SUNDRY EXPERIMENTS AND OBSERVATIONS
Abundant testimony as to the existence of a hitherto little explored
psychic realm has doubtless been given in the preceding pages. Mediumistic
phenomena proclaim the existence of unknown forces. It is almost
superfluous to heap up in this place a still greater number of recorded
instances.
However, these facts are so extraordinary, so incomprehensible, so hard to
believe, that a mere increase in the number of cases is not without value,
especially when they are furnished by men of incontestable skill and
learning. The old law proverb _Testis unus, testis nullus_ ("One witness
is no witness") is applicable here. We must not verify once, we must
verify a hundred times, such apparently scientific extravagances, in order
to make sure they are not delusions, but sober facts.
In short, the whole subject is so curious, so strange that the
investigator of these mysteries is never surfeited.
Hence, in addition to what has already been given, I shall select and
present in this place, out of the immense collection of observations which
I have for a long time been making, those which most strike the attention
and give added confirmation to what has preceded.
In addition to the experiments of Crookes, it is fitting to add in this
place those of the great English naturalist, Alfred Russel Wallace, also a
member of the Royal Society of London, President of the English
Anthropological Society, and well known as the scientist, who at the same
time with Darwin (June, 1858), gave to the world the theory of the
variation of species by natural selection.
He himself gives the following account[69] of his studies in this matter
of the mysterious psychic force:
It was in the summer of 1865 that I first witnessed any of the
phenomena of what is called Spiritualism, in the house of a friend,--a
sceptic, a man of science, and a lawyer, with none but members of his
own family present. Sitting at a good-sized round table, with our
hands placed upon it, after a short time slight movements would
commence--not often "turnings" or "tiltings" but a gentle intermittent
movement, like steps, which after a time would bring the table quite
across the room. Slight but distinct tapping sounds were also heard.
The following notes made at the time were intended to describe exactly
what took place:--
"July 22nd, 1865.--Sat with my friend, his wife, and two daughters at
a large loo table, by daylight. In about half an hour some faint
motions were perceived, and some faint taps heard. They gradually
increased; the taps became very distinct, and the table moved
considerably, obliging us all to shift our chairs. Then a curious
vibratory motion of the table commenced, almost like the shivering of
a living animal. I could feel it up to my elbows. These phenomena were
variously repeated for two hours. On trying afterwards, we found the
table could not be voluntarily moved in the same manner without a
great exertion of force, and we could discover no possible way of
producing the taps while our hands were upon the table."
On other occasions we tried the experiment of each person in
succession leaving the table, and found that the phenomena continued
the same as before, both taps and the table movement. Once I requested
one after another to leave the table. The phenomena continued, but, as
the number of sitters diminished, with decreasing vigor, and, just
after the last person had drawn back, leaving me alone at the table,
there were two dull taps or blows, as with a fist on the pillar or
foot of the table, the vibration of which I could feel as well as
hear.
Some time before these observations I had met a gentleman who had told
me of most wonderful phenomena occurring in his own family,--among
them the palpable motion of solid bodies when no person was touching
them or near them; and he had recommended me to go to a public medium
in London (Mrs. Marshall), where I might see things equally wonderful.
Accordingly, in September, 1865, I began a series of visits to Mrs.
Marshall, generally accompanied by a friend,--a good chemist and
mechanic, and of a thoroughly sceptical mind.
1. A small table, on which the hands of four persons were placed
(including my own and Mrs. Marshall's), rose up vertically about a
foot from the floor, and remained suspended for about twenty seconds,
while my friend, who was sitting looking on, could see the lower part
of the table with the feet freely suspended above the floor.
2. While sitting at a large table, with Miss T. on my left and Mr. R.
on my right, a guitar which had been played in Miss T's hand slid down
onto the floor, passed over my feet, and came to Mr. R., against whose
legs it raised itself up till it appeared above the table. I and Mr.
R. were watching it carefully the whole time, and it behaved as if
alive itself, or rather as if a small invisible child were by great
exertions moving it and raising it up. These two phenomena were
witnessed in bright gaslight.
3. A chair, on which a relation of Mr. R's sat, was lifted up with her
on it. Afterwards, when she returned to the table from the piano,
where she had been playing, her chair moved away just as she was going
to sit down. On drawing it up, it moved away again. After this had
happened three times, it became apparently fixed to the floor, so that
she could not raise it. Mr. R. then took hold of it, and found that it
was only by a great exertion he could lift it off the floor. This
sitting took place in broad daylight, on a bright day, and in a room
on the first floor with two windows.
However strange and unreal these few phenomena may seem to readers who
have seen nothing of the kind, I positively affirm that they are
facts which really happened just as I have narrated them, and that
there was no room for any possible trick or deception. In each case,
before we began, we turned up the tables and chairs, and saw that they
were ordinary pieces of furniture, and that there was no connection
between them and the floor, and we placed them where we pleased before
we sat down. Several of the phenomena occurred entirely under our own
hands, and quite disconnected from the "medium." They were as much
realities as the motion of nails towards a magnet, and, it may be
added, not in themselves more improbable or more incomprehensible.
