Professor Zoellner
has written on this subject. His explanation has a purely material
basis,--that is to say, it is the hypothesis of the objective
existence of a fourth dimension of space, an existence which cannot be
comprised within the scope of our intuition, but the possibility of
which cannot be denied on that ground alone. Once grant the reality of
the experiments which he describes, and it is evident that his theory
of these things is the most ingenious and probable that can be
imagined. According to this theory, mediumistic phenomena would lose
their mystic or mystifying character and would pass into the domain of
ordinary physics and of physiology. They would lead to a very
considerable extension of the sciences, an extension such that their
author would deserve to be placed side by side with Galileo and
Newton. Unfortunately, these experiences of Zoellner were made with a
medium of poor reputation. It is not only the sceptics who doubt the
good faith of M. Slade: it is the Spiritualists themselves. M.
Aksakof, whose authority is very great in similar matters, told me
himself that he had detected him in trickery. You see by this that
these theories of Zoellner lose any support they might have derived
from the exact demonstration of experiment, at the same time that they
remain very beautiful, very ingenious, and quite possible.
Yes, quite possible in spite of everything; in spite of the lack of
success that I had when I tried to reproduce them with Eusapia. On the
day when we shall be enabled to make, with absolute sincerity, _a
single one_ of these experiments, the matter will have made great
progress; from the hands of charlatans it will have passed into those
of physicists and physiologists.
Such is the communication made to me by M. Schiaparelli. I found his
reasoning to be without defect, and it was in a state of mind entirely
analogous to his that I arrived at Monfort-l'Amaury (with all the more
interest because Slade was one of the mediums of whom I was just now
speaking).
Eusapia Paladino was introduced to me. She is a woman of very ordinary
appearance, a brunette, her figure a little under the medium height. She
was forty-three years old, not at all neurotic, rather stout. She was born
on January 21, 1854, in a village of La Pouille; her mother died while
giving birth to the child; her father was assassinated eight years
afterward, in 1862, by brigands of southern Italy. Eusapia Paladino is her
maiden name. She was married at Naples to a merchant of modest means named
Raphael Delgaiz, a citizen of Naples. She manages the petty business of
the shop, is illiterate, does not know how to either read or write,
understands only a little French. I conversed with her, and soon perceived
that she has no theories and does not burden herself by trying to explain
the phenomena produced by her.
The salon in which we are going to conduct our experiments is a room on
the ground floor, rectangular, measuring twenty feet in length by nineteen
in breadth; there are four windows, an outside entrance door and another
in the vestibule.
Before the sitting, I make sure that the large doors and windows are
closely shut by window-blinds with hooks and by wooden blinds on the
inside. The door of the vestibule is simply locked with a key.
In an angle of the salon, at the left of the large entrance door, two
curtains of a light color have been stretched on a rod, joining in the
middle and forming thus a little cabinet. In this cabinet there is a sofa,
and leaning against this a guitar; on one side is a chair, on which have
been placed a music-box and a bell. In the recess of the window which is
included in the cabinet there is a music-rack, upon which has been placed
a plate containing a well-smoothed cake of glazier's putty, and under
which, on the floor, is a huge tray containing a large smoothed cake of
the same. We have prepared these plaques of putty because the annals of
Spiritualism have often shown the imprint of hands and of heads produced
by the unknown beings whom it is our business in this work to investigate.
The large tray weighs about nine pounds.
Why this dark cabinet? The medium declares it is necessary to the
production of the phenomena "that relate to the condensation of fluids."
I should prefer that there should be nothing of the kind. But the
conditions must be accepted, though we must have an exact understanding
about them. Behind the curtain the stillness of the aerial waves is at its
maximum, the light at its minimum. It is curious, strange, infinitely
regrettable that light prohibits certain effects. Undoubtedly, it would
not be either philosophic or scientific to oppose this condition. It is
possible that the radiations, the forces, which act may be the rays of the
invisible end of the spectrum, I have already had occasion to remark, in
the first chapter, that he who would seek to make photographs without a
dark chamber would cloud over his plate and obtain nothing. The man who
would deny the existence of electricity because he had been unable to
obtain a spark in a damp atmosphere would be in error. He who would not
believe in the existence of stars because we only see them at night would
not be very wise. Modern progress in natural philosophy has taught us that
the radiations that impinge on the retina represent only the smallest
fraction of the totality. We can then admit the existence of forces which
do not act in the full light of day. But, in accepting these conditions,
the essential point is not to be their dupe.
Hence, before the seance, I examined carefully the narrow corner of the
room before which the curtain was stretched, and I found nothing except
the objects mentioned above. Nowhere in the room was there any sign
whatever of concealed mechanism, no electric wires or batteries or
anything of the kind, either on the floor or in the walls. Moreover, the
perfect sincerity of M. and Mme. Blech is beyond all suspicion.
Before the seance, Eusapia was undressed and dressed before Mme. Zelma
Blech. Nothing suspicious was found.
The sitting was begun in full light, and I constantly laid stress upon
obtaining the largest number of phenomena we could in the full light of
day. It was only gradually, according as the "spirit" begged for it, that
the light was turned down. But I obtained the concession that the darkness
should never be absolute. At the last limit, when the light had to be
entirely extinguished, it was replaced by one of the red lanterns used by
photographers.
The medium sits _before_ the curtain, turning her back to it. A table is
placed before her,--a kitchen table, made of spruce, weighing about
fifteen pounds. I examined this table and found nothing in it suspicious.
It could be moved about in every direction.
I sit at first on the left of Eusapia, then at her right side. I make sure
as far as possible of her hands, her legs, and her feet, by personal
control. Thus, for example, to begin with, in order to be sure that she
should not lift the table either by her hands or her legs, or her feet, I
take her left hand in my left hand, I place my right open hand upon her
knees, and I place my right foot upon her left foot. Facing me, M.
Guillaume de Fontenay, no more disposed than I to be duped, takes charge
of her right hand and her right foot.
There is full light,--a big kerosene lamp with a wide burner and a light
yellow shade, besides two lighted candles.
At the end of three minutes the table begins to move, balancing itself,
and rising sometimes to the right, sometimes to the left. A minute
afterwards it is _lifted entirely from the floor_, to a height of about
nine inches, and remains there two seconds.
In a second trial, I take the two hands of Eusapia in mine. A notable
levitation is produced, nearly under the same conditions.
We repeat the same experiments thrice, in such a way that five levitations
of the table take place in a quarter of an hour, and for several seconds
the four feet are completely lifted from the floor, to the height of about
nine inches. During one of the levitations the experimenters did not touch
the table at all, but formed the chain above it and in the air; and
Eusapia acted in the same way.
