"Absorbing business, isn't it?" said I.
Mrs. Miller invited Mrs. Smiley to stay the remainder of the night and
took her away to bed, leaving us to measure and weigh and surmise. It
seemed absurd--like a dream; and yet there lay the visible, tangible
proofs of the marvel.
"Everything took place within her reach, provided she could have freed
her hands," Miller repeated, as he sat in her chair and studied the
books on the table.
"Miller," said I, with conviction, "_that woman did not lift her wrists
from that chair_!
"I don't see how she did it; but to say she did not, is to admit the
preposterous. I wish she had permitted us to hold her hands."
"I don't know of another psychic in America who would have submitted to
the test we put upon Mrs. Smiley to-night, but 'Mitchell' has assured me
he will go further: he will let us hold her hands and turn on the light.
I feel as if the great mystery were almost within our grasp. By the
ghost of Euclid! I have the conviction at this moment that we are at the
point of proving for ourselves the elongation of the psychic's limbs!
Suppose Flammarion is right? Suppose that the psychic can extend her
arms beyond their normal proportions? You should be ready to give a
year, ten years, to demonstrating a single one of these physical
effects. If I am any judge of character, this little woman is as honest
and as wholesome as Mrs. Miller herself. It isn't this one performance
alone which proves it. It is the implication of a dozen other sittings,
almost as convincing as this, that gives me hope of proving something.
Let us have our next sitting at Cameron's. It is only fair to readmit
them, for we have proven that they had nothing to do with our
performance that first night. Let us ask to be permitted to hold the
hands and feet of the psychic, and also to take a flash-light picture of
the floating cone. We may yet see these ghostly hands in the light of
the lamp."
Miller was shaken. I could see that. He sat like one who has been dealt
a stunning blow.
"I don't believe it--I can't believe it," he repeated.
"Crookes got some photos of 'Katie King,' and I fully believe that Mrs.
Smiley may be developed further. Anyhow, let's test her. Now for a word
of theory. This is the way it all appears to me at this time. She seems
to enter successively three stages of hypnotic sleep. In the first stage
the 'spirits' speak through her own throat--or she impersonates, as Mrs.
Harris did. Her second and deeper sleep permits of the movement of the
cone--'telekinesis,' 'independent slate-writing,' etc. But in this final
deathly trance she has the power of projecting her astral hands,
whatever that may mean, and the production of spirit voices. Perhaps she
has an astral head--"
"I don't believe a word of it! It is all impossible, monstrous!"
"Well, how will you explain this performance? What about the tacks, the
threads, the tapes that bound her? She brought books, shook the table,
touched us--How?"
"I don't know; but there must be some perfectly natural way of
explaining it. There is no place for the supernatural in my world. She
seems a nice, simple little woman, and yet this very simplicity may be a
means of throwing us off our guard. I will give a hundred dollars for
permission to hold her hands while the cone is moving."
"If you do not believe in tacks, will you believe in the touch of your
fingers?"
"If she permits me to hold her and the cone moves I will surrender."
"No, you won't. You think you will, but you won't. Don't deceive
yourself. I've been all through it. You _can't_ believe until some
fundamental change takes place in your mind. You must struggle just as
Richet did."
"Anyhow, let's turn the screws tighter. Let's devise some other plan to
make ourselves doubly certain of her part in the performance."
With this understanding I said good-night, and took my lonely way to my
apartment.
It was deliciously fresh and weirdly still in the street, and as I
looked up at the glowing stars and down the long, empty street my mind
revolted. "Can it be that the good old theory of the permanence of
matter is a gross and childish thing? Do the dead tell tales, after all?
I wish I could believe it. Perhaps old Tontonava was right. Perhaps if
we were all to pray for the happy hunting-grounds at the same moment
and in perfect faith, the lost paradise would return builded by the
simple power of our thought."
Then Richet's moving confession came to me: "It took me twenty years of
patient research to arrive at my present conviction. Nay (to make one
last confession), I am not yet absolutely and irremediably convinced. In
spite of the astounding phenomena which I have witnessed, I have still a
trace of doubt--doubt which is weak, indeed, to-day, but which may,
perchance, be stronger to-morrow. Yet such doubts, if they come, will
not be due so much to any defect in the actual experiment as to the
inexorable strength of prepossession which holds me back from adopting a
conclusion which contravenes the habitual and almost unanimous opinion
of mankind."
V
At this point the sittings, which had begun so interestingly, suddenly
began to fail of results. The power unaccountably weakened. Miller and
several others of the circle believed these failures to be due to the
increased rigidity of the restraint we had imposed upon the medium. The
next "session" was held in Fowler's down-town office, against the
hesitating protest of the psychic, who said: "The atmosphere of the
place is not good." By which she meant that the associations of the
office, with the hurry and worry of business, were in opposition to the
mood necessary for the production of the phenomena.
