"Rubbish or not, they all speak of this scar and its singular effects.
At the time when Lombroso saw her first, Eusapia was just beginning to
be known to scientists, but no one of special note had up to this time
(1891) reported upon her. She was known as the wife of a small
shop-keeper in Naples, and seemed a decent, matronly person, quite
untouched by mysticism. Although not eager to sit for Lombroso and his
party of scientists, she finally consented. Among those who took part in
these celebrated experiments were Professor Tamburini, an eminent
scientist; Dr. Bianchi, the superintendent of the Insane Asylum of
Sales; and Dr. Penta, a young nephew of Lombroso, a resident of Naples.
Lombroso had charge of the sittings, which were held in a room of his
own choice and with the medium entirely under his control. He was
astonished at the prompt response obtained. At the first sitting, while
he and Professor Tamburini held the psychic's hands, a bell was carried
tinkling through the air and a small table moved as if it were alive.
Many other mysterious movements took place. Lombroso was very much
disturbed by these inexplicable phenomena, and could not rest till he
sat again. At the second seance spectral hands developed, profoundly
mystifying every sitter, and Lombroso went away, promising to carry
forward a study of spiritism. In a letter written the following June he
manfully said: '_I am filled with confusion, and regret that I combated
with so much persistence the possibilities of the facts called
spiritualistic. I say facts, for I am opposed to the theory._'"
"Did Lombroso say that?" asked Harris.
"He wrote it, which is still more to the point, and it was his
acceptance of the main _facts_ of Paladino's mediumship that led other
groups of scientists to take up her case. Professor Schiaparelli,
Director of the Observatory at Milan; Gerosa, Professor of Physics;
Ermacora, Doctor of Natural Philosophy; Aksakof, Councilor of State to
the Emperor of Russia; and Charles du Prel, Doctor of Philosophy in
Munich, were in the next group, which met at Milan with intent to settle
the claims of this bold charlatan.
"The sittings took place in the apartment of Monsieur Finzi at Milan,
and were more rigid and searching than any Paladino had ever passed
through, but she was again triumphant. She bewildered them all. Lombroso
himself was present during some of the sittings. The results of the
series of experiments were very notable and very far-reaching. For the
first time, so far as I know, a table was photographed while floating in
the air--"
"No!" shouted Howard.
"Yes; and certain other telekinetic happenings were proved, to the
stupefaction of most of those in the group. One special experiment, the
success of which confounded the shrewdest, was the attempt to secure on
a smoke-blackened paper the print of one of the spectral hands."
"Did it succeed?"
"Yes. The impression was made while Paladino's hands were imprisoned
beyond all question, and, what was most singular of all, the hand _that
made the print smudged the wrists of one of the experimenters, and yet
not a particle of black appeared on the fingers of the psychic_."
"That ought to have convinced them of her honesty," remarked Fowler,
with a note of amusement in his voice, "but it didn't; these scientific
folk are so difficult."
"No," I replied, "it didn't convince them, but it jarred them not a
little. In their report they admitted this much. They said, 'We do not
believe we have the right to explain these things by the aid of
insulting assumptions.' (By this they meant to acquit the psychic of
fraud.) 'We think, on the contrary, that _these experiments have to do
with phenomena of an unknown nature_, and we confess that we do not know
what the conditions are that are required to produce them.'"
"That seems to me like a very mild statement, but I suppose they
considered it epoch-making," remarked Fowler.
"From this time forward learned men in Russia, France, and Italy
successively sought Paladino out and tried to expose her to the world.
Professor Wagner, of the Department of Zoology at the University of St.
Petersburg, made a study of her in 1893, and found her powers real. A
year later M. Siemeradski, correspondent of the Institute, experimented
with her in Rome, obtaining, among other miracles, the plucking of the
strings of a closed piano under strictly test conditions."
"You had that experience, did you not?" asked Mrs. Cameron.
"Yes, I've had that."
"How do you account for a thing of that sort?"
"I don't account for it--or if I did give my theory, you would laugh at
me. Wait till I tell you what these Italians are doing. Among the most
eminent and persuasive of all Eusapia's investigators was Professor
Charles Richet, the French physiologist and author. Eusapia came to
revere and trust him, and gave him many sittings. He, too, was bowled
over. He tells the story of his conversion very charmingly. 'In my
servile respect for classic tradition,' he writes, 'I laughed at Crookes
and his experiments; but it must be remembered in my excuse that as a
professional physiologist I moved habitually along a road quite other
than mystical.' His attention, he goes on to say, was first drawn to
spiritist phenomena by the word of a friend who had discovered a power
that caused a table to move intelligently. He was trying to explain this
and one or two other little things like telepathy and prophetic vision
by the word 'somnambulism,' when his friend Aksakof, a great psychical
expert, reproached him for not interesting himself more keenly in
experiments with mediums. 'Well,' said Richet, 'if I were sure that a
single true medium existed, I would willingly go to the ends of the
world to meet him.'"
"That's the spirit!" exclaimed Fowler. "That is the way the scientist
should feel. What then? Aksakof told him all he needed to do was to go
round the corner, didn't he?"
"Not exactly. Two years later Aksakof wrote to him: 'You needn't come to
the end of the world; Milan will do.' So Richet went to Milan, and took
part in those very celebrated seances with Eusapia. 'When I left Milan,'
Richet says, 'I was convinced that all was true; but no sooner was I
back in my accustomed channels of work than my doubts returned. I
persuaded myself that all had been fraud or illusion.'"
Here Harris interrupted: "Miller can testify to this inability to retain
a conviction. He, too, has slumped into doubt. How about it, Miller?"
"I never professed to believe," declared Miller.
"You were pretty well convinced that night in your study, weren't you?"
I asked.
"I was puzzled," he replied, guardedly.
There was a general smile of amusement at his manifest evasion, and I
resumed: "Richet went to Rome, and together with Schrenk-Noetzing, the
philosophic expert, and Siemeradski, the correspondent of the French
Institute, made other and still more convincing experiments, and yet
doubt persisted! 'I was not yet satisfied,' he says, further. '_I
invited Eusapia to my house for three months. Alone with her and
Ochorowicz, a man of penetrating perspicuity, I renewed my experiments
in the best possible conditions of solitude and quiet reflection. We
thus acquired a positive proof of the reality of the facts announced at
Milan._'"
"By George, that's going it strong!" said young Howard. "You've got to
believe that a man like Richet has seen something after three months'
experiment in his own house."
Miller faced them all stubbornly: "And yet even Richet may have been
deceived."
"Are _you_ the only one competent to study these facts?" asked Brierly,
hotly. "The egotism of you professional physicists is a kind of
insanity. The moment a man like Richet or Lombroso admits a knowledge of
one of these occult facts, you who have no experience in the same
phenomena jump on him like so many wolves. Such bigotry is unworthy a
scientist."
"Would you have us accept the word of any one man when that word
contradicts the experience of all mankind?" asked Miller.