So then it seems that an object can be lifted, in opposition to the law of
gravity, without the contact of the hands which have just been acting upon
it. (Proof already given above, pp. 5-8, 16.)
A round centre table placed at my right comes forward without contact
towards the table, always in full light, be it understood, as if it would
like to climb up on it, and falls down. Nobody has moved aside or
approached the curtain, and no explanation of this movement can be given.
The medium has not yet entered into a trance and continues to take part in
the conversation.
Five raps in the table indicate, according to a convention arranged by the
medium, that the unknown cause asks for less light. This is always
annoying: I have already said what I think of this. The candles are blown
out, the lamp turned down, but the light is strong enough for us to see
very distinctly everything that takes place in the salon. The round table,
which I had lifted and set aside, approaches the table and tries several
times to climb up on it. I lean upon it in order to keep it down, but I
experience an elastic resistance and am unable to do so. The free edge of
the round table places itself on the edge of the rectangular table, but,
hindered by its triangular foot, it does not succeed in clearing itself
sufficiently to climb upon it. Since I am holding the medium, I ascertain
that she makes no effort of the kind that would be needed for this style
of performance.
The curtain swells out and approaches my face. It is at this moment that
the medium falls into a trance. She utters sighs and lamentations and only
speaks now in the third person, saying that she is John King, a psychic
personality who claims to have been her father in another existence and
who calls her "my daughter" (_mia figlia_). This is an auto-suggestion
proving nothing as to the identity of the force.
Five new taps ask for still _less light_, and the lamp is most completely
turned down, but not extinguished. The eyes, growing accustomed to the
clare-obscure, still distinguish pretty well what is taking place.
The curtain swells out again, and I feel that I am touched on the
shoulder, through the stuff of the curtain, as if by a closed fist. The
chair in the cabinet, upon which are placed the music-box and the bell, is
violently shaken, and the objects fall to the floor. The medium asks again
for _less light_, and a red photographic lantern is placed upon the piano,
the light of the lamp being extinguished. The control is rigorously kept
up, the medium agreeing to it with the greatest docility.
For about a minute the music-box plays intermittent airs behind the
curtain, as if it was turned by some hand.
The curtain moves forward again toward me, and a rather strong hand seizes
my arm. I immediately reach forward to seize the hand, but I grasp only
the empty air. I then press the two legs of the medium between mine and I
take her left hand in my right. On the other side, her right hand is
firmly held in the left hand of M. de Fontenay. Then Eusapia brings the
hand of the last named toward my cheek, and imitates upon the cheek, with
the finger of M. de Fontenay, the movement of a little revolving crank or
handle. The music-box, which has one of these handles, _plays at the same
time behind the curtain in perfect synchronism_. The instant that
Eusapia's hand stops, the music stops: all the movements correspond, just
as in the Morse telegraphic system. We all amused ourselves with this. The
thing was tried several times in succession, and every time the movement
of the finger tallied the playing of the music.
I feel several touches in the back and on the side. M. de Fontenay
receives a hard slap on the back that everybody hears. A hand passes
through my hair. The chair of M. de Fontenay is violently pulled, and a
few moments afterwards he cries, "I see the silhouette of a man passing
between M. Flammarion and me, above the table, shutting out the red
light!"
This thing is repeated several times. I do not myself succeed in seeing
this silhouette. I then propose to M. de Fontenay that I take his place,
for, in that case, I should be likely to see it also. I soon distinctly
perceive a dim silhouette passing before the red lantern, but I do not
recognize any precise form. It is only an opaque shadow (the profile of a
man) which advances as far as the light and retires.
In a moment, Eusapia says there is some one behind the curtain. After a
slight pause she adds:
"There is a man by my side, on the right: he has a great soft forked
beard." I ask if I may touch this beard. In fact, while lifting my hand,
I feel a rather soft beard brushing against it.
A block of paper is put on the table with a lead-pencil, with the hope of
getting writing. This pencil is flipped clear across the room. I then take
the block of paper and hold it in the air: it is snatched violently from
me, in spite of all my efforts to retain it. At this moment, M. de
Fontenay, with his back turned to the light, sees a hand (a white hand and
not a shadow), the arm showing as far as the elbow, holding the block of
paper; but all the others declare that they only see the paper shaking in
the air.
I did not see the hand snatch the packet of paper from me; but only a hand
could have been able to seize it with such violence, and this did not
appear to be the hand of the medium, for I held her right hand in my left,
and the paper with arm extended in my right hand, and M. de Fontenay
declared that he did not let go of her left hand.
I was struck several times in the side, touched on the head, and my ear
was smartly pinched. I declare that after several repetitions I had enough
of this ear pinching; but during the whole seance, in spite of my
protestations, somebody kept hitting me.
The little round table, placed outside of the cabinet, at the left of the
medium, approaches the table, climbs clear up on it and lies across it.
The guitar in the cabinet is heard moving about and giving out sounds. The
curtain is puffed out, and the guitar is brought upon the table, resting
upon the shoulder of M. de Fontenay. It is then laid upon the table, the
large end toward the medium. Then it rises and moves over the heads of the
company without touching them. It gives forth several sounds. The
phenomenon lasts about fifteen seconds. It can readily be seen that the
guitar is floating in the air, and the reflection of the red lamp glides
over its shining surface. A rather bright gleam, pear-shaped, is seen on
the ceiling in the other corner of the room.
The medium, who is tired, asks for rest. The candles are lighted. Mme.
Blech returns the objects to their places, ascertains that the cakes of
putty are intact, places the smallest upon the little round table and the
large one upon the chair in the cabinet, behind the medium. The sitting is
resumed by the feeble glimmer of the red lantern.
The medium, whose hands and feet are carefully controlled by M. de
Fontenay and myself, breathes heavily. Above her head the snapping of
fingers is heard. She still pants, groans, and sinks her fingers into my
hand. Three raps are heard. She cries, "It is done" ("_E fatto_"). M. de
Fontenay brings the little dish beneath the light of the red lantern and
discovers the impression of four fingers in the putty, in the position
which they had taken when she gripped my hand.
Seats are taken, the medium asks for rest, and a little light is turned
on.
The sitting is soon resumed as before, by the extremely feeble light of
the red lantern. John is spoken of as if he existed, as if it was he whose
head we perceived in silhouette; he is asked to continue his
manifestations, and to show the impression of his head in the putty, as he
has already several times done. Eusapia replies that it is a difficult
thing and asks us not to think of it for a moment, but to go on speaking.