The mental phenomena which most frequently occur are the spelling out
of the names of relatives of persons present, their ages, or any other
particulars about them. They are especially uncertain in their
manifestation, though when they do succeed they are very conclusive to
the persons who witness them. The general opinion of sceptics as to
these phenomena is, that they depend simply on the acuteness and
talent of the medium in hitting on the letters which form the name, by
the manner in which persons dwell upon or hurry over them,--the
ordinary mode of receiving these communications being for the person
interested to go over a printed alphabet, letter by letter, loud taps
indicating the letters which form the required names. I am going to
choose some of our experiments which show how impossible it is to
accept this explanation.
When I first received a communication myself I was particularly
careful to avoid giving any indication, by going with steady
regularity over the letters; yet there was spelt out correctly, first,
the place where my brother died, Para; then his Christian name,
Herbert; and lastly, at my request, the name of the mutual friend who
last saw him, Henry Walter Bates. On this occasion our party of six
visited Mrs. Marshall for the first time, and my name as well as those
of the rest of the party, except one, were unknown to her. That one
was my married sister, whose name was no clue to mine.
On the same occasion a young lady, a connection of Mr. R.'s was told
that a communication was to be made to her. She took the alphabet,
and instead of pointing to the letters one by one, she moved the
pencil smoothly over the lines with the greatest steadiness. I watched
her, and wrote down the letters which the taps indicated. The name
produced was an extraordinary one, the letters being Thomas Doe
Thacker. I thought there must be an error in the latter part; but the
names were Thomas Doe Thacker, the lady's father, every letter being
correct. A number of other names, places, and dates were spelt out on
this occasion with equal accuracy; but I give only these two, because
in these I am _sure_ no clue was given by which the names could have
been guessed by the most preternaturally acute intellect.
On another occasion, I accompanied my sister and a lady who had never
been there before to Mrs. Marshall's, and we had a very curious
illustration of the absurdity of imputing the spelling of names to the
receiver's hesitation and the medium's acuteness. She wished the name
of a particular deceased relative to be spelled out to her, and
pointed to the letters of the alphabet in the usual way, while I wrote
down those indicated. The first three letters were y r n. "Oh!" said
she, "that's nonsense; we had better begin again." Just then an e
came, and, thinking I saw what it was, I said, "Please go on, I
understand it." The whole was then spelt out thus: yrnehkcocffej. The
lady even then did not see it, till I separated it thus: yrneh
kcocffej, or Henry Jeffcock,--the name of the relative she had wanted,
accurately spelt backwards.
Another phenomenon, necessitating the exertion both of force and
intellect, is the following: The table having been previously
examined, a sheet of note paper was marked privately by me, and placed
with a lead-pencil under the centre foot of the table, all present
having their hands upon the table. After a few minutes, taps are
heard, and, on taking up the paper, I find written on it, in a free
hand, "William." On another occasion, a friend from the country--a
total stranger to the medium, and whose name was never
mentioned--accompanied me; and, after receiving what purported to be a
communication from his son, a paper was put under the table, and in a
few minutes there was found written on it "Charley T. Dodd." the
correct name. In these cases it is certain there was no machinery
under the table; and it simply remains to ask if it were possible for
Mrs. Marshall to slip off her boots, seize the pencil and paper with
her toes, and write on it a name she had to guess at, and again put on
her boots without removing her hands from the table, or giving any
indication whatever of her exertions.
It was in November, 1866, that my sister discovered that a lady living
with her had the power of inducing loud and distinct taps and other
curious phenomena; and I now began a series of observations in my own
house, the most important of which I shall briefly narrate.
When we sat at a large loo table without a cloth, with all our hands
upon it, the taps would generally commence in a few minutes. They
sound as if made on the under side of the leaf of the table, in
various parts of it. They change in tone and loudness, from a sound
like that produced by tapping with a needle or a long finger-nail, to
others like blows with a fist or slaps with the fingers of a hand.
Sounds are produced also like scraping with a finger-nail, or like the
rubbing of a damp finger pressed very hard on the table. The rapidity
with which these sounds are produced and are changed is very
remarkable. They will imitate, more or less exactly, sounds which we
make with our fingers above the table; they will keep good time to a
tune whistled by one of the party; they will sometimes, at request,
play a very fair tune themselves, or will follow accurately a hand
tapping a tune upon the table.
