THE PRODUCTION OF SOUND WITHOUT ANY APPARENT PHYSICAL CAUSE
If the tipping of small tables when the hands of the sitters are in
contact is excepted--under which circumstances it is generally
impossible to determine whether the result is psychical, or due merely
to muscular action unconsciously exercised--the production of raps and
other sounds is the most frequent of the phenomena under consideration.
They are, however, generally so intermixed with other phenomena that it
is difficult to treat them separately.
THE DIALECTICAL SOCIETY.
In the extracts from the Report of the Committee of the Dialectical
Society given in the preceding chapter, it will be remembered that raps
and other noises are referred to as being frequently heard, and also as
apparently produced by an intelligent agency.
TESTIMONY OF PROFESSOR W. F. BARRETT, F.R.S.
The reader is asked to refer to the general conditions of the case of
Mr. C. testified to by Professor Barrett in the previous chapter. He
says:--
"They (the sounds) came more readily and more loudly when music was
played, or a merry song struck up. Usually they kept time with the
music, and altogether displayed a singular degree of intelligence.
Sometimes a loud rhythmic scraping, as of a violoncello bow on a piece
of wood, would accompany the music. Again and again I placed my ear on
the very spot on the table whence this rough fiddling appeared to
proceed, and felt distinctly the rhythmic vibration of the table, but no
tangible cause was visible either above or below the table.... On one
occasion, when no one else was in the room, ... I asked my young friend
the medium to put her hands against the wall, and see how far she could
stretch her feet back from the wall without tumbling down. This she did,
and whilst in this constrained position--with the muscles of arms and
legs all in tension--I asked for the knocks to come. Immediately a brisk
pattering of raps followed my request. All the while the child remained
quite motionless. My reason in making this experiment, was to test the
late Dr. Carpenter's muscular theory of the cause of the sounds. Had Dr.
Carpenter been present, I feel sure he would have admitted that here at
any rate that theory fell through."[13]
Professor Barrett sums up his conclusions on this case thus:--
"A long and careful examination convinced me that trickery on the part
of the child was a more improbable hypothesis than that the sounds
proceeded from some unknown agency. Nor could the sounds be accounted
for by trickery on the part of the servants in the house, for in
addition to my careful inquiries on this point, Mr. C. informed me that
he had obtained the raps on the handle of his umbrella out of doors,
when the child was by his side; and that the music-master complained of
raps proceeding from inside the piano whenever the child was listless or
inattentive at her music lesson. Mrs. C. told me that almost every night
she heard the raps by the bedside of the child when she went to bid her
good-night; and that after she had left the room and partially closed
the door, she would hear quite an animated conversation going on between
her daughter and her invisible companion, the child rapidly spelling
over the alphabet, and the raps occurring at the right letters, and the
child thus obtaining with surprising rapidity a clue to the words spelt
out.
"Still more violently improbable is the supposition that the parents of
the child were at the bottom of the mystery, stimulated by a desire to
impress their friends with the wonderful but imaginary gifts their child
possessed. The presence of the parents was not necessary for the
occurrence of the sounds, which, as I have said, often took place when I
was the only person in the room besides the child.
"Hallucination was the explanation which suggested itself to my own mind
when first I heard of the phenomena, but was dismissed as wholly
inapplicable after the first day's inquiry; nor do I think that any one
could maintain that different people, individually and collectively, for
some weeks, thought they heard and saw a series of sounds and motions
which had no objective existence.
"No! I was then, and am still, morally certain that the phenomena had a
real existence outside oneself, and that they were not produced by
trickery or by known causes. Hence I could come to no other conclusion
than that we had here a class of phenomena wholly new to science."[14]
After some three months the sounds ceased as unexpectedly as they had
commenced.
There is one form of sound manifestation to which no allusion has been
made--what is called the "Direct Voice." It is alleged to be of frequent
occurrence in spiritualistic circles. Articulate words are, it is
stated, spoken "direct," not through the voice organs of any person
present. The phenomenon, so far as I have heard, occurs only in
darkness--and is an objective voice audible alike to every one present.
It corresponds to the phenomenon of "direct writing." But no attempt
that I am aware of has been made to treat the matter scientifically. One
of the earliest alleged occurrences of this phenomenon took place in
London, at a private seance at which I was present at the house of Mr.
Thos. Everitt, who departed this life in August of last year, and who
was one of the most prominent London spiritualists, Mrs. Everitt being
the medium. Some little time later, at a similar seance at the same
house, the sitting was terminated by the singing of a hymn by three or
four soft, gentle voices, purporting to be "direct" voices, which
sounded as if they proceeded from the top of the room close to the
ceiling. They were certainly not the voices of any of the company
present. It was one of the most beautiful and touching manifestations I
ever experienced. I can only compare it to the singing of a choir of
boys' voices, high up out of sight in Truro Cathedral, which I had heard
many years before. The seances at Mr. Everitt's were conducted in an
exclusively religious tone, and afforded no opportunity for obtaining
scientific evidence. It is much to be desired that a careful inquiry
should be made into the reality of so interesting a phenomenon.
FOOTNOTES:
[13] _Proceedings S.P.R._, vol. iv. pp. 29-30.
[14] _Proceedings S.P.R._, vol. iv. p. 31.