These suggestions of hers are always disquieting, and we redouble our
attention, though without speaking much. The medium pants, groans,
writhes. The chair in the cabinet on which the putty is placed is heard to
move. The chair comes forward and places itself by the side of the medium,
then it is lifted and placed upon the head of Mme. Z. Blech, while the
tray is lightly placed in the hands of M. Blech, at the other end of the
table. Eusapia cries that she sees before her a head and a bust, and
says, "_E fatto_" ("It is done"). We do not believe her, because M. Blech
has not felt any pressure on the dish. Three violent blows as of a mallet
are struck upon the table. The light is turned on, and a human profile is
found imprinted upon the putty.
Mme. Z. Blech kisses Eusapia upon both cheeks, for the purpose of finding
out whether her face has not some odor (glazier's putty having a very
strong odor of linseed oil which remains for some time upon the fingers).
She discovers nothing abnormal.
This discovery of a "spirit head" in the putty is so astonishing, so
impossible to admit without sufficient verification, that it is really
still more incredible than all the rest. It is not the head of the man
whose profile I perceived, and the beard I felt on my hand is not there.
The imprint has a resemblance to Eusapia's face. If we supposed she
produced it herself, that she was able to bury her nose up to the cheeks
and up to the eyes in that thick putty, we should still have to explain
how that large and heavy tray was transported from the other end of the
table and gently placed in the hands of M. Blech.
The resemblance of the imprint to Eusapia was undeniable. I reproduce both
the print and the portrait of the medium.[21] Every one can assure himself
of it. The simplest thing, evidently, is to suppose the Italian woman
imprinted her face in the putty.
But how?
We are in the dark as to this, or nearly so. I sit at the right hand of
Eusapia, _who rests her head upon my left shoulder_, and whose right hand
I am holding. M. de Fontenay is at her left, and has taken great care not
to let go of the other hand. The tray of putty, weighing nine pounds, has
been placed upon a chair, twenty inches behind the curtain, consequently
behind Eusapia. She cannot touch it without turning around, and we have
her entirely in our power, our feet on hers. Now the chair upon which was
the tray of putty has drawn aside the hangings, or portieres, and moved
forward to a point above the head of the medium, who remained seated and
held down by us; moved itself also over our heads,--the chair to rest upon
the head of my neighbor, Mme. Blech, and the tray to rest softly in the
hands of M. Blech, who is sitting at the end of the table. At this moment
Eusapia rises, declaring that she sees upon the table another table and a
bust, and cries out, "_E fatto_" ("It is done"). It was not at this time,
surely, that she would have been able to place her face upon the cake, for
it was at the other end of the table. Nor was it before this, for it would
have been necessary to take the chair in one hand and the cake with the
other, and she did not stir from her place. The explanation, as can be
seen, is very difficult indeed.
Let us admit, however, that the fact is so extraordinary that a doubt
remains in our mind, because the medium rose from her chair almost at the
critical moment. And yet her face was immediately kissed by Mme. Blech,
who perceived no odor of the putty.
[Illustration: PLATE IV. PLASTER CAST OF IMPRINT MADE IN PUTTY WITHOUT
CONTACT BY THE MEDIUM EUSAPIA PALADINO.]
[Illustration: PLATE V. EUSAPIA PALADINO, SHOWING RESEMBLANCE TO THE
IMPRINT IN PUTTY.]
Dr. Ochorowicz writes as follows apropos of these prints of faces and of
the study which he made of them at Rome:[22]
The imprint of this face was obtained in darkness, yet at a moment
when I held the two hands of Eusapia, while my arms were entirely
around her. Or, rather, it was she who clung to me in such a way that
I had accurate knowledge of the position of all her limbs. Her head
rested against mine, and even with violence. At the moment of the
production of the phenomenon a convulsive trembling shook her whole
body, and the pressure of her head on my temples was so intense that
it hurt me.
At the moment when the strongest convulsion took place, she cried,
"_Ah, che dura!_" ("Oh, how severe!") We at once lighted a candle and
found a print, rather poor in comparison with those which other
experimenters have obtained,--a thing due, perhaps, to the bad quality
of the clay which I used. This clay was placed about twenty inches to
the right of the medium, while her head was inclined to the left. Her
face was not at all soiled by the clay, which was yet so moist as to
leave traces upon the fingers when touched. Moreover, the contact of
her head with mine made me suffer so much that I am absolutely sure it
was not intermitted for a single moment. Eusapia was very happy when
she saw a verification made under conditions in which it was
impossible to suspect her good faith.
I then took the tray of clay, and we passed into the dining-room in
order to better examine the imprint, which I placed on a large table
near a big kerosene lamp. Eusapia, who had fallen into a trance,
remained for some moments standing, her hands resting upon the table,
motionless and as if unconscious. I did not lose sight of her, and she
looked at me without seeing anything. Then, with an uncertain step,
she moved backward toward the door and passed slowly into the chamber
which we had just left. We followed her, observing her all the while,
and leaving the clay behind upon the table. We had already got into
the chamber when, leaning against one of the halves of the double
door, she fixed her eyes upon the tray of clay which had been left
upon the table. The medium was in a very good light: we were separated
from her by a distance of from six to ten feet, and we perceived
distinctly all the details. All of a sudden Eusapia stretched her hand
out abruptly toward the clay, then sank down uttering a groan. We
rushed precipitately towards the table and saw, side by side with the
imprint of the head, a new imprint, very marked, of a hand which had
been thus produced under the very light of the lamp, and which
resembled the hand of Eusapia. I have, myself, obtained head prints a
dozen times, but always rather poor, owing to the quality of the clay,
and often broken while the experiment was going on.
The Chevalier Chiaia, of Naples, who first obtained these fantastic
pictures through the agency of Eusapia, wrote as follows, in this
connection, to Count de Rochas:
I have imprints in boxes of clay weighing anywhere between fifty-five
and sixty-five pounds. I mention the weight in order to let you see
the impossibility of lifting and transporting _with one hand alone_ so
heavy a tray, even upon the supposition that Eusapia might, unknown to
us, free one of her hands. In almost every case, in fact, this tray,
placed upon a chair _three feet behind the medium_, was brought
forward and placed very gently upon the table about which we were
seated. The transfer was made with such nicety that the persons who
formed the chain and held firmly the hands of Eusapia did not hear the
least noise, did not perceive the least rustling. We were forewarned
of the arrival of the tray upon the table by seven taps, which,
according to our conventional arrangement, John struck in the wall to
inform us that we could turn on the light. I did so at once by turning
the cock of the gas-fixture which was suspended above the table. (We
had never completely extinguished it.) We then found the tray upon the
table, and, upon the clay, the imprint which we supposed must have
been made before its transfer, and while it was behind Eusapia, in the
cabinet where John usually materializes and manifests himself.
The totality of these observations (which are very numerous) leads us to
the thought that, in spite of the improbability of the thing, these
imprints are produced at a distance by the medium.