"Listen to what Richet says in confession of _his_ perplexity," I called
out, soothingly. "He writes: 'It took me twenty years 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 during my sixty experiments with
Eusapia, I have still a trace of doubt. _Certainty does not follow on
demonstration; it follows on habit._' So don't blame Miller or myself
for inability to believe in these theories, for our minds are the kind
that accept the mystical with sore struggle."
"Go on with Eusapia's career," said Harris. "I am interested in her. I
want the story of the investigations."
"Her story broadens," I resumed. "Her fame spread throughout Europe, and
squad after squad of militant scientists grappled with her, each one
perfectly sure that he was the one to unmask her to the world. She was
called before kings and emperors, and everywhere she triumphed--save in
Cambridge, where she made a partial failure; but she redeemed herself
later with both Lodge and Myers, so that it remains true to say that she
has gone surely from one success to another and greater triumph."
"But there have been other such careers--Slade's and Home's, for
instance--which ended in disaster."
"True, but nothing like her courage has ever been known. The crowning
wonder of her career came when she consented to enter the special
laboratories of the universities of Genoa and Naples. It is in the
writings of Morselli, Professor of Psychology at Genoa, and in the
reports of Bottazzi, head of the Department of Physics at Naples, that
scepticism, such as my own, is met and conquered. I defy Miller or any
man of open mind to read the detailed story of these marvellous
experiments and deny the existence of the basic phenomena produced by
Eusapia Paladino."
"You speak with warmth," said Harris.
"I do. I am at this moment fresh from a reading of the reports of
Bottazzi's up-to-date experiments, and I am compelled to grant that he
has not only sustained Crookes at every point, but has gone beyond him
in his ingenuity of test and thoroughness of control. He adds the touch
of certainty that we all needed to complete our own experience. He has
given me courage to say what I believe Mrs. Smiley did for us."
"Won't you tell us all about it?" pleaded Mrs. Cameron. "Please do."
"It is too long and complicated. You must read it for yourself. It is
too incredible to be told."
"Never mind, Garland; we'll take it as part of your fiction. Go ahead."
As I looked about me, I could detect in the faces of some of my friends
an expression of apprehension. The coffee had grown cold. Our ice-cream
had melted with neglect. Every eye was fixed upon me. It was plain that
Harris and Miller considered me "on the high-road to spiritualism."
Quite willing to gratify their wish to be startled, I proceeded:
"You will find the latest word on all these matters in a small but
valuable review, published simultaneously in London and in Paris,
called _The Annals of Psychic Science_. It is edited by Cesar de Vesme
in France, and by Laura I. Finch in England, and is a mine of reliable
psychic science. Its directors are Dr. Dariex and Professor Charles
Richet. Its 'committee' is made up of Sir William Crookes, Camille
Flammarion, Professor Lombroso, Marcel Mangin, Dr. Joseph Maxwell,
Professor Enrico Morselli, of Genoa; Dr. Julien Ochorowicz, head of the
General Psychologic Institute of Paris; Professor Porro, the astronomer;
Colonel Albert de Rochas, author of _The Externalization of Motivity_,
and others of like character."
"We don't want the review, we want your account," said Harris. "Don't
spare us. Give us detail--lots of it."
"Thank you; you shall have it hot-shot, but I'll have to generalize the
story for you. The most decisive of all the tests have been made during
the last eighteen months, and the final and most convincing of all
within the year, under the direction of Lombroso, Morselli, and
Bottazzi. It is safe to say that with these experiments (and the reports
which accompany them) a new era has dawned in biology. The facts of
mediumship are in process of being scientifically observed by a score of
the best-qualified men in Europe, and at last we are about to study
mediumship apart from any question of religious tenets."
Fowler took issue with me here: "It is absurd to say that no one but
these physicists has ever properly studied spiritualistic phenomena;
spiritists themselves have put the screws on quite as effectively as
ever Crookes or Richet has done. Some of the best investigators ever
known have been spiritists."
"Even if that were true, their testimony would lack the convincing power
that flames from Morselli's book or Bottazzi's report. The essential
weakness of the spiritist's testimony lies in the fact that for the most
part he assumes that the facts of mediumship are somehow, and
necessarily, in opposition to somebody's religion. He finds it sustained
(or opposed) by the Bible, or he fancies it mixed with deviltry or the
black art. He trembles for fear it will affect the scheme of redemption
or assist some theosophical system. Whereas, a man like Bottazzi is
engaged merely with the facts; he lets the inferences fall where they
may. He is not concerned with whether Eusapia's manifestations oppose
Christian theology or not; he wants the phenomena. He is alert to note
their effect on biologic science, but he does not shrink from any report
of them. So far as I am concerned, my lot is cast with these men who put
the clamps on the fact and wait for larger knowledge before constructing
a system of religion on the half-discovered."
"I'm with you there," said Miller. "And if our university officials
took the same view, we Americans would hold higher rank in the world's
thought."
"Bottazzi himself says, with reference to his experiments: 'In spite of
all the hundreds of those who have observed Eusapia, it still remained
true to say that hitherto she had been free to throw things about as she
pleased.' But all this took a sharp turn when she came into Bottazzi's
laboratory."
"Just who is Bottazzi?" Harris asked.
"He's the head of the Physiological Institute of the University of
Naples; of his age and general character I am not precisely informed,
but he writes delightfully of his experiments. Morselli, who preceded
him in his study of Eusapia, is the Professor of Psychology in the
University of Genoa. Foa and Herlitzka are of the same university.
Within the last two years Eusapia has also been rigorously studied in
Lombroso's clinical laboratory at Turin. All honor to her for breaking
away from the traditions of mediumship!"
Mrs. Quigg caught me up on this: "What do you mean by 'traditions of
mediumship'?"
"I mean that for the most part investigators have nearly always been
kept at arm's-length by the fiction that the 'guide' should control
everything, that the seance is a religious rite, that the medium must
not be touched nor exposed to the light, and so on, till the scientist
was reduced to the feeble rank of an on-looker in the dark, so that no
real test was possible. These Italians did not grant any of these
traditions. They were scientists, not devotees at a new shrine."
"However, I am ready to grant that some of the good old rules were
justified. As you have seen in my own experiments, I have proceeded
cautiously, for if you suppose mediumship to be a psycho-dynamic
adjustment of the organisms in the circle--a subtle physical
relationship--there is all the more reason to be careful. I did not find
it necessary to mistreat Mrs. Smiley in order to test her powers. But
_Eusapia has set a new pace for mediums_. She has gone into the lion's
den alone and unarmed--not once, but a hundred times. She entered
Lombroso's study, a room previously unexplored by her, and there placed
herself before a cabinet that she was not permitted to examine--a
cabinet filled with machines for dividing the true from the false. In
Morselli's presence she submitted to tests the like of which not even
Crookes was permitted to apply, and all sacred rules and regulations,
all ideas of religion or questions of morality, vanished when she
entered the cold, clear air of Bottazzi's physiological laboratory."
"This begins to sound like the grapple of a cuttlefish and a mermaid.
Was the woman crushed?"