"The real reason," declared Howard, "is this: we're now getting down to
brass tacks in her business."
This was literally true. At Miller's suggestion a strong tape, perhaps
half an inch wide, had been passed about the psychic's wrist and tied in
a close, square knot, and finally a long brass tack was driven down
through both strands of the tape into the chair-arm. This was in reality
as secure as a handcuff. Nothing happened this night beyond the
movement of the table and some rather weak raps, and we all rose from
our seats worn and disappointed.
When we met the next night in the same place, and adjusted the
ever-tightening bands upon the psychic, she sat helplessly for three
hours. I began to lose confidence in her power to do anything beyond the
ordinary. Howard, Mrs. Quigg, and Miss Brush dropped out before the
sitting was over. Only Brierly and myself met the psychic at the
Camerons' on the following Thursday. Again we sat patiently for long
hours, with only the movement of the table and a drumming upon the top
in response to our requests. Miller now said: "I would like to have one
more sitting in my library, to see if we can duplicate the marvels of
our previous seance."
We did not. The table alone moved, but it did this under absolutely test
conditions. Over each of the psychic's arms a lady's stocking was drawn,
and pinned to her dress at the shoulder. On each hand a luminous
pasteboard star was fastened, and her wrists were tied and tacked, as
before. Again we nailed her dress to the floor and covered her knees
with a newspaper, and Miller and I held threads which were knotted to
her wrists. Nevertheless, under these conditions the table moved while
no one touched it, but always in a line away from the psychic. At the
moment of the sliding of the table I closely watched the luminous stars,
and asserted to the others that her hands did not stir. So that this
movement, though slight, was genuinely telekinetic.
A very curious incident now cut short our sitting. Miller, who thought
the left hand of the psychic was not in place, twitched the string which
he held, and immediately Mrs. Smiley began to twist and sigh, and "Maud"
complained that her mamma had been injured by the jerking of the thread
by Professor Miller, and said that the sitting would have to stop. We
lighted up and found the psychic apparently suffering keenly from a
severe cramp all through her left side, and a good deal of rubbing was
necessary to restore her to anything like a normal condition.
It really seemed like failure for my psychic, and I began to wonder
whether the books really did fly from Miller's shelves. I could not
suspect the gentle little lady of _conscious_ deceit, but with a
knowledge of the wonderful deceptions of somnambulists and hysterics, I
began to doubt. I urged Miller to try one more sitting. He consented,
and we met at Brierly's house. Nothing happened during the first two
hours, and at ten o'clock, or thereabouts, Miller, Brierly, and Fowler
withdrew, leaving me to untie and restore Mrs. Smiley, who was still
apparently in deep sleep.
It was evident that the guides had not released the psychic, and
"Maudie" soon spoke, asking me to put her mamma into a wooden chair, and
to take the cone apart and put the smaller end upon the table. I did as
she requested, and drew the psychic's chair and table together. "Wilbur"
insisted that I tie the psychic as before, but I replied, rather
dejectedly: "Oh no; let things go on as they are."
He insisted, and, with very little faith in the power of the psychic, I
did as I was told. I tied her wrists separately and then together, and,
drawing both ends of the tape into my left hand, I passed them under the
tip of my forefinger in such wise that I could feel any slightest
movement of the psychic's hands. The guides asked me to fasten her
wrists to the chair, but I replied: "I am satisfied."
Again I was brought face to face with the mystery of mediumship. Sitting
thus, with no one present but Mrs. Brierly, a woman to be trusted, the
cone was drummed upon and carried about as if by a human hand. It
touched my cheek at a distance of two feet from Mrs. Smiley's hands, and
"Wilbur's" voice--strong, vital, humorous--came to me, conversing as
readily, as sensibly, as any living flesh-and-blood person, _and all the
time I held to my tapes, carefully noting that no movement, beyond a
slight tremor_, took place in the psychic's arms. Just _before_ each
movement of the cone she shivered convulsively and sighed, but while
the cone moved she was deathly still. Each time as the cone left the
table it seemed to rock to and fro as though a hand were trying to grasp
it, and a moment later it rose with a light spring. My impression
was--my _belief_ at the moment was--that Mrs. Smiley had nothing to do
in any ordinary way with the movement of the horn. If there is any
virtue in a taut tape and my sense of touch, her arms lay like marble
during the precise time the voice was speaking to me. I could detect no
connection between herself and the voice.
"Mitchell" assured me that he approved of every test we were putting
upon "the instrument," and expressed confidence that she would triumph
over Miller. "But the circles have been too often changed," he asserted,
"and the places have not been well chosen. All must be unhurried and
harmonious," he added, and I replied that I had been discouraged, but
that this sitting had given me new interest. "I will be faithful to the
end," I assured him.