However, some days after the seance at Montfort-l'Amaury I wrote as
follows:
These different manifestations are not to me equally authentic. I am
not sure of all of them, for the phenomena were not all produced
under the same conditions of certainty. I should wish to class the
facts in the following order of decreasing certainty:
1. Levitations of the table.
2. Movements of the round table without contact.
3. Mallet blows.
4. Movements of the curtain.
5. Opaque silhouette passing before the red lamp.
6. Sensation of a beard upon the back of the hand.
7. Touchings.
8. Snatching of the block of paper.
9. Throwing of the lead-pencil.
10. Transference of the round table to the top of the other table.
11. Music from the little box.
12. Transfer of the guitar to a point above the head.
13. Imprints of a hand and of a face.
The first four events, having taken place in full light, are
incontestable. I should put almost in the same rank Nos. 5 and 6. No.
7 may perhaps be due very often to fraud. The last in the list, having
been produced toward the end of the seance, at a time when attention
was necessarily relaxed, and being still more extraordinary than all
the others, I confess that I cannot admit it with certainty, although
I can not understand how it could have been due to fraud. The four
others seem genuine; but I should like to observe them anew; a man
could wager ninety-nine to one hundred that they are true. I was
absolutely sure of them during the seance. But the vividness of the
impressions grows weak, and we have a tendency to listen only to the
voice of plain common sense,--the most reasonable and the most
deceptive of our faculties.
The first impression we get upon the reading of these reports is that
these different manifestations are rather vulgar, altogether banal, and do
not tell us anything about the other world--or about other worlds. Surely
it does not seem probable that any _spiritual being_ would take part in
such performances. For these phenomena are of an absolutely material
class.
On the other hand, however, it is impossible not to recognize the
existence of unknown forces. The simple fact, for example, of the
levitation of a table to a height of six and one-half, eight, sixteen
inches from the floor is not banal at all. It seems to me, speaking for
myself alone, so extraordinary that my opinion is very well expressed when
I say that I do not dare to admit it without having seen it myself, with
my own eyes: I mean that which is called seeing, in full light and under
such conditions that it would be impossible to suspect. While we are very
sure that we have proved it, we are at the same time sure that in such
experiments there emanates from the human body a force that may be
compared with the magnetism of the loadstone, able to act upon wood, upon
matter (somewhat as the loadstone acts upon iron), and counterbalancing
for some moments the action of gravity. From the scientific point of view,
that is a weighty fact in itself. I am absolutely certain that the medium
did not lift that weight of fifteen pounds either by her hands or by her
legs, or by her feet, and, furthermore, no one of the company was able to
do it. The table was lifted by its upper surface. We are, therefore,
certainly in the presence of an unknown force here which emanates from the
persons present, and above all from the medium.
A rather curious observation ought to be made here. Several times during
the course of this seance, and during the levitation of the table, I said,
"There is no spirit." Every time I said this two violent blows of
protestation were struck in the table. I have already remarked that,
generally, we are supposed to admit the Spiritualistic hypothesis and to
ask a spirit to exert himself in order that we may obtain the phenomena.
We have here a psychological matter not without importance. Still, it does
not seem to me, for all that, to prove the real existence of spirits, for
it might happen that this idea was necessary to the concentration of the
forces present and had a purely subjective value. Religious zealots who
believe in the efficacy of prayer are the dupes of their own imagination;
and yet no one can doubt that certain of these petitions appear to have
been granted by a beneficent deity. The Italian or Spanish girl who goes
to beg of the Virgin Mary that she will punish her lover for an infidelity
may be sincere, and never suspects the strangeness of her request. In
dreams we all converse every night with imaginary beings. But there is
something more here: the medium really duplicates herself.
I take the point of view solely of the physicist whose business is to
observe, and I say, whatever may be the explanatory hypothesis you may
adopt, there exists an invisible force derived from the organism of the
medium, and having the power to emerge from him and to act outside of him.
That is the fact: what is the best hypothesis to explain it? 1. Is it the
medium who herself acts, in an unconscious manner, by means of an
invisible force emanating from her? 2. Is it an intelligent cause apart
from her, a soul that has already lived upon this earth, who draws from
the medium a force which it needs in order to act? 3. Is it another kind
of invisible beings? Nothing authorizes us to affirm that there may not
exist, side by side with us, living, invisible forces. There you have
three very different hypotheses, none of which seems to me, as far as my
personal experience goes, to be as yet conclusively proved.
But there certainly emanates from the medium an invisible force; and the
participants, by forming the psychic chain and by uniting their
sympathetic wills, increase this force. This force is not immaterial. It
may be a substance, an agent emitting radiations of wave-lengths which
make no impression on our retina, and which are nevertheless very
powerful. In the absence of light rays it is able to condense itself,
take shape, affect even a certain resemblance to the human body, to act as
do our organs, to violently strike a table, or touch us.
It acts as if it were an independent being. But this independence does not
really exist; for this transitory being is intimately connected with the
organism of the medium, and its apparent existence ceases when the
conditions of its production themselves cease.
While writing these monstrous scientific heresies, I feel very deeply that
it is difficult to accept them. Still, after all, who can trace the limits
of science? We have all learned, especially during the last quarter of a
century, that our knowledge is not a very colossal affair, and that, apart
from astronomy, there is as yet no exact science founded upon absolute
principles. And then, when all is said, there are the _facts_ to be
explained. Doubtless it is easier to deny them. But it is not decent or
civil. He who has merely failed to find what satisfies him has no right to
deny. The best he can do is simply to say, "I know nothing about it."
The fact is that, as yet, we have not elementary data enough to enable us
to characterize these forces; but we ought not to lay the blame upon those
who study them.
To sum up, I believe that I am able to go a little farther than M.
Schiaparelli and affirm the certain existence of unknown forces capable of
moving matter and of counterbalancing the action of gravity. There is a
complex totality, as yet difficult to disentangle, of psychic and physical
forces. But such facts, however extravagant they may appear, are worthy of
coming within the sphere of scientific observation. It is even probable
that they tend powerfully to elucidate the problem (a matter of supreme
importance to us) of the nature of the human soul.
After the end of that seance of the 27th of July, 1897, as I desired to
see again the levitation of a table in full light, the chain was formed
_standing_, the hands lightly placed upon the table. The latter began to
oscillate, then rose up to a height of nine inches from the floor,
remained there several seconds (all the participators remaining on their
feet), and fell heavily back again.[23]
[Illustration: PLATE VI
PHOTOGRAPH OF THE TABLE RESTING ON THE FLOOR.