Of course, the first impression is that some one's foot is lifting up
the table. To answer this objection, I prepared the table before our
second trial without telling any one, by stretching some thin tissue
paper between the feet an inch or two from the bottom of the pillar,
in such a manner that any attempt to insert the foot must crush or
tear the paper. The table rose up as before, resisted pressure
downwards, as if it was resting on the back of some animal, sunk to
the floor, and in a short time rose again, and then dropped suddenly
down. I now with some anxiety turned up the table, and, to the
surprise of all present, showed them the delicate tissue stretched
across altogether uninjured! Finding that this test was troublesome,
as the paper or threads had to be renewed every time, and were liable
to be broken accidentally before the experiment began, I constructed a
cylinder of hoops and laths, covered with canvas. The table was placed
within this as in a well, and, as it was about eighteen inches high,
it kept the feet and dresses of the ladies away from the table. The
latter rose without the least difficulty, the hands of all the group
being held above it.
A small centre-table suddenly moved up of its own accord to the table
by the side of the medium, as if it had gradually got within the
sphere of a strong attractive force. Afterwards, at our request, it
was thrown down on the floor without any person touching it, and it
then moved about in a strange life-like manner, as if seeking some
means of getting up again, turning its claws first on one side and
then on the other. On another occasion, a very large leather arm-chair
which stood at least four or five feet from the medium, suddenly
wheeled up to her, after a few slight preliminary movements. It is, of
course, easy to say that what I relate is impossible. I maintain that
it is accurately true; and that no man, whatever be his attainments,
has such an exhaustive knowledge of the powers of nature as to justify
him in using the word "impossible" with regard to facts which I and
many others have repeatedly witnessed.
We evidently have here facts similar to those which I observed in my
experiments with Eusapia and with other mediums.
Alfred Russel Wallace continues his account by the citation of cases
analogous to those which have been described in this work; then sums up
the experiments of Crookes, of Varley, Morgan, and other English
scientists; does me the honor of citing my letter to the Dialectical
Society which I have printed above; passes in review the history of
Spiritualism, and declares that (1) _the facts are incontestable_, and
that (2), in his opinion, the best explanatory hypothesis is that of
_spirits_, or _the souls of the disembodied_--the theory of "the
unconscious" being _evidently inadequate_.
Such is also the opinion of the electrician Cromwell Varley. Neither he
nor Wallace believes that there is anything supernatural in the phenomena.
Discarnate spirits are in nature, as well as the incarnate. "The
triviality of the communications ought not to astonish us, if we consider
the myriads of trivial and fantastic human beings who every day become
ghosts and are the same beings the day after their death that they were
the day before."
Professor Morgan, the brilliant author of the _Budget of Paradoxes_ (an
excellent piece of work, and highly complimented by the London _Athenaeum_,
in 1865), expresses the same opinion in his work on _Mind_ (1863). Not
only does he think that the facts are incontestable, but he also believes
that the hypothesis that explains the facts by intelligences exterior to
ourselves is the only satisfying one. He relates, among other things,
that, in one of the seances attended by him, a friend of his (a very
sceptical person), was making a little fun of the spirits, whereupon,
while they were all standing (a dozen experimenters of them) around the
dining room table, and forming the chain above it, _without contact_, the
heavy table began to move of its own accord, and, dragging along the whole
group, made a rush at the sceptic, and pinned him against the back of the
sofa, until he cried "Hold! enough!"
Still, does that constitute proof of an independent spirit? Was it not an
expression of the collective thought of the company? And, likewise, in the
experience which Wallace has just cited, were not the dictated names
latent in the brain of the questioner? And was not the little
centre-table, in its climbings acting under the physical and pyschical
influences of the medium?
Whatever may be the explanatory hypothesis, the FACTS are undeniable.
We have here, before all, a group of substantial English scientists of
the first rank, in whose opinion the denial of the phenomena is a sort of
madness.
French scientists are a little more belated than their neighbors.
Nevertheless, I have already called attention to some of them during the
course of this work. I should have taken pleasure in adding the names of
the lamented Pierre Curie and of Professor d'Arsonval, if they had
published the experiments they made with Eusapia during July, 1905, and
March and April, 1906, at the General Institute of Psychology.
Among the most judicious of experimenters in psychical phenomena I ought
also to mention M. J. Maxwell, a doctor of medicine and (a very different
function) advocate-general at the Court of Appeals in Bordeaux.
The reader may have already noticed (p. 173) the part which this
investigator, at once a magistrate and a scientist, took in the
experiments made at l'Agnelas in 1895. Eusapia is not the only medium with
whom he studied, and his acquaintance with our subject is supported by the
best of documentary evidence.
It is fitting that I present to the reader at this point the most
characteristic facts and the essential conclusions set forth in his
work.[70]
The author has made a special examinations of _raps_.
_Raps (coups frappes)._--The contact of hands is not necessary to
obtain raps. With certain mediums I have very readily obtained them
without contact.