"No; she more than sustained her great reputation. She conquered the
remorseless scientist and performed the impossible."
I had the strained attention of my audience now. Time was forgotten, and
cries of "Tell us!" "Tell us all!" arose.
"It is an exciting story, an incredible story--"
"So much the better!" exclaimed Miss Brush.
"I am full of enthusiasm for Bottazzi," I resumed. "His was the kind of
investigation I should like to put through myself. It appeals to me as
no spiritualistic performance has ever done. In a sense the facts he has
demonstrated make all material tests inoperative. Matter is all we have
to cling to when it comes to physical tests. A nail driven down through
the sleeve of the medium's dress _seems_ to increase our control of her,
and a metronome or a Morse telegraphic sounder does add value to our
testimony, and yet Zoellner seems nearer right than Miller: matter seems
only a condition of force, and subject to change at the will of the
psychic.
"Up to the beginning of last year Bottazzi confesses that he had read
little or nothing on the subject, and, like our friend Miller here,
considered it beneath the dignity of a scientist to be present at
spiritualist circles. It is highly instructive to note that Paladino,
the most renowned medium of her time, was in Naples at his very door;
but that doesn't matter--a scientist is blind to what he does not wish
to see. In this case Bottazzi's eyes were opened by a young friend,
Professor Charles Foa, of Turin, who sent him an account of what he and
Dr. Herlitzka had witnessed in Eusapia's presence."
"They really seem to be taking the phenomena seriously over there," said
Harris.
"These particular sittings at Turin made a great sensation in Italy.
They were under the direction of Drs. Herlitzka, Foa, and Aggazzotti,
assistants to Professor Mosso, of the University of Turin. Dr. Pio Foa,
Professor of Pathologic Anatomy, was also present during one seance. The
conditions were all of the experimenters' own contriving. They were
young men and had been companion workers in science for many years, and
were accustomed to laboratory work. They all came to this experiment
perfectly sure that no mediumistic phenomena could endure the light of
science. At the end of their three sittings they manfully said: '_Now
that we are persuaded of the authenticity of the phenomena_, we feel it
our duty to state the fact publicly in our turn, and to proclaim that
the few pioneers in this branch of biology (destined to become one of
the most important) generally saw and observed correctly.... We hope
that our words may serve to stimulate some of these colleagues to study
personally and attentively this group of interesting and obscure
phenomena.' You will note they relate their tests, not to theology, but
to unexplored biology."
"I like the ring of that declaration of theirs," said Harris. "Go on!
Come to Hecuba!"
"Bottazzi was enormously impressed by this account, which detailed
coldly, critically, the most amazing experiments. With ingenuity that
would have seemed satanic to Paladino (had she known of it), Foa and
Aggazzotti had laid their pipes and provided for every trick. They were
confident that nothing genuine could occur, but, as a matter of record,
weird performances began at once. Bells were rung, tables shifted,
columns of mercury lifted, mandolins played, and small objects were
transported quite in the same fashion as the books were handled during
our own sittings at your house, Miller--in fact, the doings were much
the same in character. A small stand was broken to pieces under the very
eyes of the learned doctors, _and hands hit and teeth bit those whom the
medium did not like_. Each of the machines for registering movement,
though utterly out of reach of Paladino, was operated, and some of these
movements were systematically recorded.
"It was this care, these scrupulous and cold-blooded tests, that so
profoundly affected Bottazzi. These men were his friends. He knew their
level-headed and remorseless accuracy. The fact that they considered the
whole investigation biologic in character, and that the results of their
experiments strengthened their theory of the physiological determinism
of the phenomena, added to his eagerness to try for himself."
"Wait a moment," said Cameron. "What do you mean by 'physiological
determinism'?"
"He means that the phenomena began and ended in the psychic's organism."
"Do you intend to convey that they considered the medium dishonest?"
"Oh no. Merely that they did not relate the phenomena to the
intervention of the spirits of the dead."
"Oh!" gasped Mrs. Cameron.
"Merely!" exclaimed Harris. "'Merely' is good in that case."
"'After reading these articles with avidity,' Bottazzi's report begins:
'Professor Galeotti, my associate, and I looked at each other astounded,
and the same thoughts in the same words came simultaneously to our lips:
"We, too, must see, must touch with our hands--and at once--here in this
laboratory where experiments of the phenomena of life are daily carried
on, with the impartiality of men whose object is the discovery of
scientific truth, here in this quiet place where sealed doors will be
superfluous. Everything must be registered. Will the medium be able to
impress a photographic plate? Will she be able to illuminate a screen
treated with platino-cyanide of barium? Will she be able to discharge a
gold-leaf electroscope without touching it?" And so we travelled on the
wings of imagination, always having before us the plummet of the
strictest scientific methods.'"
"Now you're getting into my horizon," said Miller. "That is the way I
wished to proceed in Mrs. Smiley's case. Did Bottazzi get these things
done?"
"You're as impatient as Miss Brush," I replied, highly amused at his
eagerness. "First you must catch your medium. Bottazzi succeeded at last
in getting Paladino's consent, but only through the good offices of
Professor Richet, whom she deeply loves and reverences. Submissively she
entered into this most crucial series of tests. She was no longer afraid
of any scientist, but it was not precisely a joy to her. Bottazzi
invited his friend Galeotti, Professor of General Pathology in the
University of Naples; Dr. de Amicis, Professor of Dermatology; Dr. Oscar
Scarpa, Professor of Electro-chemistry at the Polytechnic High School of
Naples; Luigi Lombardi, Professor of Electro-technology at the same
school; and Dr. Pansini, Professor Extraordinary of Medical Semiotics;
and these gentlemen certainly made up a formidable platoon of
investigation. The room in which the experiments took place was an
isolated one, connected with the laboratory of experimental physiology,
and belonged to that part of the university set aside for Bottazzi's
exclusive use. Nothing could have been further from the ordinary stuffy
back parlor of the 'materializing medium.' No women were present, and no
outsider; as you see, conditions were as nearly perfect as the ingenuity
of Bottazzi and his assistants could make them."
The members present nestled into their chairs with looks of
satisfaction, and Mrs. Cameron said: "Don't leave anything out. Tell it
all."
"It is hardly necessary to say that every precaution was taken.
Photographs of the cabinet were made before the sittings and afterward,
in order that all displacements might be recorded. Provision was made
for registering the action of 'John King's' spectral hands. Some of
these devices were concealed in an adjoining room and watched by other
attendants. One little touch early in Bottazzi's account impressed me
deeply. A little electric motor was used to furnish power for the lamps
and other apparatus, and Bottazzi, in speaking of it, says: 'At the
moment when the phenomena to be registered began to manifest, the
circuit was closed, _and suddenly in the complete silence of the night
the feeble murmur of the motor was heard_.' I thrill to the action of
that faithful little material watch-dog. Ghosts and hobgoblins could not
silence or affright it. After all, matter is both persistent and bold."
"But not sovereign," defiantly called out Brierly; "the psychic
dominates it."