PHOTOGRAPH OF THE SAME TABLE RAISED TO A HEIGHT OF TWENTY-FIVE
CENTIMETRES. MADE BY M. G. DE FONTENAY.]
M. G. de Fontenay succeeded in getting several photographs by the
magnesium light. I reproduce two of them here (Pl. VI.). There are five
experimenters who are, from left to right, M. Blech, Mme. Z. Blech,
Eusapia, myself, Mlle. Blech. In the first photograph the table rests upon
the floor. In the second it floats in air, coming up as high as the arms,
at a height of about ten inches on the left and eight inches on the right.
I hold my right foot resting upon Eusapia's feet and my right hand upon
her knees. With my left hand I hold her left hand. The hands of all the
others are upon the table. It is therefore altogether impossible for her
to employ any muscular action. This photographic record confirms that of
Pl. I., and it seems to me difficult not to recognize its undeniable
documentary value.[24]
After this seance my most ardent desire was to see the same experiments
reproduced at my own house. In spite of all the care I took with my
observations, several objections can be taken to the absolute certainty of
the phenomena. The most important arises from the existence of the little
dark cabinet. Personally, I was sure of the perfect probity of the
honorable Blech family, and I am unable to accept the idea of any trickery
whatever on the part of any of its members. But the opinion of readers of
the formal report may not be so well assured. It was not _impossible_
that, even unknown to the members of the family, some one, with the
connivance of the medium, glided into the room, favored by the dim light,
and produced the phenomena. An accomplice entirely clothed in black and
walking barefoot would have been able to hold the instruments up in the
air, put them in movement, make the touches, and cause the black mask to
move at the end of a rod, etc.
This objection could be verified or quashed by renewing the experiments at
my house, in a room of my own, where I should be absolutely certain that
no confederate could enter. I should myself arrange the curtain, I should
place the chairs, I should be certain that Eusapia would come alone to my
apartments, she would be asked to undress and dress in the presence of two
lady examiners, and every supposition of fraud alien to her proper
personality would thus be annihilated.
At this epoch (1898) I was preparing, for _l'Annales politiques et
litteraires_, some articles upon psychic phenomena, which, revised and
amplified, afterwards formed my work, _The Unknown_. The eminent and
sympathetic editor of the review showed himself assiduous in examining
with me the best means of realizing this scheme of personal experiences.
Upon our invitation, Eusapia came to Paris to pass the month of November,
1898, and to devote eight soirees especially to us--namely, the 10th,
12th, 14th, 16th, 19th, 21st, 25th, and 28th of November. We had invited
several friends to be present. Each one of these seances was the subject
of a formal report by several of those who were present, notably by MM.
Charles Richet, A. de Rochas, Victorien Sardou, Jules Claretie, Adolphe
Brisson, Rene Baschet, Arthur Levy, Gustave Le Bon, Jules Bois, Gaston
Mery, G. Delanne, G. de Fontenay, G. Armelin, Andre Bloch, etc.
We met in my salon in the avenue de l'Observatoire, in Paris. There were
no special arrangements, except the stretching of two curtains in one
corner, before the angle of two walls, thus forming a kind of triangular
cabinet, the walls about which are there unbroken, without door or window.
The front of the cabinet was closed by these two curtains, reaching from
the ceiling to the floor and meeting in the middle.
It is before this kind of cabinet that the reader will please imagine the
medium to be seated, with a white wooden table (kitchen table) before her.
Behind the curtain, upon the plinth of the projection of a bookcase and
upon a table, we placed a guitar, also a violin, a tambourine, an
accordion, a music-box, cushions, and several small objects, which were to
be shaken, seized, thrown about by the unknown force.
The first result of these seances in Paris, at my house, was absolutely to
establish the fact that the hypothesis of a confederate is inadmissible
and ought to be entirely eliminated. Eusapia acts alone.
The fifth seance led me, moreover, to think that the phenomena take place
(at least a certain number) when the hands of Eusapia are closely held by
two controllers, that it is not generally with her hands that she acts, in
spite of certain possible trickeries; for it would be necessary to admit
(an abominable heresy!) that a third hand could be formed in organic
connection with her body!
Before every seance Eusapia was undressed and dressed again in the
presence of two ladies charged with seeing that she did not hide any
tricking apparatus under her clothes.
It would be a little long to go thoroughly into the details of these eight
sittings, and it would be partly to go over what has already been
described and commented upon in the first chapter, as well as in the
preceding pages. But it will not be uninteresting to give here the
estimate of several of the sitters, by reproducing some of the reports.
I will begin with that of M. Arthur Levy, because he describes very fully
the installation, the impression produced upon him by a medium, and the
greater part of the facts observed.
Report of M. Arthur Levy
(_Seance of November 16_)
That which I am going to relate I saw yesterday at your house. I saw
it with distrust, closely observing all that might have resembled
trickery; and, after I had seen it, I found it so far beyond the
things that we are accustomed to conceive that I still ask myself if I
really saw it. Yet I must confess that I have not been dreaming.
When I arrived at your salon, I found the furniture and all the other
arrangements as usual. On entering, only a single change could be
remarked at the left, where two thick curtains of gray and green rep
concealed a little corner. Eusapia was to perform her wonders before
this kind of alcove. This was the mysterious corner: I examined it
very minutely. It had in it a little round uncovered table, a
tambourine, a violin, an accordion, castanets, and one or two
cushions. After this precautionary visit, I was certain that in this
place at least there was no preparation, and that no communication
with the outside was possible.
I hasten to say that from this moment up to the end of the experiments
we did not leave the room for a single minute, and that, so to speak,
we had our eyes constantly fixed upon this corner, the curtains of
which, however, were always partly open.
Some moments after my examination of the cabinet Eusapia arrives,--the
famous Eusapia. As almost always happens, she looks quite different
from what I had anticipated. Where I had expected to see--I do not
well know why, indeed--a tall thin woman with a fixed look, piercing
eyes, with bony hands, and abrupt movements, agitated by nerves
incessantly trembling under perpetual tension, I find a woman in the
forties, rather plump, with a tranquil air, soft hand, simple in her
manners, and slightly shrinking. Altogether, she has the air of an
excellent woman of the people. Yet two things arrest the attention
when you look at her. First, her large eyes, filled with strange fire,
sparkle in their orbits, or, again, seem filled with swift gleams of
phosphorescent fire, sometimes bluish, sometimes golden. If I did not
fear that the metaphor was too easy when it concerns a Neapolitan
woman, I should say that her eyes appear like the glowing lava fires
of Vesuvius, seen from a distance in a dark night.
The other peculiarity is a mouth with strange contours. We do not know
whether it expresses amusement, suffering, or scorn. These
peculiarities impress themselves on the mind almost simultaneously,
without our knowing on which one to fix the attention. Perhaps we
should find in these features of her face an indication of forces
which are acting in her, and of which she is not altogether the
mistress.