"Wilbur" and "Mitchell" were perfectly distinct personalities, and
appeared to confer and act together. I had a sense of nearness to the
solution of the mystery that thrilled me. Here in the circle of my
out-stretched arms the incredible was happening. I held Mrs. Brierly's
hands, and controlled (by means of my tightly stretched tape) the
movements of the psychic, and yet the megaphone was lifted, handled,
used as a mouthpiece by "spirits." I felt that if at the moment I had
been able to turn on a clear light I could have seen _my_ ghostly
visitors. This final hour's experience revived all my confidence in Mrs.
Smiley, and not even another long series of absolute failures could
destroy my faith in her honesty or my belief in her occult powers.
My patience was sorely tried by twelve almost perfectly useless
sittings, during which everybody dropped away but Mr. and Mrs. Fowler,
Dr. Towne, Brierly, and myself. They were not utterly barren sittings,
but the phenomena were repetitious or slight and fugitive.
Mr. and Mrs. Fowler were friends of Brierly, and, like him, avowed
spiritists, but they both lent their best efforts to make the tests
complete and convincing. After trying sittings here and there, we
finally settled upon a series of afternoon sessions in Fowler's own
house. This was the twenty-sixth sitting of the series, and Cameron's
Amateur Psychical Society was practically a memory. I was now going
ahead pretty much on my own lines, but with an eye to catching Miller
and the Camerons at a successful seance before concluding my search.
Mrs. Smiley was in great distress of mind over the failure of her
powers. "I guess I'm no good any more," she said. "I never sit now
without a feeling that perhaps my power is gone forever. This Eastern
climate is so harsh for me, and I long for my own California. If you
will not give up, I will keep trying as long as my guides advise it."
"You have done your part," I said, with intent to console her.
"Please don't give up," she pleaded.
"I am not giving up--on the contrary, I am only beginning to fight," I
assured her, paraphrasing General Grant, or some other obstinate person.
"I recognize the truth of what you complain about, but I am sure that at
Fowler's, in a small, warm, well-aired room, you will feel at home and
be secure of interruption."
Mrs. Fowler, a very sensitive, thoughtful, dark-eyed little lady,
received us at the appointed hour with quiet cordiality, and suggested
that her own room up-stairs would be a comfortable and retired place.
To this I agreed, and we set to work to prepare it for the sitting.
Fowler and I assumed control of the psychic, though Brierly insisted
that, as the house belonged to Fowler, it would be more convincing if he
were not connected with the preparation of the room. "I don't think we
need to consider hair-drawn objections," I retorted.
As before, we placed Mrs. Smiley in an arm-chair at one end of a small
table; as before, we secured her ankles by looping a long tape about
them and nailing the two ends to the floor behind her. Mrs. Fowler
introduced an innovation by _sewing the tape to the sleeves of our
psychic_. This made slipping out of the tape an impossibility, but, to
push security still further, I drove a long brass tack down _through
both tape and doubled sleeve_. Not content even with this, Fowler put a
second tape about each wrist, to add further security and to take off
the strain in case of any unconscious movement. Another tape was carried
across Mrs. Smiley's dress about four inches below her knees, and pinned
there. Next the ends were drawn tight and tied to the back rung of her
chair. By this we intended to prevent any pushing action of the knees.
As a final precaution, we nailed her dress to the floor in front with
three tacks. The small end of the tin cone was then placed on the table
(at the request of the psychic) and the large end deposited upright on
the carpet near Fowler. Some sheets of paper and a pencil were laid upon
the table. Everything movable was entirely out of the psychic's reach.
It was about three o'clock of the afternoon when, after darkening the
windows, we took our seats in a little circle about the table. As usual,
I guarded the psychic's right hand, while Fowler sat at her left.
Brierly and Mrs. Fowler were opposite Mrs. Smiley. The room was lighter
than at any other of our sittings--both on account of the infiltering
light of day, and also because an open grate fire in the north wall
sent forth an occasional flicker of red flame.
We sat for some time discussing Miller and Harris and their attitude
toward the psychic. I remarked:
"To me our failures, some of them at least, have been very instructive,
but the gradual falling away of our members makes evident to me how
unlikely it is that any official commission will ever settle the claims
of spiritualism. As Maxwell has said: 'It is a slow process, and he who
cannot bring himself to plod patiently and to wait uncomplainingly for
hours at a time will not go far.' I confess that the half-heartedness of
our members has disappointed me. I told them at the outset not to expect
entertainment, but they did. It _is_ tiresome to sit night after night
and get nothing for one's pains. It seems foolish and vain, but any real
investigator accepts all these discomforts as part of the game. Failures
are sure to come when the psychic is honest. Only the juggler can
produce the same effects. A medium is not a Leyden-jar nor an Edison
battery; materialization is not precisely a vaudeville 'stunt.'"
"I don't call the last sitting a failure," said Fowler. "The conditions
were strictly test conditions, and yet matter was moved without contact.