When one has succeeded in obtaining raps with contact, one of the
surest means of continuing to thus obtain them, is to keep the hands
resting on the table for a certain time, then to lift them _very
slowly_, keeping the palms turned downward toward the table, the
fingers loosely opened, but not held stiffly. It rarely happens under
such circumstances, that the raps do not continue to make themselves
heard, at least for some time. I need not add that the experimenters
should not only avoid touching the table with their hands, but even
with any other part of their bodies, or their clothes. The contact of
garments with the table may be sufficient to produce raps which have
in them nothing supernormal. It is necessary therefore to exercise
great care that the dresses of ladies do not come in contact with the
legs of the table. When the necessary precautions are used, the raps
sound in a very convincing way.
In the case of certain mediums, the energy set free is powerful enough
to act at a distance. I once happened to hear raps upon a table which
was almost six feet from the medium. We had had a very short sitting
and had left the table. I was reclining in an easy-chair; the medium,
standing, was conversing with me, when a series of raps was made upon
the table which we had just left. It was broad daylight in midsummer,
about five o'clock in the evening. The raps were forcible and lasted
for several minutes.
I have often observed facts of this kind. I happened once, while
travelling, to meet an interesting medium. He did not allow me to use
his name, but I may say that he is an honorable man, well informed,
occupying an official position. I obtained with him lively raps in
restaurants and in railway lunch counters. He did not suspect that he
possessed this latent faculty before he had experimented with me. To
have observed the raps produced under these conditions would have been
sufficient to convince anyone of their authenticity. The unusual noise
made by these raps attracted the attention of persons present and gave
us much annoyance. The result surpassed our expectations. It is to be
noted that the more we were confused with the noise made by our raps,
the more frequent they became. One would have said that some waggish
creature was producing them and amusing himself with our
embarrassment.
I also obtained fine raps upon the floors of museums before the
pictures of the old masters. The most common are those made, with
contact, upon the table or upon the floor; next, those made at a
distance upon various articles of furniture.
More rarely, I have heard them on the garments of the sitters or of
the medium, or upon the coverings of pieces of furniture. I have heard
them on sheets of paper laid on the experiment-table, in books, in
walls, in tambourines, in small wooden objects, especially in a
planchette used for automatic writing. I noticed very curious raps in
the case of a writing-medium. When she had automatic writing, the raps
were produced with extreme rapidity at the end of her pencil; but, the
pencil itself did not tap the table. Several times and very carefully
I put my hand on the end of the pencil opposite the point, without the
latter leaving for a single moment the paper on the table: the raps
sounded in the wood, not on the paper. In this case, of course, the
medium held the pencil.
The raps occur even when I place my finger on the upper end of the
pencil and when I press its point against the paper. You feel the
pencil vibrating, but it is not displaced. Inasmuch as these raps are
very resonant, I calculated that it would be necessary to give a
pretty strong blow in order to produce them artificially. The
necessary movement requires a lifting of the point from two to five
millimeters, according to the intensity of the raps. Now the point
does not seem to be displaced. Furthermore, when the writing is going
on, these raps take place with great rapidity, and the examination of
the writing does not show any place where a stop occurred. The text is
continuous, no trace of tapping is perceptible in it, no thickening of
the strokes can be perceived. Observations made under such conditions
seem to me to exclude the possibility of fraud.
I have observed that these raps occur, without apparent cause, as far
as nine feet from the medium. They manifest themselves as the
expression of an activity and of a will distinct from those of the
observers. Such is the _appearance_ of the phenomenon. A curious fact
results from all this, that not only do the raps occur as the product
of an intelligent action, but they also usually agree to perform as
often as asked, and to produce definite rhythms, for example, certain
airs. In like manner they imitate the raps made by the experimenters,
upon demand of the latter.
The different raps frequently respond to each other, and it is one of
the prettiest experiments in which one can take part to hear these
blows, now slight and muffled, now sharp and abrupt, or again soft and
gentle, sounding simultaneously upon the table, the floor, and the
frame-work and coverings of the furniture.
I had the good fortune to be able to study these curious rappings at
close range, and I believe I have reached certain conclusions. The
first, and the best attested, is that the raps are closely connected
with the muscular movements of the sitters. I will sum up my
observations on this point as follows:
1. Every muscular movement, even a feeble one, is generally followed
by a rap.
2. The intensity of the raps did not seem to me to be proportional to
the muscular movement made.
3. The intensity of the raps did not seem to me to vary in proportion
to their distance from the medium.
The following are the facts upon which my conclusions rest:
I frequently observed that when we had raps that were feeble and
occurred only at intervals, an excellent means of producing them was
to form the chain upon the table, the hands resting upon it, and the
observers putting their fingers in light contact. One of them, without
breaking the chain (a feat he accomplished by holding in the same hand
the right hand of his neighbor on the left and the left hand of his
neighbor on the right) moved his released hand in circular sweeps or
passes over the table, at the level of the circle formed by the opened
hands of the observers. After having made this movement four or five
times, always in the same direction,--that is to say, after having
thus traced four or five circles over the table, the experimenter
brought his hand over toward the centre at a variable height and moved
it down towards the table. Then he abruptly arrested this movement at
a distance of seven or eight inches from the top. The abrupt stoppage
of his hand was tallied by a rap in the wood. It is an exceptional
case when this process does not yield taps,--that is to say, when
there is a medium in the circle capable, even feebly, of producing
them.
