IV

If there is any one thing true in these manifestations of "spirit

power," it is that the psychic is the agent for their production.

Actively or passively, consciously or unconsciously, she completes the

formula--her "odic force" is the final chemical which permits

precipitation. Sometimes her will to produce, her wish to serve, hinders

rather than helps. Often when she is most persistent nothing happens.

Sometimes an aching foot or a disturbing thought cuts off all phenomena.

For the best results, apparently, the psychic should be confident, easy

of mind, and not too anxious to please.

I approached this sitting at Miller's house with some fear that it might

end in disappointment to him and be a source of chagrin to Mrs. Smiley.

The house was strange, our attitude intensely critical, and she was very

anxious to succeed. It would be remarkable, indeed, if under these

conditions she were able to meet us half-way. As we walked up the street

together I did my best to reassure her.

"You may trust me fully, Mrs. Smiley," said I; "and Miller, though an

inexorable scientist, is a gentleman. I am sure he will not insist on

any experiment which will injure your health or give you needless pain.

This is but our second sitting, and I, for one, do not expect you to be

at your best."

"I _hope_ we will have good work," she replied, earnestly, "but it is

always harder to sit for tests. Tell me about Mrs. Miller. Is she nice?

Will I like her?"

"She is very gentle and considerate; you will like her at once. I am

sure she will be a help to you."

Her voice was very sincere as she said: "You don't know how anxiously I

watch the make-up of my circle. It isn't because I am afraid of

sceptics; I have no fear of those who do not believe; but each person

brings such diverse influences, and these influences conflict and worry

me, and then nothing takes place. I don't want to disappoint you and

your friends, and that may hinder me."

The Millers occupied a modest little house far up-town, and were

suburban, almost rural, in their manner of living. The chemist himself

met us at the door, and, after greeting us cordially, ushered us into

his library, which was a small room at the back of the hall. I observed

that it had only one door and two windows, rather high up in the east

wall--an excellent place for our sitting.

"So this is the den of inquisition," I began; and turning to Mrs.

Smiley, I added: "I hope you are not chilled by it."

"Not a bit," she answered, cheerily.

As Mrs. Miller, a quiet little woman (not so far removed from Mrs.

Smiley's own type), entered the door and greeted us both, the psychic's

face lighted up with pleasure. This argued well for our experiment.

I could see that Miller had made careful preparation along the lines of

my suggestion. A plain old table was standing lengthwise of the room,

the windows were hung with shawls, and a worn hickory chair stood with

arms wide-spread to seize its victim. After surveying the room, Mrs.

Smiley turned to me with a note of satisfaction in her voice, and said:

"I like this room and this furniture; I feel the right associations

here. The air is full of spirit power."

"I am glad your mind is at ease," said I, "for I am anxious for a very

conclusive sitting. You tell 'Mitchell' that Miller is decidedly worth

converting. I want 'Wilbur' to do his best, for I intend to tighten the

bonds on you to-night."

She fearlessly faced me. "I am in your hands, Mr. Garland; do as you

like. Mr. Mitchell told me this morning that he would yet convince you

of the reality of the spirit world. He is assembling all the forces at

his command, and will certainly do everything in his power."

"I am delighted to get that assurance," I responded.

"You are to sit here," said Miller, indicating the hickory chair, which

he had placed near the north wall.

She took her seat meekly, placing her hands resignedly on the wings of

the chair. "I like this chair," she said, with a smile; "it is so

old-fashioned."

"Now," said I, "I am going to ask Mrs. Miller to fasten this long tape

about your ankles. We mean to take every precaution in order that you

may not involuntarily or subconsciously move your limbs."

Under close scrutiny, Mrs. Miller secured each foot in such wise that

the knots came in the middle of the tape, and to make untying them

absolutely impossible, I drew the two ends of the long ribbon back under

the psychic's chair and tacked them securely to the shelf of a bookcase

about two feet from the hind legs. To loosen them was entirely out of

our victim's power.

Miller then unreeled a spool of silk twist, and this I tied squarely to

the arm of the chair at a point about six feet from the loose end which

I intended to hold. I knotted the silk about the psychic's wrists,

drawing it to a hard knot each time, and gave the spool to Miller, while

retaining the loose end of the thread in my own hands. The psychic

could neither touch the tips of her fingers together nor lift her arms

an inch from the chair. She was as secure as if bound with a rope, but

as an extra precaution I passed the thread beneath the chair-arm and

pulled it taut. "This will enable us to feel the lightest movement of

her hands," I said to Miller, who had copied my device. "Are you

satisfied with the conditions?"