Of course, the mere movement of a table, or even of the trumpet, seems
rather tame, as compared with the doings of 'Katie King'; but, after
all, a single genuine case of telekinesis should be of the greatest
value to the physicist; and, as for the psychologist, the fact of your
friend, Mrs. Thomas, becoming entranced by 'Wilbur' was startling
enough, in all conscience."
"I don't think Miller believed in her trance," said I.
"What happened?" asked Brierly, who had not been present at this
particular sitting.
I answered: "Mrs. Thomas, a friend of mine, a very efficient,
clear-brained person, whom, by-the-way, we had asked to come in order to
fully preserve the proprieties, suddenly felt a twitching in her left
hand, which was touching mine. This convulsive movement spread to her
shoulder, until her whole arm began to thresh about like a flail in a
most alarming way. The action became so violent at last that she called
upon me for aid. I found it exceedingly difficult to subdue her
agitation and silence her rebellious limb, but I did finally succeed.
Nor was this all. A few moments later, while helping us in the singing,
my friend suddenly stopped singing and began to laugh in a deep,
guttural fashion, and presently a voice--the voice of a man,
apparently--came from her throat: '_Haw! haw! I've got ye now! I've got
ye now!_' It sounded like 'Wilbur.'"
This seemed to amuse Mrs. Smiley. "It was 'Wilbur,'" she said. "He loves
to jump in and seize upon some one's vocal chords that way. It's a
favorite joke with him."
"What horrible taste!" Mrs. Fowler shudderingly exclaimed.
"Oh, I don't know," remarked Brierly. "It is actually no worse than
having your hand controlled."
"To have a spirit inside of one's throat is a little startling, even to
me," I admitted, sympathetically. "But there was more of this business.
Another member of the circle--a young man--became entranced, and
proceeded to impersonate lost souls, 'earth-bound spirits,' in the
manner of our friend Mrs. Harris, and wailed and wept and moaned in most
grewsome fashion. However, I think Miller considered both of these
performances merely cases of hysteria, induced by the darkness and the
constraint of sitting about the table. And perhaps he was correct."
"Anything a doctor doesn't understand he calls hysteria," put in
Brierly. "I consider these specialists nuisances."
"Well, anyhow, our 'Amateur Spook-spotter Association' seems to have
come to an untimely end," said I, regretfully. "Of the original number,
only Brierly remains. Wouldn't our deserters be chagrined if we should
now proceed to enjoy a really startling session?"
"We will," Mrs. Smiley responded. "I feel the power all about me."
"Good!" cried Fowler. "That is the way you should feel. If you are at
ease, the spirits will do the rest."
"Sit back and rest," I said. "We have plenty of time. You've been too
anxious. Don't worry."
In the mean while, between the sitting at Miller's house and this
present one, I had been reading much on the subject of the trance and of
"the externalization of the fluidic double," of which the Continental
philosophers have much to say. If not convinced, I was at least under
conviction that the liberation of the astral self was possible (if at
all) only in the deepest trance, and I now attempted to discover by
interrogation of Mrs. Smiley precisely what her own conception of the
process was.
"You told me once that you are conscious of leaving your body when in
trance," I said. "Do you always have that sensation?"
"Yes, I almost always have a feeling of floating in the air," she
answered. "It often seems as if I had risen a few feet above and a
little to one side of my material self, to which I am somehow attached.
I can see my body and what goes on around it, and yet, somehow, it all
seems kind of dim, like a dream. It's hard to tell you just what I mean,
but I seem to be in both places at once."
"Do you ever have any perception of a physical connection between
yourself and the sitters?"
She seemed to me to answer this a bit reluctantly. "Yes, I sometimes
feel as though little shining threads went out from me and those in the
circle, and sometimes these threads meet and twine themselves around the
cone or the pencil. This means that I draw power from all my sitters."
This was in accord with the accounts of a "cobwebby feeling" which both
Maxwell and Flammarion had drawn from their mediums. Maxwell makes much
of this curious physical sensation which accompanied certain of M.
Meurice's phenomena. Here also seemed to be an unconscious corroboration
of Albert de Rochas's experiments in the "externalization of motivity,"
as he calls it. The "cobwebby feeling" of the fingers might mean an
actual raying-out of some subtle form of matter. Indeed, M. Meurice,
Maxwell's medium, declared he could see "a sheath of filaments pass from
his fingers to the objects of experimentation."
"Tell us about your journeys into the spirit land," I suggested. "You
sometimes seem to go far away, do you not?"
Her voice became very wistful as she complied. "Yes, sometimes I seem to
go to a far-off, bright world. I don't always want to come back, but
there is a little shining white ribbon that unites my spirit with my
body and holds me fast. Once when I had resolved never to return, that
little band of light began to tug at me, and, although it broke my heart
to leave my children, who were there with me, I yielded, and came back
to life. It was very cheerful and lovely in that land, and I hated to
come back to the cold and cruel earth-plane."