The same experiment can be made without touching the table, but
forming around it a kind of closed chain. One of the operators then
acts as in the preceding case.
I have no need to recall to the minds of my readers that with certain
mediums, raps are produced without any movement being made. Almost all
mediums can obtain them in this way by keeping perfectly quiet and
having patience. But one would say that the execution of the movement
acts as a determining cause. It seems as if the accumulated energy
received a kind of stimulus.
_Levitations._--One day we improvised an experiment in the afternoon,
and I remember that I observed a very interesting levitation made
under these circumstances. It was about five o'clock in the evening
(at any rate it was broad daylight), in the salon at l'Agnelas. We
took our places about the table, _standing_. Eusapia took the hand of
one of us and placed it on the corner of the table, at her right. The
table thereupon rose up to the height of our foreheads; that is to
say, the top of the table rose at least as high as five feet above the
floor.
Such experiments were very convincing, for it was impossible for
Eusapia, the circumstances being such as they were, to lift the table
by a normal act. It is enough to suppose that she merely touched the
corner of the table, to find out how heavy a weight she would have had
to lift if she had made a muscular movement. Besides, she had not a
sufficient grip on the table to lift it. Evidently, the conditions of
the experiment being such, she could not make use of one of the
fraudulent processes mentioned by her critics, such as straps or hooks
of any kind. The phenomenon is undeniably authentic.
The breathing seems to have a very great influence. In the way things
take place, it seems as if the sitters released, by breathing, an
amount of motor energy comparable to that which they release when
rapidly moving their limbs. There is something in this very curious
and difficult to explain.
The more complete analysis of the facts allows us to think that the
liberation of the energy employed depends upon the contraction of the
muscles and not upon the movement made. The thing which reveals this
peculiarity is easy to observe. When we are forming the chain about
the table, we can set up a movement without contact by mutually
pressing our hands together with a certain force, or by pressing the
feet hard upon the floor. The first of these means is much the better
of the two. The arms have only made an insignificant movement, and one
can say that the muscular contraction is almost the only physiological
phenomenon observable. Yet it suffices.
All these authenticated experiments tend to show that the agent which
determines movements without contact has some connection with our
organism, and probably with our nervous system.
_Conditions of the Experiments._--We must never lose out of our sight
the relative importance of the moral and intellectual status of the
group of experimenters. That is one of the most difficult things to
seize and comprehend. But when the force is abundant, the simple
manifestation of the will is sometimes able to determine the movement.
For example, upon a desire to that affect being expressed by the
sitters, the table moves in the way it is requested to do. The
phenomena occur as if this force were guided by an Intelligence
distinct from that of the experimenters. I hasten to say that I regard
that only as a probability, and that I think I have observed a certain
resemblance between these personifications and the secondary
personalities of somnambulists.
In this apparent bond between the _indirect_ will of the sitters and
the phenomena there is a problem the solution of which has so far
completely escaped me. I suspect that this bond has nothing
supernatural about it and I realize that the Spiritualistic hypothesis
is a poorer explanation and inadequate to meet the facts; but I cannot
formulate any satisfactory explanation.
Close observations of the relations existing between the phenomena and
the will of the sitters brings out other discoveries also. I mean, in
the first place, the bad affect which disagreement among the
experimenters produces. It sometimes happens that one of them
expresses the desire to perceive a certain phenomenon. If the thing is
slow in taking place, the same experimenter, or another one, will ask
for a different spectacle. Sometimes different sitters will ask for
several contradictory things at the same time. The confusion which
reigns in the collective thought manifests itself in the phenomena,
which themselves become confused and vague.[71]
However, things do not happen absolutely as if the phenomena were
directed by a will which is only the shadow or the reflex of that of
the sitters. It sometimes happens that they show great independence,
and flatly refuse to yield to the desires expressed.
_Forms and Phantoms._--At Bordeaux, in 1897, the room where we held
our sittings was lighted by a very large window. The outside Venetian
blinds of this window were closed; but when the gas was lighted in a
little building which formed an adjunct to the kitchen, in the corner
of the court near the garden, a feeble light penetrated the room and
dimly illuminated the window panes. The window itself formed in this
way a bright background upon which certain dark forms were perceived
by a part of the experimenters. We all saw these forms, or rather this
form, for it was always the same one that appeared,--a long bearded
profile, with a very high arched nose. This apparition said it was
head of John, a personification who always appears with Eusapia.[72]
This is a very extraordinary phenomenon. The first idea which presents
itself to the mind is that this is a case of collective hallucination.