She takes a seat, enters into all the commonplaces of the
conversation, speaking in a gentle, melodious voice, like many women
of her country. She uses a language difficult for herself and not less
difficult for others, for it is neither French nor Italian. She makes
painful efforts to make herself understood, and sometimes does this by
mimicry (or sign-language) and by willing to obtain that which she
wants. However, a persistent irritation of the throat, like a pressure
of blood returning at short intervals, forces her to cough, to ask for
water. I confess that these paroxysms, in which her face became deeply
flushed, caused me great anxiety. Were we going to have the inevitable
indisposition of the rare tenor, on the day when he was to be heard on
the stage? Happily, nothing of the kind took place. It was rather a
sign of the contrary, and seemed like a forerunner of the extreme
excitement which was going to take possession of her on that evening.
In fact, it is very remarkable that from the moment when she put
herself--how shall I say it?--in condition for work, the cough, the
irritation of the throat, completely disappeared.
When her fingers were placed on black wool,--to be frank, upon the
trousers cloth of one of the company,--Eusapia called our attention to
the kind of diaphanous marks made upon them (the fingers), a
distorted, elongated second contour. She tells us that that is a sign
that she is going to be given great power to-day.
While we are talking some one puts a letter-weigher on the table.
Putting her hands down on each side of the letter-weigher, and at a
distance of four inches, she causes the needle to move to No. 35
engraved on the dial plate of the weigher. Eusapia herself asked us to
convince ourselves, by inspection, that she did _not_ have a hair
leading from one hand to the other, and with which she could
fraudulently press upon the tray of the letter-weigher. This little
by-play took place when all the lamps of the salon were fully lighted.
Then commenced the main series of experiments.
We sit around a rectangular table of white wood, the common kitchen
table. There are six of us. Close to the curtains, at one of the
narrow ends of the table, sits Eusapia; at her left, also near the
curtains, is M. Georges Mathieu, an agricultural engineer at the
observatory in Juvisy; next comes my wife; M. Flammarion is at the
other end, facing Eusapia; then Mme. Flammarion; finally myself. I am
thus placed at the right hand of Eusapia, and also against the
curtain. M. Mathieu and myself each hold a hand of the medium resting
upon his knee, and, furthermore, Eusapia places one of her feet upon
ours. Consequently, no movements of her legs or arms can escape our
attention. Note well, therefore, that this woman has the use only of
her head and of her bust, which latter is of course without the use of
the arms, and is in absolute contact with our shoulders.
We rest our hands on the table. In a few moments it begins to
oscillate, stands on one foot, strikes the floor, rears up, rises
wholly into the air,--sometimes twelve inches, sometimes eight inches,
from the ground. Eusapia utters a sharp cry, resembling a cry of joy,
of deliverance; the curtain behind her swells out, and, all inflated
as it is, comes forward upon the table. Other raps are heard in the
table, and simultaneously in the floor at a distance of about ten feet
from us. All this in full light.
Already excited, Eusapia asks in a supplicating voice and broken words
that we lessen the lights. She cannot endure the dazzling glare in her
eyes. She affirms that she is tortured, wants us to hurry; "for," she
adds, "you shall see fine things." After one of us has placed the lamp
on the floor behind the piano, in the corner opposite the place where
we are (at a distance of about twenty-three feet), Eusapia no longer
sees the light and is satisfied; but we can distinguish faces and
hands. Let it not be forgotten that M. Mathieu and I each have a foot
of the medium on ours, and that we are holding her hands and knees,
that we are pressing against her shoulders.
The table is always shaking and makes sudden jolts. Eusapia calls to
us to look. Above her head appears a hand. It is a small hand, like
that of a little girl of fifteen years, the palm forward, the fingers
joined, the thumb projecting. The color of this hand is livid; its
form is not rigid, nor is it fluid; one would say rather that it is
the hand of a big doll stuffed with bran.
When the hand moves back from the brighter light, as it
disappears,--is it an optical illusion?--it seems to lose its shape,
as if the fingers were being broken, beginning with the thumb.
M. Mathieu is violently pushed by a force acting from behind the
curtain. A strong hand presses against him, he says. His chair is also
pushed. Something pulls his hair. While he is complaining of the
violence used upon him, we hear the sound of the tambourine, which is
then quickly thrown upon the table. Next the violin arrives in the
same manner, and we hear its strings sound. I seize the tambourine and
ask the Invisible if he wishes to take it. I feel a hand grasping the
instrument. I am not willing to let it go. A struggle now ensues
between myself and a force which I judge to be considerable. In the
tussle a violent effort pushes the tambourine into my hand, and the
cymbals penetrate the flesh. I feel a sharp pang, and a good deal of
blood flows. I let go of the handle. I just now ascertain, by the
light, that I have a deep gash under the right thumb nearly an inch
long. The table continues to shake, to strike the floor with redoubled
strokes, and the accordion is thrown upon the table. I seize it by
its lower half and ask the Invisible if he can pull it out by the
other end so as to make it play. The curtain comes forward, and the
bellows of the accordion is methodically moved back and forth, its
keys are touched, and several different notes are heard.
Eusapia utters repeated cries, a kind of rattling in the throat. She
writhes nervously, and, as if she were calling for help, cries, "_La
catena! la catena!_" ("The chain! the chain!"). We thereupon form the
chain by taking hold of hands. Then, just as if she was defying some
monster, she turns, with inflamed looks, toward an enormous divan,
which thereupon _marches up to us_. She looks at it with a satanic
smile. Finally she blows upon the divan, which goes immediately back
to its place.
Eusapia, faint and depressed, remains relatively calm. Yet she is
dejected; her breast heaves violently; she lays her head on my
shoulder.
M. Mathieu, tired of the blows which he is constantly receiving, asks
to change places with some one. I agree to this. He changes with Mme.
F., who then sits at the right of Eusapia, while I am at her left.
Mme. F. and I never cease to hold the feet, hands, and knees of the
medium. M. F. sets a water bottle and a glass in the middle of the
table. The latter's brisk, jolting movements overturn the water
bottle, and the water is spilled over its surface. The medium
imperatively requires that the liquid be wiped up; the water upon the
table blinds her, tortures, paralyzes her, she says. M. F. asks the
Invisible if he can pour water into the glass. After some moments the
curtain advances, the carafe is grasped, and the glass seems to be
half full. That takes place several different times.
Mme. F., being no longer able to endure the blows given her through
the curtain, exchanges seats with her husband.