"Can't you tell us about it more particularly?"
"No; it is so different from this plane that I have no words in which to
describe it. All I can say is that it seems glorious and happy and very
light."
Something in her gentle accent excited Fowler's sympathy. "Mrs. Smiley,
you have the blood of the martyrs in you. It takes courage to put one's
self into the hands of a cold-blooded scientist like Miller. Even
Garland, here, has no pity. He's like a hound on the trail of a fawn.
It's all 'material' for him. Now, I am nothing but a mild-mannered
editor. I have all the facts I require concerning the spirit world. I am
busied with trying to make people happy here on this earth. But these
scientific 'sharps' are avid for any fact which sustains the particular
theory they happen to hold. Not one in a hundred will go where the facts
lead. Their investigation is all a process of self-glorification,
wherein each one thinks he must prove all the others liars or
weak-minded in order to exalt himself."
To this I could only reply: "I'm not a scientist, though, I must say, I
sympathize with the scientific method. And as for my treatment of Mrs.
Smiley, I am following exactly the advice of her controls. They assure
me that they will take care of her."
"And so they will," responded the devoted little psychic.
By the closest questioning I had never been able to change a single line
of her simple faith. She was perfectly certain of the spirit world. She
had daily messages from "Wilbur" and her spirit father, partly by
voices, but mainly by intuition. Her children hovered over her while she
slept. "Mitchell" healed her if she were ill. "Maudie" comforted her
loneliest hours. These voices, these hands were an integral part of her
world--as necessary and as dear to her as those of her friends in the
flesh. As she talked on I experienced a keen pang of regret. "Why
disturb her belief in the spirit world?" I asked myself. "Why attempt to
reduce her manifestations to natural magic? To rob her of her conviction
that 'Maudie' is able to come back to her would leave her poor indeed."
However, as the scientist cannot permit pity to hinder his purpose, I
was determined to disassociate the _facts_ of spiritualism from the
_cult_ of spiritualism. I was not concerned with faith or consolation. I
returned to a study of the facts as a part of nature. I was now
observing closely the three levels of sleep into which Mrs. Smiley
seemed to lower herself at will, or upon the suggestion of those in the
circle. I had adopted the theory that in the lighter trance she spoke
unconsciously and wrote automatically. In the second, and deeper,
trance she became the somnambulist possessed of diabolic cleverness,
when, with the higher senses in abeyance, she was able to deceive and to
elude all detection. In the third, or death-like, trance, I was ready to
admit, for the sake of argument, that she was able, as De Rochas and
Maxwell seem to have demonstrated, to exert an unknown form of force
beyond the periphery of the body--that is to say, to move objects at a
distance and to produce voices from the horn.
To prove that she actually left the body would do much to explain the
phenomena, and I was very eager to push toward this demonstration. I had
now been her chief inquisitor for nearly thirty sittings, and had
developed (apparently) the power to throw her into trance almost
instantly. A few moments of monotonous humming, intoned while my hand
rested upon hers, generally sufficed to bring the first stage of her
trance. As we had been sitting for half an hour, I now proceeded to
chant my potent charm, with intent to liberate the "spirits" to their
work.
In a few moments she responded to my suggestion. A nervous tremor, now
expected and now familiar, developed in her hands. This was followed by
a slight, convulsive, straining movement of her arms. Her fingers grew
hot, and seemed to quiver with electric energy. Ten minutes later all
movement ceased. Her temperature abruptly fell. Her breath grew
tranquil, and at last appeared to fail altogether. This was the first
stage of her trance. "Take your hand away, Fowler," I said. "We have
nothing to do now but wait. The psychic is now in the hands of
'Mitchell.'"
Fowler remarked, with some humor: "I can tell by your tone that you're
still unconvinced."
"I'm like the Scotchman--ready for convincement, but I'd like to see the
man who could do it."
After a few minutes' silence Mrs. Fowler asked: "What is the most
conclusive phenomenon you have ever witnessed, Mr. Garland?"
"That's a little difficult to answer," I replied, slowly, "but at the
moment I think the playing of a closed piano, which I once heard, is the
most inexplicable of all my experiments."
"What do you mean by 'the playing of a closed piano'?" queried Brierly.
"I'll tell you about it. It happened during the second sitting I ever
had with Mrs. Smiley. I was lecturing in her home town at the time, and
after the close of my address, and while we were talking together, some
one who was aware of Mrs. Smiley's mediumship suggested: 'Let's go
somewhere and have a sitting.' The plan pleased me, and, after some
banter pro and con, we made up a party of six or eight people, and
adjourned to the home of the chairman of the lecture committee, a
certain Miss Halsey. I want to emphasize the high character of Miss
Halsey, as well as the casual way in which we happened to go to her
rooms, for it puts out of the way all question of collusion. There was
no premeditation in the act, and Miss Halsey, who was the librarian of
the city, and a pronounced disbeliever in spiritistic theories, had
never met Mrs. Smiley before.