But the care with which we observed this curious phenomenon--and, it
seems needless for me to add, the calmness with which we
experimented--renders this hypothesis very unlikely.
The supposition of fraud is still less admissible. The head, which we
saw was of life size, measuring say sixteen inches from the forehead
to the end of the beard. It is impossible to understand how Eusapia
could have hidden in her pockets or under her clothes any kind of a
cardboard profile. Nor can one understand any better how, unknown to
us, she could have taken out this paper figure, mounted it upon a
stick, or upon a wire, and so operated with it. Eusapia had not gone
into a trance: she herself sometimes saw the profile which appeared,
and, thoroughly awake and conscious, took pleasure in assisting in the
phenomena which she was producing. The feeble light which the
illumined window shed was sufficient to enable us to see her hands
being carefully held by the controllers on the right and on the left.
It would have been impossible for her to manipulate these objects. In
fact, however, the profile observed seemed to form at the top of the
cabinet, at the height of about three and a half feet above Eusapia's
head. It descended rather slowly and so took its place above and in
front of her. Then at the end of some seconds it disappeared, only to
reappear some time afterwards in the same circumstances. Every time,
we carefully assured ourselves of the relative immobility of the hand
and arms of the medium. Hence I regard the prodigy which I am relating
as one of the most certain I ever verified, so incompatible was the
hypothesis of fraud with the conditions under which we observed.
I am persuaded that these facts will one day (soon perhaps) receive
the stamp of scientific approval as subjects of study. They will do
this in spite of the obstacles which obstinate infatuation and the
fear of ridicule pile in the way.
The intolerance of certain beings matches that of certain dogmas.
Catholicism, for example, considers psychic phenomena as the work of
the Devil. Is it worth while at the present time to combat such a
theory? I do not think it is.
But this question is foreign to the psychic facts themselves. So far
as my experience permits me to judge, these phenomena are entirely
natural. The Devil does not show his claws in them. If the tables
should announce that they were Satan himself, there would be nothing
on the face of things which would lead us to believe they were
speaking the truth. If called on to prove his power, this
grandiloquent Satan would turn out, I fear, to be a sorry
thaumaturgist. The religious prejudice which proscribes these
experiments as supernatural is as little justified as the scientific
prejudice which only sees in them fraud and imposture. Here again the
old adage of Aristotle finds its application: Equity lies between the
two extremes of opinion.
It is evident that these experiments of Dr. Maxwell are in accord with all
the preceding ones. The results ascertained mutually confirm each other.
Apropos of mediums who produce physical or material effects, I should also
like to mention here the one who was very specially examined at Paris, in
1902, by a group of men composed in large part of former pupils of the
Polytechnic School. They held a dozen seances in July and August. This
group was composed of MM. A. de Rochas, Taton, Lemerle, Bacle, de
Fontenay, and Dariex. The medium was Auguste Politi, of Rome. He was
forty-seven years old.
Several very remarkable table-levitations were observed and photographed
by these gentlemen during their sittings. I reproduce here (Pl. XIII) one
of these photographs, taken by M. de Fontenay which he kindly allows me to
use. It is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful that has been obtained,
and one of the most striking. All the hands that form the chain are
carefully held away from the table. It seems to me that not to recognize
the value of this photograph as a record would be to deny the evidence
itself. It was taken instantaneously by a flash of magnesium light. The
eyes of the medium had been bandaged, that the light might not give him a
nervous shock.
This same medium was studied at Rome, in February, 1904, by a group
composed of Professor Milesi, of the University of Rome, M. Joseph
Squanquarillo, Mr. and Mrs. Franklin Simmons (American travellers passing
through Rome), and M. and Mme. Cartoni.
[Illustration: PLATE XIII. INSTANTANEOUS PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN BY M. DE
FONTENAY OF TABLE LEVITATION PRODUCED BY THE MEDIUM AUGUSTE POLITI.]
They declare that they heard scales very well executed upon the piano
(which was an upright one), at quite a distance from the sitters; yet none
of the sitters knew how to play on the piano, while Professor Milesi's
deceased sister, who was called upon to manifest herself, was a very good
pianist.
Another musical phenomenon was produced: A mandolin placed on the lid of
the piano, began of its own accord to play, balancing itself in the air
until it went and fell down (playing all the while) between the hands of
the experimenters who formed the chain.
Later, at intervals, the piano was lifted in its turn, falling back
noisily. It must be remarked that two men scarcely sufficed to lift this
piano, even by one of its sides. After the sitting, it was ascertained
that the instrument had been displaced about a foot and a half.
But here follows a resume of the phenomena observed with this medium.
In every seance, very vigorous raps were obtained in the table around
which were grouped the experimenters and the medium (they together
forming the chain), while the lamp with red light was on the table
itself. "If we wished to produce raps so sharp and strong (says M. C.