"We shall see. Bottazzi declares in italics that Paladino neither put
her hand into the cabinet nor knew the contents of it. 'Rarely has she
been surrounded by such an assembly of unprejudiced minds, by such
strict and attentive intellects,' he declares. And when you consider the
absence of women, the mystery of the machinery, together with the stern
character of the sitters, the medium's courage becomes marvellous.
Perfect honesty alone can sustain a medium in such an ordeal. I am ready
to agree that a new era began for spiritism when Eusapia entered that
room, April 17, 1907."
"Poor Paladino!" sighed Mrs. Cameron. "I tremble for her."
"Bottazzi grimly says: 'We began by restraining her inexhaustible
mediumistic activity. We obliged her to do things she had never done
before. We limited the field of her manifestations.... I was convinced
that it was much easier for her to drag out of the cabinet a heavy table
than to press an electric knob or displace the rod of a metronome.' And
this theory he set himself to prove. It was beautiful to see the way he
went about it."
Howard was also impressed. "I see Eusapia's finish. She won't do a
thing. The influences will criss-cross. Bottazzi's cabinet is her
Waterloo."
"Observe that Bottazzi was not perverse. He met the psychic half-way by
forming the usual chain about the table, placing Eusapia before the
curtains of the little cabinet, which was a recess in the wall.
Bottazzi himself and his assistants had constructed this cabinet and
placed everything in position before Eusapia entered the room at all,
and throughout the sitting she was controlled by at least two of the
investigators so that she could not so much as put a hand inside the
curtains. She was very uneasy, as though finding the conditions hard.
Nevertheless, _even at this first sitting, everything movable in the
cabinet was thrown about_. The table was violently shaken and the
metronome set going. Bottazzi ends his first report by saying: 'The
seance yielded very small results, but this is always the case at first
seances. Nevertheless, how many "_knowing_ people and _savans_" have
formed a judgment on phenomena after seances such as this one?'"
"That's a slant at you, Miller," remarked Harris.
"Yes," I agreed, "it's a slant at all commissions and committees who
think they can jump in and settle this spiritistic controversy in the
course of half an hour. Bottazzi, like Lombroso and Richet, was aware
that he had entered upon a long road. He knew that a tired or worried
medium was helpless. He called the same circle together for the 20th,
willing to try patiently for developments. All came but Lombardi, whose
place was taken by M. Jona, an engineer. The second sitting was a
wonder. Warned by his first experience, Bottazzi nailed or screwed every
movable thing fast to the walls of the cabinet. He was resolute to
force 'John,' the supposed 'guide,' to touch the electric button and
press the ball of India-rubber that connected with a mercury manometer.
He intended to teach the spirit hand to register its actions on a
revolving cylinder of smoked tin. He wanted graven records, so that no
wiseacre like Harris, here, could say: 'Oh, the thing never moved. You
were all hypnotized!' In effect, he said: 'They tell us that a cold wind
blows from the cabinet. I will put a self-registering thermometer in the
cabinet and see. They say tables weighing forty pounds have been lifted.
All I ask is that the bulb of a self-registering manometer be pressed.
They say a Morse telegraphic key has been sounded by spirit hands. Very
well; I will arrange a connection so that every pressure of the key will
be registered on a sheet of smoked paper, so that the fact of the sound
of the key shall be recorded by an infallible instrument.'"
"Did he get the records?" asked Harris.
"Wait and see!" commanded Cameron.
"These indicate the methods which Bottazzi and his assistants brought to
bear on the medium. No more worship here, no awe, no hesitation, no
superstition. Among other things, he put into the cabinet a small table
weighing about fifteen pounds, and on top of it arranged a hair-brush, a
hen's feather, a bottle full of water, and a very thick glass. These
articles and the table were the only objects that could be moved. His
aim was to limit the spirit hands to a few movables--to see whether they
could not be taught to do what was required of them. Well, _that little
table came out of the cabinet of its own accord in a light that made it
perfectly visible_, at the precise time when three of the inexorable
professors were rigidly clasping the psychic. But that is not the most
remarkable thing. The psychic's feet were held by the engineer, and he
observed that at _the exact moment when Paladino pushed against his knee
the table moved_. 'Each advance of the table corresponded,' says
Bottazzi, 'with the most perfect synchronism, to the push of Eusapia's
legs against Jona's knees'; in other words, she really executed
movements identical with those that she would have made had she been
pushing the table out of the cabinet with her _visible_ limbs."
As I paused for effect, Fowler said: "You say that as if you considered
it very significant."
"I do. In my judgment, it is the most valuable fact developed by these
most searching experiments. Flammarion noted this same significant
relation between the movements of the psychic and the spirit hands, and
so did Maxwell. Maxwell proved it by experiments on his own person, and
now Bottazzi is proving it in a larger way. 'A few moments later,' he
says, 'a glass was flung from the cabinet by these invisible agencies,
and this fling coincided exactly with a kick which Paladino gave to
Jona, as if the same will governed both movements.'"
Miller was thinking very hard. "That certainly is very strange," he
said, "but I observed nothing of it in Mrs. Smiley's case; on the
contrary, it seemed to me that our strongest manifestations came when
she was perfectly still."
"Hasten!" urged Fowler. "Come to the phantoms. I perceive his theory,
but it will all be upset later by the materialized forms."
"On the contrary, Bottazzi declares the phantoms also conformed to this
same law. He was determined upon educating 'John King,' and kept
insisting that the invisible hands press the rubber ball, or lower the
registry balance, or set the metronome going, and Eusapia repeatedly
moaned: '_I can't find_,' '_I can't see_,' or '_I don't know how_.' Once
she complained that the objects were _too far off--that she could not
reach them!_--all of which sustained Bottazzi in his belief that these
activities were absolutely under her psychic control, just as the
synchronism of movements convinced him that she was 'the physiologic
factor in the case.' All of this is very exciting to me, for I have had
the same feeling with regard to the several mediums whose activities I
have closely studied. Bottazzi says, with regard to the results of the
first two sittings: 'These first seances show that Eusapia needed to
learn how to make these movements with which her invisible hands were
unfamiliar, just as she would have had to learn to make them with her
visible hands. You will all observe that he did not permit awe or
superstitious reverence for the medium or her phantoms to balk his
experiments.' A convinced spiritist who attended one of the seances was
scandalized by the tone and character of the tests. These professors
were continually bobbing up to see what was going on, disturbing
conditions, stirring things up as with a spoon to see how it was all
going on. They broke the chain of hands whenever they wanted to see what
'the spirits' were doing. In other words, these scientists were
students, not devotees. They were experimenting, not communing with the
dead."
"Others have tried that," said Fowler. "But they succeeded in preventing
any manifestations whatsoever."
"It didn't work out so in this instance. Bottazzi says that during the
first seance Professor Scarpa irritated Eusapia greatly by his
impertinent curiosity, but Bottazzi himself quieted her by saying: 'You
see, dear Eusapia, we are not here only to admire the marvellous
phenomena you are able to produce, but also, and chiefly, to observe and
verify and criticise. We do not doubt you or suspect any fraud, but we
want to see clearly, and to follow the development of the phenomena.