"The circle was made up about equally of men and women, all of them
well-known residents of the town. So far as most of the phenomena
resulting from this sitting are concerned, they have very little value,
for they took place in the dark and the medium was not closely guarded.
It was only toward the end of the sitting, which, by-the-way, took place
in Miss Halsey's library and music-room, that the unexpected suddenly
happened, the inexplicable came to pass.
"We were gathered about a long table, with Mrs. Smiley at one end
sandwiched between the editor of the local paper and myself. Behind me,
and just within reach of my hand, stood an upright piano, with its cover
down, but not locked. We had heard drumming on the table for some time,
and writing had apparently taken place on the pads in the middle of the
table. But all this was inconclusive, for the reason that Mrs. Smiley
was not fastened as she is now. I took it all with a pinch of salt. My
mental reservations must have reached the minds of the 'guides,' for
with startling suddenness they left the table and fell upon the top of
the piano. After drumming for some time, the invisible fingers seemed to
drop to the strings beneath, and a treble note was sounded as if plucked
by a strong hand."
"You are sure the piano was closed?"
"I am coming to that. Highly delighted by this immediate response to my
request, I said to the 'forces': 'Can't you demonstrate to us that these
sounds are not accidental or caused by the jarring of cars in the
street? Can't you pluck the bass strings?' Instantly, and with clangor,
the lower strings replied. Thereupon I said: 'Can't you play a tune?' To
this only a confused jangle made answer. I was unable to secure any
orderly succession of notes. 'Can't you keep time while I whistle?' I
insisted, with intent to show that intelligence guided these sounds. The
'spirits' twanged three times in the affirmative, and when I began to
whistle 'Yankee Doodle' the invisible musician kept perfect time,
playing according to my request--now on the treble, now on the bass.
Leaning far back in my chair, I placed my hand upon the lid of the
closed piano, and called out to the others in the circle: 'The lid of
the piano is closed. My hand is upon it. So far as the sense of touch
and hearing are concerned, we have here an action absolutely unaccounted
for by any scientific law.
"This was at the moment absolutely convincing to me, as to the others,
and I promptly reported the case to the American Psychical Society in
Boston. Since then I may say I have had many experiments quite as
convincing, but never a repetition of this peculiar phenomenon. It is
useless to talk about secret wires, or a mouse running up and down the
strings, or any other material explanation of this fact. It took place
precisely as I relate it, and remains a mystery to this day."
Fowler remained very calm. "Crookes saw in a full light an accordion
playing beneath the touch of invisible fingers."
"Yes," I retorted, in protest, "but this action of a closed piano
happened in my presence, under my hand, and there is always so much more
convincing quality in the miracle which happens in one's own house. But,
seriously, that performance on the closed piano remains a profound
mystification to me. If it had happened in the medium's house, or in the
home of some one who knew her, I might have suspected fraud--but it did
not! It happened in the study of one of the most respected women in the
city, a student who did not believe in psychic phenomena. Furthermore,
my own hand was on the lid of the piano. I was so convinced of Mrs.
Smiley's possession of some occult force that I at once wrote to the
society, telling them that a study of her phases would, in my judgment,
be the most important work its directors could engage upon. This is one
of my crack stories, and I wouldn't believe it as related by any one
else. However, you may read my report, which I made at the time, if that
will be of any satisfaction to you."
"Oh, I don't need it," responded Mr. Fowler. "I was merely trying to
find out what your best experiments had been. Have they all been on the
physical plane?"
"They are all on the physical plane--that is to say, on one plane for
me. Any 'spirit manifestation,' so long as we are what we are, must be
an agitation of what we call 'molecules of matter,' and is to that
extent physical. I have no patience with those highfilutin teachers who
speak of matter as though it were ignoble in some way. Matter to me is
as mysterious as spirit."
At this moment a slight movement of the psychic arrested me, and as we
listened the silvery sweet voice of "Maudie" issued from the darkness,
saying: "_Mr. Mitchell wants Mr. Garland to change places with Mr.
Fowler. Be very careful as you move about. Don't joggle mama. It's very
dangerous to her._"
As I rose to comply, "Maude" called out: "_Mr. Mitchell wishes the
threads fastened to mama's wrists. He wants you and Mr. Fowler to hold
them the way you did at Mr. Miller's house._"
Turning up the lights, we tied a strong silk thread to each wrist, and
passed the ends under each arm of the chair. Fowler took one of these
ends while I retained the other. I then called the attention of Brierly
to the fact that the table was seventeen inches from the feet of the
psychic, and that the fastenings were unchanged. When his examination
was completed, the lights were again turned off, and the circuit of
hands restored.