Caccia, the reporter of these seances), we had to rap with all our
might on the table with some solid object, while the kind of raps
which were produced in the seances with Politi seemed to issue from
the interior of the table with loud sounds like explosions."
But now the table begins to be shaken. The white curtain of the
cabinet which was behind the medium, at a distance of twenty inches,
swelled out and floated in every direction, as if a violent wind had
inflated it from the other side. We heard a chair moving with a
gliding motion over the floor. It had been placed there before the
beginning of the sitting and was now thrown violently over. During the
course of the fifth sitting it came clear out of the cabinet, in the
presence of everybody, and did not stop until it got near the medium.
These phenomena took place by the red light of a photographic lamp. In
the complete darkness which attended the third seance an extraordinary
thing occurred,--so much the more extraordinary because we had taken
special measures to forestall any attempt at fraud. The medium was
held by two sitters who, being very sceptical, had taken their places
on his right and on his left, and were holding his hands and his feet.
At a certain moment the medium ordered the operators to lift their
hands from the table and not to hinder its movements; above all, not
to break the chain. Whereupon a great uproar was heard in the cabinet.
The medium calls for light, and, to the great amazement of all of us,
we discover that the table, which was rectangular in form and did not
weigh less than thirty-nine pounds, was found turned upside down upon
the floor of the cabinet. The controllers declared that the medium had
not stirred. It is to be remarked:
1. That the table must have been lifted high enough to pass over the
heads of the sitters.
2. That it must have passed above the group forming the chain.
3. That as the opening in the curtains of the cabinet only measured
thirty-seven inches across, and the table, on its shortest side,
thirty inches, there only remained free seven inches for passing
through this opening.
4. That the table must have come forward endwise, then moved around
lengthwise (it was three feet long), and turned upside down, resting
on the floor; that the whole of this difficult manoeuvre was executed
in a few seconds in complete darkness and without any of the sitters
having touched the table in the slightest degree.[73]
Luminous phenomena were also obtained. Lights appeared and disappeared
in the air. Some of them gave the outline of a curve. They did not
show any radiation. In the fifth seance, everybody was able to testify
to the appearance of two luminous crosses, about four inches in
height.
At the last seance, the tambourine fringed with bells, which had been
rubbed with phosphorous, went circling around the whole room, and in
such a way that all its movements could be followed.
During almost all the sittings, mysterious touchings were
noticed,--among others, those produced by an enormous hairy hand!
In the first, fourth and fifth seances there were "materializations."
Prof. Italo Palmarini believed that he recognized his daughter, who
had been dead three years. He felt himself embraced; everybody heard
the sound of a kiss. The same manifestation took place in the fifth
seance. Professor Palmarini believed that he still recognized the
person of his daughter.
At the opening of each seance the medium was searched, and was then
placed _in a kind of big sack_, made to order for this purpose, _and
fastened at the neck, the wrists, and the feet_.
Another medium, the Russian Sambor, was the object of numerous experiments
at St. Petersburg during a period of six years. (1897-1902.) It will be
interesting also to give a summing up in this place of the report about
this man published by M. Petrovo Solovovo.[74]
In the first seances a large folding screen placed behind the medium
was observed to be vigorously shaken. The medium's feet and hands were
carefully held. A table in a neighboring chamber moved of its own
accord. In a metal cone placed on the table, enclosing a bit of paper
and a lead-pencil, and then riveted up, there was found, when it was
unriveted, a ribbon, and a phrase written on the paper in script that
had to be read in a looking-glass (_ecriture en miroir_). Other cases
of the passage of matter through matter were tried, none of which
succeeded. But further on the reports relate the following
experiments:
In the month of February, 1901, one of Sambor's seances took place at
my house, in my study, against the windows of which I had hung
curtains of black calico in such a way that the room was plunged in
the deepest darkness. The medium occupied a place in the chain. Next
to the medium were M. J. Lomatzsch, on his right, myself on his left.
Sambor's hands and feet were faithfully held the whole time in a way
that gave perfect satisfaction.
The phenomena soon began to develop. I do not intend to take the time
here to describe them, but I wish to mention a remarkable case of the
passage of matter through matter.
M. Lomatzsch, controller on the right, declares that someone is
pulling his chair from under him. So, redoubling our attention, we
continue to hold the medium. M. Lomatzsch's chair is soon positively
lifted up, so that he is obliged to stand. Sometime after, he declares
that someone is trying to hang the chair on the hand with which he is
holding Sambor. Then the chair suddenly disappears from the arm of M.
Lomatzsch, and at the same moment I feel a light pressure upon my left
arm (I do not mean the one which was in contact with the medium, but
with my neighbor on the left M. A. Weber); after which I feel that
something heavy is hanging from my arm. When the candle was lighted,
we all saw that _my left arm had been passed through the back of the
chair_. In this way the chair was nicely balanced upon that one of my
arms which was not in contact with Sambor, but with my neighbor on the
left. I had not let go of the hands of my neighbors.