That is why M. Scarpa surveys the cabinet between the curtains,
illuminating it occasionally with an electric pocket-lamp. Which do you
prefer, passive admiration, of which you must have had more than enough
already, or the calm affirmation of physicists who are accustomed to
extort from Nature secrets which she hides from physical eyes? 'In this
way,' adds the master, 'Eusapia's irritation was softened; she rebelled
no further, but yielded with docility to the sharp, attentive scrutiny
of the observer, who finally declared himself beaten, not having been
able to discover at any point a shadow of fraud.'"
"Hurrah for Eusapia!" shouted Howard. "She must be a wonder!"
"A spiritist would say that her guides were insisting on the most rigid
test. The account goes on to say that the psychic, when entranced, was
not satisfied with the grasp of two of the spies; she frequently asked,
in a faint voice, for a third or even a fourth hand in order that there
could be no question of her freedom from connection with the phenomena.
As in the case of our own psychic, Mrs. Smiley co-operated to the utmost
with us. She never refused to permit any test."
Miller here remarked: "I can't but think that our control of Mrs. Smiley
was complete, and yet I could not (under the conditions) assert that she
was not the author of the acts we witnessed in my library. I cannot
bring myself to entertain, even for an instant, the spirit hypothesis,
but in Bottazzi's theory I glimpse an alternative."
"Yes, Bottazzi plainly hints at his conclusions by saying: '_The
invisible limbs_ of the psychic explored the cabinet.' He repeats, 'I am
convinced that these _"mediumistic limbs" are capable of being taught
unfamiliar duties_, like pressing an electric button of squeezing a
rubber ball,' and this he proceeded patiently to exemplify. At the third
sitting Madame Bottazzi was present (Lombardi and Jona being absent),
and the 'force' was much greater and more active than before, probably
because of the psychic's growing confidence. A small table floated in
the air '_while we watched it in amazement_,' he says. One levitation
lasted long enough to count fifty. 'We all had time to observe that the
piece of furniture was quite isolated,' he adds. Furthermore, a big
black hand came from the curtain and touched Madame Bottazzi on the
cheek, and frightened her from her place beside the medium."
"I can understand that," said Mrs. Cameron. "Think of being touched by
even one's own dead!"
"Professor de Amicis was not only touched on the arm but forcibly
pulled, as if by an invisible hand. The curtain of the cabinet then
enveloped him as if to embrace him, and he felt the contact of another
face against his, and a mouth kissing him--"
The women cried out at the thought, but I hurried on to make Bottazzi's
point: "_'At the same time Eusapia's lips moved as if to kiss, and she
made the sound of kissing, which we all distinctly heard.'_ Here again,
you see, is that astounding synchronism which Maxwell and Morselli
observed between the movement of objects and the contraction of the
muscles in the medium's arms and legs. Bottazzi pauses to generalize:
'Whatever may be the mediumistic phenomena produced, there is almost
always at the same time movement of one or several parts of the medium's
body.'"
"What does he mean? Does he mean that Eusapia performed all these
movements with her 'astral hands'?" asked Mrs. Quigg.
"That is precisely his inference. 'Mysterious hands,' Bottazzi calls
them."
"But how will he account for the difference in size between Eusapia's
hands and the _large black hand_ that she saw and felt?" asked Fowler.
"Bottazzi himself remarks upon this discrepancy. 'To whom does this hand
belong?' he asked--'this hand, a half a yard away from the medium's
head, seen while her visible hands are rigorously controlled by her two
neighbors? Is it the hand of a monstrous long arm which liberates itself
from the medium's body, then dissolves, to afterward "materialize"
afresh? Is it something analogous to the pteropod of an amoeba, which
projects itself from the body, then retreats into it only to reappear
in another place? Mystery!' But this is not the most grewsome sight; one
of the professors, stealing a glance behind the medium, saw remnants of
legs and arms lying about the cabinet."
"Horrible!" exclaimed Mrs. Cameron. "I'd rather believe in spirits. What
does he mean to infer?"
"Apparently he would have us believe that materialization is a process
due to the medium--or at least dependent on her will--and that these
partially completed forms represent fragmentary impulses. But I'm not so
much concerned just now with that as with the course of schooling
through which he drove Eusapia. He stuck to his plan. He put into his
cabinet each time certain sounders, markers, and lamps, which could be
moved, ticked, or lighted only by hands in the cabinet, and he kept the
same rigid control of his medium _outside_ the cabinet. For the most
part she was in the light. By means of a series of lamps the seance-room
could be lighted dimly or brightly at a touch, and, while many of the
phenomena in the cabinet were being performed by 'John,' Eusapia's hands
could be plainly seen in the grasp of her inquisitors. After seeing a
mandolin move and play of itself, after having the metronome set in
motion, stopped, and set going again, after having the registrations he
most desired, Bottazzi concludes his third sitting by saying: 'An
invisible hand or foot _must_ therefore have forced down the disk,
_must_ have leaned on the membrane of the receiving-drum of my
apparatus, because I assured myself next day that to obtain the highest
lines registered the disk had to be pressed to the extreme point. This
was no ordinary case of pushing or pulling. The mysterious hand had to
push the disk, and push it in a certain way. _In short, the "spirit
hand" was becoming educated to its task._'"
Miller asked: "Did these performances take place, as in the case of Mrs.
Smiley, within the reach of her ordinary limbs?"
"Yes, many of them took place within a yard of her head; but some of
them, and the most marvellous of them, not merely took place out of her
reach, but under conditions of unexampled rigor. 'Eusapia's mediumistic
limbs penetrated into the cabinet,' says Bottazzi. 'I begged my friends
not to distract the medium's attention by requests for touches,
apparitions, etc., but to concentrate their desires and their wills on
the things I asked for....' What he wanted her to do was very simple,
but conclusive. He wished 'the spirit hand' to press an electric button
and light a red lamp within the cabinet. The coil and the switch had
been dragged out of the cabinet and thrown on the table. Bottazzi begged
them all not to touch it. No one but Scarpa, Galeotti, and Bottazzi knew
what it was for. 'At a certain moment Eusapia took hold of the first
finger of my right hand and squeezed it with her fingers. A ray of light
from the interior of the cabinet lit up the room'--she had pressed the
contact-breaker with her invisible fingers at the precise time when she
had squeezed with her visible hand the forefinger of Bottazzi. She
repeatedly did this. 'If one of us, be it observed, had lit the lamp,
she would have screamed with pain and indignation.'"
"Was this the climax of his series? Is this _all_ he is willing to
affirm?" queried Harris, with ironic inflection.
"Oh no, indeed. The greatest is yet to come. At the fourth sitting a new
person, Professor Cardarelli, was introduced, and this new sitter
disturbed conditions. Nevertheless, the inexplicable took place. Small
twirling violet flames were seen to drift across the cabinet curtains,
and hands and closed fists appeared over Paladino's head. These have
been photographed, by-the-way. Some of them were of ordinary size, and
others at least three times larger than the psychic's hand and fist.