"Maudie" then requested that the pieces of cone be put together and
placed on the floor beside the table. Fowler did this, and drew a chalk
mark about it, numbering it "Position No. 1." Immediately after his
return to his seat the table was strongly pushed away from the psychic.
It moved in impulses, an inch or two at a time, until it was certainly
six or eight inches farther from the psychic.
It is impossible to conceive how this movement without contact takes
place; but, then, what do we know about the action of the magnet on a
pile of iron filings? How can a thought in the brain of man contract a
set of muscles and lift a cannon-ball? At bottom we do not know how the
will, as we call it, crosses the chasm between mind and matter--we don't
even know there is a chasm.
"Do you feel any motion in your thread, Fowler?" I asked.
"Nothing but a faint quiver," he replied.
"Neither do I, and yet the table moved."
"The table is crowding against me!" called Mrs. Fowler, in some
excitement.
The fact that the table moved toward us and directly away from the
psychic was in itself suspicious; but, as a matter of fact, at other
sittings we obtained sidewise movements of the table--generally to the
left. The present experiment did not stand alone. You must remember also
that the table was at this time more than two feet from Mrs. Smiley's
toes, her dress was tacked to the floor, and her ankles controlled by a
tape whose ends were nailed to the floor four feet behind her chair.
"So far as matter can testify, Mrs. Smiley is not concerned in this
movement of the table," I said. "The question is now up to us. Which of
us is doing this?"
"I am not," answered Brierly.
"Nor I," declared Fowler.
"Nor I," chimed in Mrs. Fowler.
At this moment the psychic began to stir again. "Look out!" I called,
warningly. "Let every hand be accounted for. Some new demonstration is
preparing. These periods of suffering are strangely like the pangs of
childbirth. I wonder if, after all, Archdeacon Colley was not in the
right when he asserted that he had seen the miraculous issue of
phantoms. I confess that when I read it first I smiled with the rest,
for his description of the process was not very poetic. He declared that
he saw a white vapor steam from the side of the psychic, like vapor from
a kettle, forming a little cloud, and from this nebulous mass various
phantasms appeared, ranging from a little child to a full-grown man. It
is curious how exactly similar all the reports of this process are.
Crookes speaks of a milky-white vapor which condensed to a form, and
Richet and Maxwell describe it as a sort of condensing process. I have
seen it myself, but could not believe in the evidence of my own eyes.
One can see all kinds of things in the dark."
Peace had again fallen upon our psychic--the peace of exhaustion; as if,
her struggles being over, her flesh-free spirit were at large in the
room. The silence was profound, yet somehow thrilling with potency.
In this hush the megaphone was lifted slightly and dropped, making us
all start. It was as if a feeble hand had tried to manipulate it without
success. "Let us keep test conditions," I urged. "Please do not make a
movement now without warning me of your intentions. Keep the circuit
closed." Here I addressed "Wilbur": "Let's see if you can handle the
cone under strictly test conditions. Come now, lift it! Lift it!" I
repeated the command with intent to concentrate all will-power of both
psychic and sitters upon the thing desired, as Maxwell was accustomed to
do in his experiments with Meurice.
Several times the forces strove to carry out my wishes, but could not.
Twice the horn rose from the carpet, only to fall back helplessly.
Fowler placed it in position each time, marking each new position,
while I took note of the convulsive tremor which swept from time to time
over the psychic. It was exactly as if she were a dynamo generating some
unknown electrical energy, which, after accumulating for a time in her
organism (as in a jar), was discharged along the direction of our will,
and yet I could not detect any marked synchronism of movement between
these impulses and the movement of the horn.
After each fall of the cone she moaned and writhed, _but not till the
hush of death came over her did the horn move_. So intense was the
silence each time that we could hear the slightest breath, the minutest
movement of the tin as it scraped along the rug.
"It is useless to talk of a confederate," I remarked; "it is of no value
to refer this action to the hands of the psychic. We must look to
subtler causes for this phenomenon. Perhaps Maxwell's theory that some
magnetic power is liberated by the contraction of the larger muscles
will account for it, but in no other way."
At last the megaphone soared into the air, passed over our heads, and
dropped gently upon the table. It did not fall with a bang; on the
contrary, it seemed to descend gently--_as if under perfect control of
both hand and eye_. And yet I assert there was nothing to indicate that
the psychic shared in these movements. She lay as still as a corpse.
Nothing but a minute continuous tremor in the thread told that she was
still alive. I was enormously impressed by the silence. The darkness
seemed athrill with mystery--not the mystery of the discarnate soul, but
the mystery of the X-ray. I felt that we were ourselves involved in a
production of each and every one of these movements.
"There is no use attempting to deny this fact," I insisted to the other
sitters. "Either the psychic is able to control that cone by the
exercise of her will over some unknown invisible force, or she has left
her body and is now at work, a sentient entity in the air about us.
