Mysterious Psychic Forces / An Account of the Author's Investigations in Psychical Research, Together with Those of Other European Savants

CHAPTER X

SUNDRY EXPERIMENTS AND OBSERVATIONS

Abundant testimony as to the existence of a hitherto little explored psychic realm has doubtless been given in the preceding pages. Mediumistic phenomena proclaim the existence of unknown forces. It is almost superfluous to heap up in this place a still greater number of recorded instances.

However, these facts are so extraordinary, so incomprehensible, so hard to believe, that a mere increase in the number of cases is not without value, especially when they are furnished by men of incontestable skill and learning. The old law proverb Testis unus, testis nullus ("One witness is no witness") is applicable here. We must not verify once, we must verify a hundred times, such apparently scientific extravagances, in order to make sure they are not delusions, but sober facts.

In short, the whole subject is so curious, so strange that the investigator of these mysteries is never surfeited.

Hence, in addition to what has already been given, I shall select and present in this place, out of the immense collection of observations which I have for a long time been making, those which most strike the attention and give added confirmation to what has preceded.

In addition to the experiments of Crookes, it is fitting to add in this place those of the great English naturalist, Alfred Russel Wallace, also a member of the Royal Society of London, President of the English Anthropological Society, and well known as the scientist, who at the same time with Darwin (June, 1858), gave to the world the theory of the variation of species by natural selection.

He himself gives the following account[69] of his studies in this matter of the mysterious psychic force:

It was in the summer of 1865 that I first witnessed any of the phenomena of what is called Spiritualism, in the house of a friend,—a sceptic, a man of science, and a lawyer, with none but members of his own family present. Sitting at a good-sized round table, with our hands placed upon it, after a short time slight movements would commence—not often "turnings" or "tiltings" but a gentle intermittent movement, like steps, which after a time would bring the table quite across the room. Slight but distinct tapping sounds were also heard. The following notes made at the time were intended to describe exactly what took place:—

"July 22nd, 1865.—Sat with my friend, his wife, and two daughters at a large loo table, by daylight. In about half an hour some faint motions were perceived, and some faint taps heard. They gradually increased; the taps became very distinct, and the table moved considerably, obliging us all to shift our chairs. Then a curious vibratory motion of the table commenced, almost like the shivering of a living animal. I could feel it up to my elbows. These phenomena were variously repeated for two hours. On trying afterwards, we found the table could not be voluntarily moved in the same manner without a great exertion of force, and we could discover no possible way of producing the taps while our hands were upon the table."

On other occasions we tried the experiment of each person in succession leaving the table, and found that the phenomena continued the same as before, both taps and the table movement. Once I requested one after another to leave the table. The phenomena continued, but, as the number of sitters diminished, with decreasing vigor, and, just after the last person had drawn back, leaving me alone at the table, there were two dull taps or blows, as with a fist on the pillar or foot of the table, the vibration of which I could feel as well as hear.

Some time before these observations I had met a gentleman who had told me of most wonderful phenomena occurring in his own family,—among them the palpable motion of solid bodies when no person was touching them or near them; and he had recommended me to go to a public medium in London (Mrs. Marshall), where I might see things equally wonderful. Accordingly, in September, 1865, I began a series of visits to Mrs. Marshall, generally accompanied by a friend,—a good chemist and mechanic, and of a thoroughly sceptical mind.

1. A small table, on which the hands of four persons were placed (including my own and Mrs. Marshall's), rose up vertically about a foot from the floor, and remained suspended for about twenty seconds, while my friend, who was sitting looking on, could see the lower part of the table with the feet freely suspended above the floor.

2. While sitting at a large table, with Miss T. on my left and Mr. R. on my right, a guitar which had been played in Miss T's hand slid down onto the floor, passed over my feet, and came to Mr. R., against whose legs it raised itself up till it appeared above the table. I and Mr. R. were watching it carefully the whole time, and it behaved as if alive itself, or rather as if a small invisible child were by great exertions moving it and raising it up. These two phenomena were witnessed in bright gaslight.

3. A chair, on which a relation of Mr. R's sat, was lifted up with her on it. Afterwards, when she returned to the table from the piano, where she had been playing, her chair moved away just as she was going to sit down. On drawing it up, it moved away again. After this had happened three times, it became apparently fixed to the floor, so that she could not raise it. Mr. R. then took hold of it, and found that it was only by a great exertion he could lift it off the floor. This sitting took place in broad daylight, on a bright day, and in a room on the first floor with two windows.

However strange and unreal these few phenomena may seem to readers who have seen nothing of the kind, I positively affirm that they are facts which really happened just as I have narrated them, and that there was no room for any possible trick or deception. In each case, before we began, we turned up the tables and chairs, and saw that they were ordinary pieces of furniture, and that there was no connection between them and the floor, and we placed them where we pleased before we sat down. Several of the phenomena occurred entirely under our own hands, and quite disconnected from the "medium." They were as much realities as the motion of nails towards a magnet, and, it may be added, not in themselves more improbable or more incomprehensible.