He answered, with some reservation: "They will do. I would like to have

light, but that I suppose is impossible."

"No, not impossible," replied Mrs. Smiley, "but the work is always

weaker in the light; the voices are stronger in the dark."

Mrs. Miller took her seat exactly opposite Mrs. Smiley. I was at her

right. Miller, after turning out the gas, sat opposite me and at the

psychic's left.

At first the room was black as ink, but by degrees I (from my position,

opposite the window) was able to perceive a faint glow of light through

the curtain. Mrs. Smiley's back was near a wall of books, and, the room

being narrow, Miller's chair pretty well filled the space between the

table and the window behind it. The action of a confederate was excluded

by reason of the bolted door. To enter the room by the window was

impossible, for the reason that the slightest noise could be heard and

the least movement of the curtain would admit the light. Barring the

darkness, conditions were all of our own making.

However, we were hardly settled in place when Miller was moved to

further precaution. "Mrs. Smiley, I would like to pin over your dress a

newspaper, so that any slightest movement of your knees or feet could be

heard. Do you object?"

"Not at all," she instantly replied. "I am sure my guides will do

anything they can to meet your wishes. You may nail my dress to the

floor if you wish."

Miller turned on the light, and together we pinned a large, crisp

newspaper over her knees and tacked it securely to the floor in front of

her feet. The corners where the pins were inserted were well out of the

reach of her tethered hands.

Again the lights were lowered, and at my direction Miller placed his

right hand on the psychic's left and touched fingers with Mrs. Miller. I

did the same, thus connecting the circle. In this way we sat quietly

conversing for some time.

"I want to make it quite plain to you," I said to them all, "that I am

trying to follow Crookes's advice, which is to strip away all romance

and all superstitious religious ideas from this subject. I am insisting

on the normal character of these phenomena. Whatever happens to-night,

Mrs. Miller, please do not be alarmed. There is nothing inherently

uncanny or unwholesome in these phenomena. No one knows better than

your husband the essential mystery of the simplest fact.

Materialization, for example, is unusual; but if it happens it cannot be

supernatural. Nothing is supernatural. Am I right, Miller?"

"We explain each mystery by a deeper mystery," he replied.

"All depends upon the point of view. I am interested in these obscure

phases of human life. If they are real they are natural. To me the

spiritistic 'demonstrations' are intensely human and absorbingly

interesting as dramatic material, and yet I hope I am sufficiently the

scientist to be alive to the significance of these telekinetic

happenings, and enough of the realist to remain critical in the midst of

the wildest carnival of the invisible forces."

"Don't you believe in them?" asked Mrs. Miller, with a note of surprise

in her voice.

I replied, cautiously: "I am at this moment convinced of the reality of

_some_ of these phenomena by reason of my own experiments; but leaving

one side my personal investigation, I must believe that Crookes,

Maxwell, and Flammarion are competent witnesses. As to

spiritualism--well, that is another matter."

"But where does all this lead to if not to spiritualism?" asked Mrs.

Miller.

"As to the exact country, no one knows," I answered; "but the best of

our experimenters are agreed that the gate opens upon a new field of

science. These powers seem to be in advance of us and not a survival,

and they may prove of value in the evolution of the race. That is why I

want to enlist men like your husband in the work. Mediumship needs just

such critical attention as his. Nothing like Maxwell or Richet's

thoroughness of method has ever been used by an American physicist, so

far as I know. On the contrary, our leading scientific men seem to have

let the subject severely alone."

"Why?" asked Mrs. Smiley.

"Partly because of inherited prejudice, and partly because of their

allegiance to opposing theories; and finally, I suspect, because they

are connected with institutions that would not sanction such work. You

can imagine how the physical department of a denominational college

would investigate spirit phenomena! It was much the same way in England

during the early part of last century, but they are far in advance of us

now. The first notable step in the right direction was taken--as perhaps

you may know--in 1869, by the Dialectical Society of London, which

appointed a committee to look into the subject of spiritualism, with the

expectation, no doubt, of being able to stop the spread of the delusion.