There is the same precision in all this which Lombroso observed. It
really seems that the medium has the faculty of using her senses at a
distance. To say that she is handling that cone with her ordinary
physical limbs is absurd. This single inexplicable moving of a mass of
matter from A to B makes the experiments of Crookes and Maxwell very
much more vital to me. I shall reread their books with new interest."
This result should have awed me, but it did not. I felt a deep interest,
of course, but no bewilderment. My mind was perfectly clear and my
senses alert to every sound, every ray of light.
At this moment the psychic again began to twist and turn as if in pain,
and at last the little voice of "Maudie" anxiously asked: "_Is Mr.
Garland going to take a train at seven o'clock?_"
This query convinced me that deep in the subconscious mind of the
psychic lay the knowledge that I had thought of catching this train, and
that a sense of my plan was disturbing her and interfering with our
experiment. To remove the uneasiness, I replied: "No, I am going to
stay; for I think 'Mr. Mitchell' has something very special in store for
me. Tell her not to think of it any more. I am in no hurry. I have no
appointment elsewhere."
To this "Maudie" replied: "_Mr. Mitchell says, 'Thank you'; he will do
the best he can for you. He says go down-stairs now and get your supper.
Leave mama just where she is. He will take care of her._"
As we had been sitting for nearly three hours in a dark close room we
welcomed this suggestion from our thoughtful guide, although it tended
to make the sitting less conclusive. As I followed my hostess down the
stairs I shared her remorseful pity of poor Mrs. Smiley, bound and
helpless in her inquisitorial seat. "Mitchell" did not ask that she be
fed, only that she be covered with a shawl to keep her warm.
"If she is doing this for her own entertainment," I said, "she has
singular tastes. If she is doing it to advance the cause of
spiritualism, she is a noble creature--though a mistaken devotee, in the
eyes of Miller."
Our hostess's uneasiness concerning the psychic made the meal a hurried
one. None of us felt very much like eating, and I could see that Fowler
was disposed to cut corners. "Well, Garland, what do you intend to do
with the facts obtained this afternoon? You have plenty of authority
behind which to shelter yourself. Why not admit the truth? So far as I
am concerned, I am willing to swear that Mrs. Smiley had no actual hand
in the movement of the cone."
To this I replied: "From one point of view, these phenomena are slight;
but considered in the light of the manifestation of a totally new force,
they are tremendous in their implication, and I must be absolutely sure
of them before I assert their truth. The most impressive fact of all is
that every phenomenon we obtain coheres with those obtained by Maxwell,
Crookes, and Flammarion. It will not do to admit the spirit hypothesis,
or grant the objectivity of phantasms, merely because we have proved the
movements of a particle of matter from A to B without a known push or a
pull, for such admission is far-reaching. If Maxwell is right, these
phenomena--even the most complicated of them--are metapsychical, but
perfectly normal. For example, he says: 'A movement without contact was
forthcoming this afternoon. I placed a table upside down on a linen
sheet. M. Meurice and I then put our hands on the sheet, some distance
away from the table. The table turned completely over. The movement was
performed slowly and gently. It was four o'clock in the afternoon, and
the sunlight was streaming in through an open window.' Now here was a
perfectly clear case of telekinesis, with no one present but Dr. Maxwell
and his friend; but the turning over of the table does not imply the
action of spirit hands."
"I don't see why not," responded Mrs. Fowler, "if Dr. Maxwell had
mediumistic power."
"It was Meurice who had the power; but it was a physical power, which
went out from his organism like heat. He was often ill after his
experiments, and felt nausea and a disturbing weakness in the solar
plexus, as though his bodily powers had been seriously drawn upon. I
have felt this myself--or so it seemed; perhaps I imagined it."
Fowler struck in: "But what will you do with materializations such as
Dr. Richet studied at the Villa Carmen in Algiers? What will you do with
the photographs of the spectre of the helmeted soldier which he obtained
under what he declares were test conditions?"
"But were they? That's the point."
"I am willing to trust a man of Richet's wide knowledge and known skill
in experimentation. When he says he saw, touched, and heard the
apparition of a man, I am ready to believe that he had taken quite as
many precautions as his newspaper critics would have done. He saw a
helmeted soldier leave the seance cabinet and walk about. He clasped his
hand, he affirmed, and found it warm and jointed (perfectly real), and
he secured the breath of this phantom in a tube of baryta so
unmistakably that the liquid was chemically changed in accordance with
his test. There are thousands of other well-authenticated cases of
materialization. I have seen scores of them myself. I am only quoting
Richet because I know you believe in his methods."
"I do, indeed; but he may have been deceived, all the same. The failure
of all his experiments in Algiers lay in the fact that he was never able
to nail his psychic down, as we have done. He was the on-looker, after
all--not the experimenter he should have been and wished to be. Really
his photographs of the spirit 'B. B.' have not the weight as evidence of
the physical manifestation, as the phenomena which we have this evening
secured."