These flames interest me very much, for I have seen them on several
occasions, but could not believe in them, even though Crookes spoke of
handling them. I must admit their objective reality now. It is absurd to
suppose they were fraudulently produced in this laboratory.
"A stethoscope was taken from Cardarelli's pocket and put together--a
movement requiring the action of two hands. The noise of fingers running
over the keys of a typewriter in the cabinet was plainly heard, although
no writing came. At the fifth sitting the mandolin again moved as if
alive (no one touching it), in a light that made all its movements
observable; and as it did so _Eusapia's hand_ (tightly controlled by
Bottazzi) _made little movements as if to help the instrument to move_.
_Each movement, though it ended in the air, seemed to affect the
mandolin._ Bottazzi says: 'It would be necessary to have Paladino's
fingers in the palm of one's hand, as I had that evening, in order to be
convinced that the evolutions, twangings of the strings, etc., all
synchronized with the very delicate movements of her fingers.... I
cannot describe the sensation one experiences when seeing an inanimate
object moved, not for a moment merely, but for many minutes in
succession, by a mysterious force.'"
"We observed no such synchronism," repeated Fowler. "We not only
controlled Mrs. Smiley's hands, but nailed her to her chair. In a way,
our test was more rigid than those you are describing. Our results were
not so dramatic, but they were produced under test conditions, and their
significance is as great as that of Bottazzi's lamp-lighting."
"But we did not have as much light on the medium, and, by-the-way,
Miller, the spectral hands that I saw in your study, each larger than
Mrs. Smiley's hands, were as real to me as those Scarpa studied, and the
books deposited on your table form as good a record, in their way, as
the marks on his smoked-glass cylinder."
"Furthermore, we had writing," added Fowler. "All of which Bottazzi
would explain by his theory of an 'astral arm.'"
"Yes, but he secured something still more marvellous. He obtained the
print of human hands in clay and also on smoked glass. He demonstrated
that the invisible limbs of the psychic cannot only move objects at a
distance, _but that they can feel at a distance_. 'Eusapia's attitude
was that of a blindfolded person exploring space with her hands to find
a lost object!' he exclaims, at one point. 'Eusapia opened my right
hand, stretched out my three middle fingers, and, bending them on the
table, tips downward, said, in a whisper: "How hard it is! What is it?"
I did not understand,' says Bottazzi. 'She continued: "There, on the
chair." "It is the clay," I said, quickly; "will you make the impression
of a face?" "No," she replied, "it is too hard; take it away.'" Some one
broke the chain to carry out her desire. He looked at the desk and saw
the imprint of three fingers."
"What I would like to know at this point," Harris quickly interposed,
"is this: were the fingermarks lined like Bottazzi's or like the
medium's?"
"He does not say in this case, but, as I recall it, they found in other
instances that the lines on the impressions made by Eusapia's invisible
fingers were precisely like those of her material fingers, and yet no
mark of flour or lamp-black remained attaching to her hands. In one case
a perfumed clay was used, and, although the impressions secured
'resembled Eusapia's face grown old,' no scent of the wax could be
detected on her cheeks. Bottazzi gives much space to these 'mediumistic
explorations of the cabinet.' He could follow these blind, mysterious
gropings of the invisible Eusapia by closely controlling the real
Eusapia. 'Presently she asked: "What is that round object? I feel
something round."' This was, in fact, the rubber ball which connected
with a tube--the tube, in its turn, passing through the wall into
another room where it operated a manometer. She pressed this ball with
her invisible limbs, and the column rose and registered the pressure.
This was entirely satisfactory to Bottazzi, who then says: 'I desire
again to affirm that with her invisible limbs Eusapia feels the forms of
objects and their consistency, feels heat and cold, hardness and
softness, dampness and dryness neither more nor less than if she were
touching and feeling with the hands imprisoned in ours. She feels with
other hands, but perceives with the same brain with which she uses to
talk with us.'
"The most astonishing physical phenomena came when the contact-breaker
was thrown on the table, and Eusapia called out: 'See how it moves!'
'_We all directed our gaze toward the small object_,' says Bottazzi,
'_and we saw that it oscillated and vibrated at an elevation of an inch
or two above the surface of the table, as if seized with internal
shivering--Eusapia's hands, held by M. Galeotti and myself, being more
than a foot from the contact-breaker_.'"
My auditors were now in the thrall of Bottazzi's story, and the silence
was eloquent. At last Cameron said: "It certainly seems like a clear
case of 'astral.' I begin to believe in our first sitting with Mrs.
Smiley. What do you want us to do--announce ourselves converted?"
"Certainly not," I replied. "We must not relax our vigilance, even
though Bottazzi, Morselli, and their fellows seem to have proved the
genuineness of the phenomena. At the same time, I admit it is a source
of satisfaction to me to know that these Italian scientists, with
conditions all their own, are willing to affirm that Eusapia '_feels
with her invisible limbs_,' and explores a cabinet while sitting under
rigid control more than a yard away from the objects moved. My
experiences point to this. How else could the cone be handled with such
precision as was shown at your house, Miller? Lombroso observed that
chairs and vases moved as if guided by hands and eyes, and that the
psychic could see as well behind her as in front. Mrs. Smiley has always
been able to direct me _exactly_ to the point where the cone or pencil
had been flung. How can letters within closed slates be formed so
beautifully and so precisely without some form of seeing?"
Fowler was ready with an answer: "At the final analysis all perception
is due to some form of vibration. To be clairaudient is simply to be
able to lay hold upon a different set of pulsations in the ether, and to
be clairvoyant is to perceive directly without the aid of the eye, which
is only a little camera, after all."
"All this is merely a kind of prelude," I resumed, "for Bottazzi
apparently proved that the invisible hand of Eusapia's invisible arm
could not penetrate a cage of wire mesh that covered the telegraphic key
in the cabinet. 'How, then, can we consider it to be a spirit hand--an
immaterial hand--when a wire-netting can stop it?' he very pertinently
inquires."
"That's what troubles me," said Miller. "If a phantom hand can bring a
real book and thumb its leaves, or drum with a real pencil or write, why
isn't it, for all practicable purposes, a real hand?"
"What _is_ a real hand?" retorted Fowler. "Isn't the latest word of
science to the effect that matter like the human body is only a
temporary condition of force?"
"Precisely so; and every advance along the line of these experiments
goes to prove the power of mind to transform matter. It almost seems to
me at times as though these psychic minds were able to reduce matter to
its primal atom and reshape it. In Bottazzi's seventh sitting, under the
same rigorous restraint of Eusapia, a vase of flowers was transported, a
rose was set in a lady's hair, a small drum was seized and beaten
rhythmically, an enormous black fist came out from behind the curtain,
and an open hand seized Bottazzi gently by the neck. Now listen to his
own words: 'Letting go my hold of Professor Poso's hand,' he says, 'I
felt for this ghostly hand and clasped it. _It was a left hand, neither
hot nor cold, with rough, bony fingers which dissolved under pressure.