"The investigations which followed were under the especial charge of

Alfred Russel Wallace; Cromwell Varley, chief of Electrical Engineers

and Telegraphers; and Professor Morgan, president of the Mathematical

Society. This committee, after careful investigation, reported

voluminously to this effect: 'The phenomena exist.... There is a force

capable of moving heavy bodies without material contact, which force is

in some unknown way dependent upon the presence of human beings.'"

"Which was a long way from saying that spiritism was true," remarked

Miller.

"It certainly was sufficiently vague, you would think, to be harmless;

but several of the committee refused to join in even this cautious

report, insisting that the conclusions ought to be verified by some

other scientist. They suggested Sir William Crookes, who was at this

time in the early prime of his life and a renowned chemist--just the man

for the work. This suggestion was acted upon by Crookes a little later,

and his report on this 'psychic force' had a good deal to do with the

formation of the now famous Society for Psychical Research."

"I'd hate to be held responsible for that," said Miller, with humorous

intent--"of all the collections of 'hants' and witches."

"On the Continent scientific observation had already begun. Count Agenor

de Gasparin, of Valleyeres, was one of the first to take up this problem

of telekinesis in the modern spirit. He made a long and complicated

study of table-tipping in 1853, and published his conclusions in two

large volumes in Paris a year later. His experiments were careful and

searching, and drew the line squarely between the supernatural and the

natural. He said, positively, 'The agency is not supernatural; it is

physical, and determined by the will of the sitters,' and may be called

the Charles Darwin of the subject. A year later Professor Marc Thury, of

Geneva, added his testimony. He also said: 'The phenomena exist, and are

mainly due to an unknown fluid, or force, which rushes from the organism

of certain people.' To this force he gave the name 'psyscode.' The

spirit hypothesis, he was inclined to think, was not impossible or even

absurd. He used _absurd_ in the scientific sense, of course."

"It is the most natural thing in the world to me," said Mrs. Smiley. "I

would be desolate without it."

"Some ten years later Flammarion, the renowned French astronomer, began

his studies of these unknown forces, and for a long time fought the

battle alone in France as Sir William Crookes endured the brunt of the

assault in England."

Miller here interposed with a covert sneer in his voice: "Yes, but

Flammarion has always had the reputation of being more of the romancer

than of the astronomer."

"You scientists do him an injustice," I answered, with some heat, "just

as you have all been ignorantly contemptuous of Crookes. I confess I

used to share in some small degree your estimate of Flammarion; but if

you will read his latest book with attention and with candor, you cannot

but be impressed with his wide experience and his patient, persistent

search for the truth. I am persuaded that he has been a genuine pioneer

all along. I cannot see but that he has examined very critically the

scores of psychics who have come under his observation, and his reports

are painstaking and cautious. His work must be considered by every

student of this subject. It won't do to neglect the words of a man who

has seen so much.--But here we go along lines of controversy when we

should be sitting in quiet harmony. Let us defer our discussion until

after our seance. Have patience, and I believe we can duplicate, if not

surpass, the marvellous doings of even Richet and Lombroso. We may be

able some day to take flash-light photographs of the cone while it is

floating in the air."

"Has that ever been done?" asked Mrs. Miller.

"Oh yes; Flammarion secured photos of a table floating in the air. These

pictures show conclusively that the psychic had nothing to do with

it--at least, not in any ordinary way. Richet succeeded in fixing the

apparition of a helmeted soldier on several plates. Crookes photographed

'Katie King' and her medium once or twice, and Fontenay has succeeded

in getting clear-cut images of the 'spirit' hands which play round the

head of Paladino. But it must be confessed that in Crookes's pictures

there is a lack of finality in the negatives. He never succeeded in

getting the faces of both 'Katie' and Miss Cook at the same time--and

Richet's photographs have a made-up look."

Passing abruptly to a low, humming song, I made the attempt to put our

psychic to sleep. In a few minutes her hands became cold and began to

flutter. At last she threw my fingers away as if she found them

scorching hot. Miller's hand was similarly repulsed. She then seemed to

pass into quiet sleep, and I said: "Withdraw a little, Miller, but keep

your silk thread taut."

Almost immediately faint raps came upon the table, and I asked: "Are you

there, 'Mitchell'?"