I put my repeating watch upon the table. I ask the Invisible if he can
sound the alarm. (The mechanism of the alarm is very difficult to
understand, delicate to operate, even for me, doing it every day. It
is formed by a little tube cut in two, one half of which glides
smoothly over the other. In reality, there is only a projection of
one-fiftieth of an inch of thickness of tube, upon which it is
necessary to press with the finger-nail and give quite a push in order
to start up the alarm.) In a moment the watch is taken by the
"spirit." We hear the stem-winder turning. The watch comes back upon
the table without having been sounded.
Another request is made for the alarm to sound. The watch is again
taken; the case is heard to open and shut. (Now I cannot open this
case with my hands: I have to pry it open with a tool like a lever.)
The watch comes back once more without having sounded.
I confess that I experienced a disenchantment. I felt that I was going
to doubt the extent of the occult power, which had, nevertheless,
manifested itself very clearly. Why could it not sound the alarm of
this watch? In making my request, had I overstepped the limits of its
powers? Was I going to be the cause of all the well-proved phenomena
of which we have had testimony losing the half of their value? I said
aloud:
"Am I to show how the alarm is operated?"
"No, no!" Eusapia warmly replies, "it will do it."
I will note here that at the moment when I proposed to point out the
mechanism, there passed through my mind the method of pressing upon
the little tube. Immediately the watch was brought back to the table;
and, very distinctly, three separate times, we heard it sound a
quarter to eleven.
Eusapia was evidently very tired; her burning hands seemed to contract
or shrivel; she gasped aloud with heaving breast, her foot kept
quitting mine every moment, scraping the floor and tediously rubbing
along it back and forth. She uttered hoarse panting cries, shrugging
up her shoulders and sneering; the sofa came forward when she looked
at it, then recoiled before her breath; all the instruments were
thrown pell-mell upon the table; the tambourine rose almost to the
height of the ceiling; the cushions took part in the sport,
overturning everything on the table; M. M. was thrown from his chair.
This chair--a heavy dining-room chair of black walnut, with stuffed
seat--rose into the air, came up on the table with a great clatter,
then was pushed off.
Eusapia seems shrunken together and is very much affected. We pity
her. We ask her to stop. "No, no!" she cries. She rises, we with her;
the table leaves the floor, rises to a height of twenty-four inches,
then comes clattering down.
Eusapia sinks prostrated into a chair. We sit there troubled, amazed,
in consternation, with a tense and constricted feeling in the head, as
if the atmosphere were charged with electricity.
With many precautions, M. F. succeeds in calming the agitation of
Eusapia. After about a quarter of an hour she returns to herself. When
the lamps are again lighted, she is seen to be very much changed, her
eye dull, her face apparently diminished to half its usual size. In
her trembling hands she feels the pricking of needles which she asks
us to pull out. Little by little she completely recovers her senses.
She appears to remember nothing, not to comprehend at all our
expressions of wonder. All that is as foreign to her as if she had not
been present at the sitting. She isn't interested in it. So far as she
is concerned, it would seem as if we were speaking of things of which
she had not the faintest idea.
What have we seen? mystery of mysteries!
We took every precaution not to be the dupes of complicity, of fraud.
Superhuman forces acting near us, so near that we heard the very
breathing of a living being,--if living being it were,--such are the
things our eyes took cognizance of for two mortal hours.
And when, on looking back, doubts begin to creep into the mind, we
must conclude that, given the conditions in which we were, the
chicanery necessary to produce such effects would be at least as
phenomenal as the effects themselves.
How shall we name the mystery?
So much for the report of M. Arthur Levy. I have no commentary to make at
present upon these reports of my fellow-experimenters. The essential
thing, it seems to me, is to leave to every one his own exposition and his
personal judgment. I shall proceed in the same way with the other reports
which are to follow. I shall reproduce the principal ones. In spite of
some inevitable repetitions, they will surely be read with extreme
interest, especially when we take into consideration the high intellectual
standing of the observers.
Report of M. Adolphe Brisson.
(_Seance of November 10_)
(There were present at this seance, besides the hosts of the occasion,
M. Prof. Richet, M. and Mme. Ad. Brisson, Mme. Fourton, M. Andre
Bloch, M. Georges Mathieu.)
The following are occurrences which I personally observed with the
greatest care. I did not once cease to hold in my right hand the left
hand of Eusapia or fail to feel that we were in contact. The contact
was only interrupted twice,--at the moment when Dr. Richet felt a
pricking in his arm. Eusapia's hand, making violent movements, escaped
from my grasp; but I seized it again after two or three seconds.
1. After this sitting had begun,--that is, at the end of about ten
minutes,--the table was lifted up away from Eusapia, two of its legs
leaving the floor simultaneously.
2. Five minutes later the curtain swelled out as if it had been
inflated by a strong breeze. My hand, never letting go of that of
Eusapia, pressed gently against the curtain, and I experienced a
resistance, just as if I had pressed against the sail of a ship
bellied out by the wind.
[Illustration]
3. Not only was the curtain puffed out, forming a big pocket, but the
perpendicular edge of the curtain that touched the window moved
automatically aside and drew back as if it were pushed by an invisible
curtain holder, making nearly this kind of a movement.
4. The curtain, inflated anew, took the form of a nose or of an
eagle's beak, projecting above the table about eight or ten inches.
This shape was visible for several seconds.
5. We heard behind the curtain the noise of a chair rolling over the
floor; by a first push it arrived as far as I was; a second push
turned it upside down, its feet in the air, in the position shown. It
was a heavy stuffed chair. Succeeding pushes moved it again, lifted it
up, and made it turn somersaults; it finally came to a standstill
almost in the place where it had fallen over.
[Illustration]
6. We heard the noise of two or three objects falling to the floor (I
mean objects behind the curtain upon the centre-table). The curtain
parted in the middle, and in the dim light the little violin appeared.
Sustained in the air by an invisible hand, it came gently forward
above our table, whence it settled down upon my hand and upon that of
my neighbor on the left.[25]
On two separate occasions the violin rose from the table and at once
fell back again, making a vigorous leap, like a fish flopping upon the
sand. Then it glided down to the floor, where it remained motionless
until the end of the sitting.
7. A new rolling noise was heard behind the curtain. This time it was
the centre-table. A preliminary effort, quite vigorous, enabled it to
rise half-way to the top of our table. By a second effort it got clear
on top and rested upon my fore-arm.
8. Several times I distinctly felt light blows upon my right side, as
if made with the point of a sharp instrument. But the truth compels me
to declare that these blows were no longer given after Eusapia's feet
were held under the table by M. Bloch. I note this correlation of
things without drawing from it any presumption against Eusapia's
loyalty. I have so much the less reason to suspect her in that her
left foot did not leave my right foot during the whole sitting.