It did not retire by producing a sensation of withdrawal--it dissolved,
"dematerialized," melted._'"
I paused to say: "Remember, this is not the tale of a perfervid
spiritist. On the contrary, it is the scientific account of a laboratory
experiment by a physiologist of high rank. The incident is not a part of
a seance in the home of a medium in a dark parlor full of side-doors and
trick windows. It is a registered phenomenon in the physiological
department of a great university, occurring under scientific test
conditions. I confess it gives verity to many a doubtful thing I have
myself seen."
"It certainly staggers me," said Cameron. "How does the scientific
gentleman explain it?"
"He goes on to say: 'Another time, later on, the same hand was placed on
my right forearm--I saw a human hand, of natural color, and I felt with
mine the back of a lukewarm hand, rough and nervous. _The hand dissolved
(I saw it with my own eyes) and retreated as if into Madame Paladino's
body, describing a curve._ If all the observed phenomena of these seven
seances were to disappear from my memory, this one I could never
forget.'"
Fowler was smiling with calm disdain. "Let him go on with his
psycho-dynamic theories. He will be confounded yet. These are only the
first stages of the game."
"But all this happened while the hands of the psychic were merely held,"
protested Miller. "He says he controlled her hands rigorously. Why
didn't he handcuff her, or nail her down? The facts he claims to have
established are too subversive to accept on his word alone."
This amused me. "There you go again! Not satisfied with wonders, you
want miracles. Happily, you may be satisfied. In the eighth sitting,
which took place in the same room of the physiological laboratory, with
Bottazzi, Madame Bottazzi, Professor Galeotti, Doctors Jappelli and
d'Errico present, Eusapia submitted to the most rigorous restraint of
her life. Two iron rings were fastened to the floor, and by means of
strong cords, which were sealed with lead seals like those used in
fastening a railway car, her wrists were rigidly confined. She was, in
fact, bound like a criminal; and yet the spectral hands and fists came
and went, jugs of water floated about, and as a final stupendous climax,
while Galeotti was controlling Eusapia's right arm, which was also
manacled, he _saw_ the duplications of her left arm. 'LOOK!' he
exclaimed, 'I SEE TWO LEFT ARMS IDENTICAL IN APPEARANCE. ONE IS ON THE
LITTLE TABLE. THE OTHER SEEMS TO COME OUT OF THE MEDIUM'S SHOULDER,
TOUCH MADAME BOTTAZZI, AND THEN RETURN TO EUSAPIA'S BODY AGAIN. THIS IS
NOT AN HALLUCINATION. I AM CONSCIOUS OF TWO SIMULTANEOUS VISUAL
SENSATIONS WHEN MADAME BOTTAZZI SAYS SHE HAS BEEN TOUCHED.'"
For a moment the entire company sat in silence, as though stunned by the
force of my blow. Then all turned to Miller as though to ask: "What do
you think of that?"
He slowly replied: "To grant the possible putting forth of a
supernumerary arm and hand would make physiological science foolish. It
is easier to imagine these gentlemen suffering a collective
hallucination."
"Ah! Bottazzi provided against all that. He called in the aid of
self-registering contrivances. It won't do, Miller--he proved the
objective reality of 'spirit phenomena.' He lifted the whole performance
to the plane of the test-tube, the electric light, and the barometer.
His experiments, his deductions, came as a splendid sequence to an
almost equally searching series by Crookes, Zoellner, Wallace, Thury,
Flammarion, Maxwell, Lombroso, Richet, Foa, and Morselli. His laboratory
was the crucible wherein came the final touch of heat which fuses all
the discordant facts into a solid ingot of truth."
"But, to me, he is misreading the facts," objected Fowler. "I maintain
that he is as prejudiced in his way as the spiritist. He says: 'The
mediumistic limbs explored the cabinet.' A spiritist would say: '_John
King_ explored the cabinet.' The synchronism he speaks of might exist,
and only be a proof of what the spiritist admits--that the presence and
activity of the materializing spirit are closely circumscribed by the
medium."
"Bottazzi proved the relationship to be something more intimate than
that. He demonstrated that the movement of the hands in the cabinet and
of those outside had a common origin--namely, the will and brain of
Eusapia. He proved that these invisible hands were, after all, material,
and limited in their powers. He proved that the 'spirits' shared all
Eusapia's likes and dislikes, and knew no more of chloride of iron or
ferro-cyanide of potassium than she herself possessed--in short, while
admitting the mystery of the process, he reduces all these phenomena to
human, terrestrial level, and relates them wholly and simply to the
brain and will of the psychic. Perhaps his state of mind is best
expressed at the close of his statement concerning the registration of
the movements of 'the spirit hand.' He says, in effect: 'These tracings
demonstrate irrefutably that the keys were repeatedly pressed with
perfect synchronism, the outside key with Eusapia's left hand, the one
inside the cabinet by another, which a convinced spiritist would call
that of a "materialized spirit," and which I believe to be neither the
one nor the other, although I am not able to explain what it was.'"
"Oh, lame and impotent conclusion!" exclaimed Brierly. "After that
superb test, why didn't he frankly say the discarnate had been proved?"
"Because his proof, his knowledge, was not yet sufficient. Besides, it
requires heroic courage to admit our ignorance. 'I don't know,' he says,
and that is the attitude of Morselli. Dr. Foa believes the phenomena to
come within the domain of natural law, and to result from a
transmutation of energy accumulated in the medium. He calls this 'vital
energy' or 'psychic energy,' and adds: 'If these phenomena appear
strange by virtue of their comparative rarity, they are not really more
marvellous than the biological phenomena which we witness every day.'"
"According to this theory, then," said Miller, "Mrs. Smiley has
remained, as you believe, motionless in her chair, but has been able to
'energize' at a distance."
"More than that. She has been able to emit supernumerary etheric limbs,
perhaps a complete material double of herself, which is able to move
with lightning speed and perfect precision. It is this actual
externalization of both matter and sense that makes darkness so
essential to the medium. Vivid light forces this effluvia, this
mysterious double, back into its originating body with disrupting haste.
Witness the several times when Mrs. Smiley was convulsed merely by being
touched at the wrong moment."
"There is a different interpretation to be put upon the psychic's hatred
of light," remarked Howard.
"By-the-way, yet bearing on this very subject, I read in the _Annals of
Psychic Science_ the account of a singular experiment in the matter of
independent writing. A certain Dr. Encausse, in giving a lecture before
the Society for Psychical Research at Nancy, said that in 1889, having
heard that a professional magnetizer named Robert was able to put a
subject into such a state of hypnosis that he could project lines of
writing on paper without use of pen or pencil, he was curious to see the
performance. Together with a colleague, Dr. Gibier, Encausse hastened
to witness this marvel. One of the subjects was a girl of seventeen. The
magnetizer put her to sleep, 'and during this seance,' says Dr.