Such an observation as this needs no commentary (says the reporter of this
occurrence, M. Petrovo Solovovo). The fact is simply incomprehensible. I
give here some other phenomena which were observed in May, 1902:
1. A cedar apple, an old copper coin which was found to be a Persian
coin of 1723, and an amateur photographic portrait of a young woman in
mourning unknown to anybody present were found (coming from nobody
knew where, nor in what way), upon the table about which we were
seated.
2. Several different objects in the room were transported to the table
by the mysterious force; such, for example, as a thermometer, which
had been hung on the wall behind the piano at a distance of from
one-half to seven feet from the medium; a large lantern placed upon
the piano somewhere between two and four feet behind the medium;
several piles of music-books which had rested on the same piano; a
framed portrait; and, finally, the candlesconce, the candle, and the
different parts of a candlestick belonging to the piano.
3. Several times a bronze bell placed on the table was lifted into the
air by the mysterious force and noisily rung. On the request of the
sitters it was once carried over to the piano (against which it struck
a sounding blow), and from there again over to the table.
4. Unoccupied chairs had been placed behind the medium. One of them
was several times lifted and placed noisily on the table in the midst
of the sitters, and without having run against any of them. When upon
the table, this chair several times moved about, fell over, and picked
itself up.
5. One of these same chairs was found to be hung by the back upon the
joined hands of the medium and M. de Poggenpohl. Before the beginning
of that part of the seance which witnessed this phenomenon, a strip of
cloth, slipped over the sleeves of the medium, had been several times
tightly twisted around the wrists of M. de Poggenpohl.
6. At the request of the sitters, the mysterious force several times
stopped the playing of the music-box (it stood on the table around
which we were seated), after which it began to play again.
7. A sheet of paper and a lead pencil, placed on the table, were
thrown on the floor, and everybody distinctly heard the pencil moving
over the paper with a heavy pressure and, with a sharp tap, putting a
period at the end of what had been written. After this the pencil was
laid on the table.
8. Five of the experimenters declared that they had been touched by
some mysterious hand.
9. Twice the mysterious force drew sounds from the piano. The first
time, this took place when the lid of the piano was open. The second
time, the sounds were heard after the lid had been _locked with a
key_, the key remaining on the table in the midst of the circle of
experimenters. At first the unknown force began to play a melody on
the high notes, and two or three times produced trills. Then chords on
the bass notes were heard at the same time with the melody, and, when
the piano was playing, the music-box also began to play, both
performances lasting several minutes.
10. During all the phenomena which have just been described, the
medium (Sambor), seemed sunk in a profound trance, and remained almost
motionless. The phenomena were not accompanied by any bustle or
confusion. His hands and his feet were all the time controlled by his
neighbors. M. de Poggenpohl and Loris-Melikow several times saw
something long, black, and slender detaching itself from him during
the phenomena and moving toward the objects.
I will add, in closing (says M. Petrovo Solovovo), that this medium
was accused of cupidity and intemperance. These seances were the last
he gave (he died a few months afterward). But, to tell the truth, I
have a tender spot in my heart for the late M. Sambor. This
Little-Russian, a former telegraph operator, polished and humanized by
the six or seven winters that he had passed in St. Petersburg--can it
be that blind Nature had chosen this man to be the intermediary
between our world and the doubtful Beyond?--or, at least, another
world of beings whose precise nature (begging the pardon of the
spirits) would be an enigma to me, provided I positively believed in
them.
It is with that word "doubt" (alas! is not _doubt_ the most _certain_
result of mediumistic experiments?) that I end this Report.
To this whole series of varied observations and experiments we could still
add many more. In 1905 MM. Charles Richet and Gabriel Delanne held some
famous seances in Algiers. But is not impossible that fraud may have crept
into their experiments, in spite of all the precautions taken by them.
(The photographs of the phantom Bien-Boa have an artificial look.) In
1906, the American medium, Miller, gave in Paris several seances in which
it really seems as if true apparitions were manifested. I cannot say
anything personally about it, not having been present. Among other
experimenters, there were two very competent ones, who studied this
medium; namely, MM. G. Delanne and G. Mery. The first concludes that the
apparitions were what they represented themselves to be (see _Revue
scientifique et morale du spiritisme_); that is to say, the spirits of the
departed. The second, on the other hand, declares in _L'Echo du
Merveilleux_, that, "until there is fuller information, we must be
satisfied with not comprehending."
It is not within the scope of my plan to discuss in this particular place,
"apparitions" or "materializations." We may ask ourselves whether the
fluid which certainly emanates from the medium may not produce a kind of
condensation able to furnish to the most interested observer of the
manifestation the elusive vision of an unreal personality which, besides,
only lasts, as a general thing, for a few seconds. Is it a melange or
combination of fluids? But it is not yet time to make hypotheses.