Report of M. Victorien Sardou
(_Seance of November 19_)
(There were present at this seance, besides the hosts of the evening,
M. V. Sardou, M. and Mme. Brisson, M. A. de Rochas, M. Prof. Richet,
M. G. de Fontenay, M. Gaston Mery, Mme. Fourton, M. and Mlle. des
Varennes).
I shall only relate here phenomena controlled by myself personally in
the seance of last Saturday. Consequently, I say nothing of the
arrangement of the apartment, of the experimenters, nor of the events
which were first produced in the dark and which all the participants
were able to authenticate,--such as cracking sounds in the table,
levitations, displacements of the table, raps, etc., as well as the
blowing out of the curtain over the table, the bringing on of the
violin, of the tambourine, and so forth.
Eusapia having invited me to take the place at her side which had been
vacated by M. Brisson, I sat down on her left, while you preserved
your place on her right. I took her left hand in my right hand, while
my left hand placed upon the table was in contact with that of my
neighbor, the medium insisting on this several times in order that the
chain might not be broken. Her left foot rested upon my right foot.
All through the experiment I never let go her hand for a single
second. She grasped my hand with a strong pressure, and it followed
her through all her movements. In the same way her foot always kept in
contact with mine. My foot always kept touch with hers in all her foot
scrapings on the floor, her shiftings of place, shrinkings,
twitchings, etc., which never had anything suspicious in them, nor
were they of such a nature as to explain the events which took place
at my side, behind me, around me, and upon me.
In the first place, and in less than a minute after I had been placed
on the left of the medium, the curtain nearest to me was puffed out
and brushed against me, as if impelled by a gust of wind. Then three
times I felt upon my right side a pressure which lasted but for a
moment, yet was very marked. At that moment we were in a very dim
light, yet enough to make the faces and the hands of all who were
present distinctly visible. After Eusapia's violent nervous
contractions, struggles, and energetic pushes (precisely like those
which I had seen in similar cases elsewhere and which only astonish
those who have slightly studied these phenomena), suddenly the curtain
nearest to me was blown forward with an astonishing propulsive power
between Eusapia and me, in the direction of the table, entirely
concealing from me the face of the medium; and the violin, which, with
the tambourine, had, before my introduction, been replaced in the dark
chamber, was hurled to the middle of the table, as if by an invisible
arm. To accomplish this, the arm must have lifted the curtain and
drawn it along with it.
After this the curtain returned to its first position, but not
completely; for it still remained puffed out a little between Eusapia
and me, one of its folds remaining upon the edge of the table at my
side.
Then you took the violin and held it out at such a distance from the
two curtains that it was wholly visible to the company; and you
invited the occult agent to take it.
This was done, the mysterious agent taking it back with him into the
dark closet, with as much good will as he had shown in bringing it on.
The violin then fell upon the floor behind the curtains, or portieres.
One of these which was nearest to me resumed its vertical position,
and for a time I heard upon my right upon the floor behind the
curtains a kind of scrimmage between the violin and the tambourine,
which were displaced, pulled about, and lifted, clashing and
resounding at a great rate; and yet it was impossible to attribute any
of these manifestations to Eusapia, whose foot never moved, but
remained firmly pressed against my own.
A little after, I felt against my right leg, behind the curtain, the
rubbing of a hard body which was trying to climb upon me, and I
thought it was the violin. And so it was, in fact; and, after an
unsuccessful effort to climb higher than my knee, this apparently
living creature fell with a bang upon the floor.
Almost immediately I felt a new pressure upon my right hip, and
mentioned the circumstance. You disengaged your left hand from the
chain, and, turning toward me, twice made in the air the gesture of
the director of an orchestra moving his baton to and fro. And each
time, with perfect precision, I felt upon my side the repercussion of
a blow exactly tallying your gesture, which reached me after the delay
of a second more or less, and which seemed to me to correspond exactly
to the time necessary for the transference of a billiard ball or a
tennis ball from you to me.
Some one, Dr. Richet, I believe, having spoken at that time of strokes
upon the shoulders of the sitters in which the action and shape of a
human hand was very marked, I will mention as a proof of his remark
that I received in succession three blows upon the left shoulder (that
is to say, the one most distant from the curtain and from the medium),
more violent than the preceding ones; and this time the heavy pressure
of the five fingers was very evident. Then a last blow with the flat
of the hand, applied in the small of the back, without hurting me at
all, was strong enough to make me lean forward, in spite of myself,
toward the table.
Some moments after, my chair, moving under me, glided over the floor,
and was shifted in such a way as to leave my back turned a little in
the direction of the dark closet.
I leave to other witnesses the task of telling the results of their
personal observations,--how, for example, the violin, having been
picked up by you from the floor and replaced upon the table, was held
out by Mme. Brisson, as you had already done, and lifted up in the
same way in the sight of all, while I held the left hand of Eusapia,
you her right hand, and with the hand which remained free you pressed
the wrist of her left hand.
Nor do I say anything of a hand-pressure through the opening in the
curtain, having seen nothing of this myself.
But that which I did see very well indeed was the sudden appearance of
three very vivid little lights between my neighbor and myself. They
were promptly extinguished and seemed like a kind of will-o'-the-wisp,
similar to electric sparks coming and going with great rapidity.
In short, I can only repeat here what I have said during the course
of these experiments, "If I had not been convinced forty years ago, I
should be this evening."
Report of M. Jules Claretie.
(_Seance of November 25_)
(There were present at this sitting, in addition to the hosts of the
occasion, M. Jules Claretie and his son, M. Brisson, M. Louis Vignon,
Mme. Fourton, Mme. Gagneur, M. G. Delanne, M. Rene Baschet, M. and
Mme. Basilewska, M. Mairet, photographer.)
I note only the impressions I received after the moment when Eusapia,
who had taken my hand at the time when M. Brisson was still seated by
her, asked me to replace him. I am certain that I did not let go of
Eusapia's hand during all the experiments. Every moment I felt the
pressure of her foot upon mine, the heel being especially perceptible.
I do not believe that I relaxed my fingers for a moment, nor released
the hand that I held. I was struck with the throbbing of the arteries
at the end of Eusapia's fingers: the blood bounded feverishly through
them.
I sat next the curtain. It goes without saying that it was drawn from
right to left or from left to right just as it happened. That which I
can't understand is that it could swell out until it floated over the
table like a sail inflated by the wind.
I felt at first a little light blow on my right side. Then, _through
the curtain_, two fingers seized me and pinched my cheek. The pressure
of the two fingers was evident. A blow more violent than the first hit
me on the right shoulder, as if it came from a hard, square body. My
chair was twice moved and turned, first backward, then forward.