Encausse, 'we were able to obtain in full light on a sheet of paper
signed by twenty witnesses, the precipitation of a whole page of written
verses signed "Corneille." I examined under the microscope the substance
that formed the writing, and I was led to the conclusion that it
consisted of globules of human blood, some scattered as if calcined,
others quite distinct. I thus verified the theory of the occultists of
1850 that the nervous energy as well as the physical force of a medium,
the material of which he is constituted, such as his blood, could
exteriorize itself and reconstruct itself at a distance.'"
"What a stunning experiment!" exclaimed Cameron.
"Important, if true," sneered Harris.
"What do you know about this learned doctor?" asked Miller.
"Nothing; but you will see that these later experiments of the Italian
scientists are sustaining De Rochas and Aksakof in their claim that the
medium is in a sense dematerialized to build up the phantasms. Dr.
Encausse goes on to say: '_Moreover, the medium who had produced this
phenomenon was preparing for the stage and had been studying Corneille
during the whole of the preceding day._ I was thus able to discover the
origin of the substance of the materialization of the writing, and also
its psychic origin.' In other words, he claims that the message was not
from the shade of the great dramatist, but was a precipitation of the
blood of the psychic and an exercise of her subconscious mind, all of
which accords with Bottazzi's theory.
"Now, then," said I, in the tone of one about to conclude, "in the light
of these experiments, my own sitting at Miller's, and especially those
that I held at Fowler's house, take on the greatest significance.
Miller, Mrs. Smiley's _visible limbs_ did not handle the books--of that
I am positive--and yet I am equally certain that she governed every
movement."
"But what about the voices?" asked Fowler. "Does this theory cover the
whispering personalities we heard? What about 'Wilbur' and 'Maudie'?"
"That's easy," retorted Howard. "Once you explain the manipulation of
the cone, the rest is merely clever ventriloquism."
"There is nothing 'easy' about any of these phenomena," I answered. "As
Richet says, they are absurd, but they are observed facts. It would not
be fair to the spiritists to end the account of these sittings without
frankly stating that there were many other phenomena very difficult to
explain by Bottazzi's theory. There came a time, as he admits, when 'a
mysterious entity behind the curtain, among us, almost in contact with
us, was felt all the time.' This entity was supposed to be 'John King,'
the psychic's control. This being, invisible for the most part, gave
roses to those he liked, conversed freely, and in one case threw a bunch
of flowers in the face of one of the sitters to whom Eusapia had taken a
dislike. A little later 'John' presented a small drum from behind the
curtain, and, when Galeotti tried to take it, 'John' pulled it out of
his hands. Again he offered it, and Galeotti seized it, and the two
fought for its possession with such violence that the drum was nearly
torn to pieces."
"Where was Paladino meanwhile?" asked Miller.
"Seated quietly in the grasp of Bottazzi and Madame Bottazzi. Galeotti
then raised the drum in his hand, high above his head and against the
curtain, and requested 'John' to beat it. 'John' pushed a hand against
the drum and beat a muffled tattoo. All this was utterly out of the
psychic's reach. The strife over the drum would seem to argue a complete
and powerful figure behind the curtain."
"In other words, a spirit," said Brierly.
"Not so fast," put in Miller. "I am content to plod with these Italian
scientists. Let us establish one supernormal fact and then reach for
another. You fellows with your 'reincarnations,' and the spiritist with
his foolish messages from Cleopatra, Raphael, and Shakespeare, have
confused the situation. We must begin all over again. If all that
Garland is detailing is true--I have not read these reports he speaks
of--then it is our duty to take up the scrutiny of these facts as a part
of biologic science."
Fowler clapped his hands. "Bravo! that is all we ask of you. To study
frogs and mosquitoes, to peer close into the constitution of the blood
or the brain of man, is useful; but, to my mind, the questions raised by
these Continental experimentalists are the most vital now clamoring for
answer."
"Bottazzi says, with regard to his eighth and final sitting: 'The
results of this seance were very favorable, because they eliminated the
slightest trace of suspicion or uncertainty relative to the genuineness
of the phenomena. We obtained the same kind of assurance as that which
we have concerning physical, chemical, or physiological phenomena.
Henceforth sceptics can only deny the facts by accusing us of fraud and
charlatanism. I should be very much surprised if any one were bold
enough to bring the charge against us, but it would not disturb our
minds in the least. From this time forward the medium who wishes to
prove the truth of her phenomena will be obliged to permit the same
kind of experimentation which Eusapia so adequately sustained.'"
"Well, now," said Cameron, "the practical question is this: are we to go
on with our investigation?"
"I am ready," said Miller, promptly. "Garland, will you purvey another
psychic and conduct the pursuit?"
"Yes, provided you all come in with spirits attuned, ready to wait
patiently and observe silently. The law of these materializations seems
to be this: the forces of the psychic are proportional to the
harmoniousness of the circle and in inverse proportion to the light.
Accepting this law as proved by our illustrious fellow-experimenters
abroad, are you ready to try again along the lines they have marked
out?"
As with one voice, all agreed.
"Very well," said I; "I will see what I can do for you in the way of a
new psychic and new phenomena. We will now experiment with design to
prove the identity of the reappearing dead. Of this I am fully
persuaded. Men will be discovering new laws of nature ten thousand years
from now, just as they are to-day. It is inconceivable that the secrets
of the universe should ever be entirely made plain. The world of mystery
retires before the dawn. Nothing is really explained--what we call
familiar facts are at bottom inexplicable mysteries, and must ever
remain so."
"Then why go on? Why not stop now and save ourselves the trouble of
investigation?"
"Because there is joy in the pursuit--because it is in the nature of man
to pursue this quest. Who knows but the conclusions of Venzano and
Morselli, of Bottazzi and Foa, have opened new vistas in human nature?
These 'supernormal powers' may chance to be of immense value to the
race, quite aside from their bearing upon the problem of death.
Furthermore, these reports come at a time when a hard-and-fast
literalism of interpretation is the fashion among scientists like
Miller. Perhaps they and the art of the day will alike be offered new
inspiration by these mystifying enlargements of human faculty. I for one
feel profoundly indebted to these brave and clear-brained Italian
scientists. I should like to see the physicists of our own universities
busying themselves with this most absorbing and vital problem."
"But they don't," retorted Fowler. "They will not even read Bottazzi's
reports."
And I fear he is justified in his belief.
[As I am reading proof on this page a fat letter from a friend in
Naples comes to my desk, filled with the several corroborative
accounts of a special sitting with Paladino which Professor
Bottazzi kindly arranged for them. My correspondent is a New York
editor, and in his party of six was the associate professor of
chemistry in a big Eastern college. After detailing the many
marvellous phenomena which took place in his presence, Professor
M---- says: "In view of the phenomena with which I am habitually
concerned, I did not _want_ to believe in Paladino's supernormal
powers, but I had to accept what I saw." These reports bring
Bottazzi's experiments closer to the dead. I hope they will bring
them a little nearer to my readers. "Bottazzi has no slightest
doubt of the phenomena," is the concluding line of my friend's
letter.]