The mental phenomena which most frequently occur are the spelling out of the names of relatives of persons present, their ages, or any other particulars about them. They are especially uncertain in their manifestation, though when they do succeed they are very conclusive to the persons who witness them. The general opinion of sceptics as to these phenomena is, that they depend simply on the acuteness and talent of the medium in hitting on the letters which form the name, by the manner in which persons dwell upon or hurry over them,—the ordinary mode of receiving these communications being for the person interested to go over a printed alphabet, letter by letter, loud taps indicating the letters which form the required names. I am going to choose some of our experiments which show how impossible it is to accept this explanation.

When I first received a communication myself I was particularly careful to avoid giving any indication, by going with steady regularity over the letters; yet there was spelt out correctly, first, the place where my brother died, Para; then his Christian name, Herbert; and lastly, at my request, the name of the mutual friend who last saw him, Henry Walter Bates. On this occasion our party of six visited Mrs. Marshall for the first time, and my name as well as those of the rest of the party, except one, were unknown to her. That one was my married sister, whose name was no clue to mine.

On the same occasion a young lady, a connection of Mr. R.'s was told that a communication was to be made to her. She took the alphabet, and instead of pointing to the letters one by one, she moved the pencil smoothly over the lines with the greatest steadiness. I watched her, and wrote down the letters which the taps indicated. The name produced was an extraordinary one, the letters being Thomas Doe Thacker. I thought there must be an error in the latter part; but the names were Thomas Doe Thacker, the lady's father, every letter being correct. A number of other names, places, and dates were spelt out on this occasion with equal accuracy; but I give only these two, because in these I am sure no clue was given by which the names could have been guessed by the most preternaturally acute intellect.

On another occasion, I accompanied my sister and a lady who had never been there before to Mrs. Marshall's, and we had a very curious illustration of the absurdity of imputing the spelling of names to the receiver's hesitation and the medium's acuteness. She wished the name of a particular deceased relative to be spelled out to her, and pointed to the letters of the alphabet in the usual way, while I wrote down those indicated. The first three letters were y r n. "Oh!" said she, "that's nonsense; we had better begin again." Just then an e came, and, thinking I saw what it was, I said, "Please go on, I understand it." The whole was then spelt out thus: yrnehkcocffej. The lady even then did not see it, till I separated it thus: yrneh kcocffej, or Henry Jeffcock,—the name of the relative she had wanted, accurately spelt backwards.

Another phenomenon, necessitating the exertion both of force and intellect, is the following: The table having been previously examined, a sheet of note paper was marked privately by me, and placed with a lead-pencil under the centre foot of the table, all present having their hands upon the table. After a few minutes, taps are heard, and, on taking up the paper, I find written on it, in a free hand, "William." On another occasion, a friend from the country—a total stranger to the medium, and whose name was never mentioned—accompanied me; and, after receiving what purported to be a communication from his son, a paper was put under the table, and in a few minutes there was found written on it "Charley T. Dodd." the correct name. In these cases it is certain there was no machinery under the table; and it simply remains to ask if it were possible for Mrs. Marshall to slip off her boots, seize the pencil and paper with her toes, and write on it a name she had to guess at, and again put on her boots without removing her hands from the table, or giving any indication whatever of her exertions.

It was in November, 1866, that my sister discovered that a lady living with her had the power of inducing loud and distinct taps and other curious phenomena; and I now began a series of observations in my own house, the most important of which I shall briefly narrate.

When we sat at a large loo table without a cloth, with all our hands upon it, the taps would generally commence in a few minutes. They sound as if made on the under side of the leaf of the table, in various parts of it. They change in tone and loudness, from a sound like that produced by tapping with a needle or a long finger-nail, to others like blows with a fist or slaps with the fingers of a hand. Sounds are produced also like scraping with a finger-nail, or like the rubbing of a damp finger pressed very hard on the table. The rapidity with which these sounds are produced and are changed is very remarkable. They will imitate, more or less exactly, sounds which we make with our fingers above the table; they will keep good time to a tune whistled by one of the party; they will sometimes, at request, play a very fair tune themselves, or will follow accurately a hand tapping a tune upon the table.

Of course, the first impression is that some one's foot is lifting up the table. To answer this objection, I prepared the table before our second trial without telling any one, by stretching some thin tissue paper between the feet an inch or two from the bottom of the pillar, in such a manner that any attempt to insert the foot must crush or tear the paper. The table rose up as before, resisted pressure downwards, as if it was resting on the back of some animal, sunk to the floor, and in a short time rose again, and then dropped suddenly down. I now with some anxiety turned up the table, and, to the surprise of all present, showed them the delicate tissue stretched across altogether uninjured! Finding that this test was troublesome, as the paper or threads had to be renewed every time, and were liable to be broken accidentally before the experiment began, I constructed a cylinder of hoops and laths, covered with canvas. The table was placed within this as in a well, and, as it was about eighteen inches high, it kept the feet and dresses of the ladies away from the table. The latter rose without the least difficulty, the hands of all the group being held above it.

A small centre-table suddenly moved up of its own accord to the table by the side of the medium, as if it had gradually got within the sphere of a strong attractive force. Afterwards, at our request, it was thrown down on the floor without any person touching it, and it then moved about in a strange life-like manner, as if seeking some means of getting up again, turning its claws first on one side and then on the other. On another occasion, a very large leather arm-chair which stood at least four or five feet from the medium, suddenly wheeled up to her, after a few slight preliminary movements. It is, of course, easy to say that what I relate is impossible. I maintain that it is accurately true; and that no man, whatever be his attainments, has such an exhaustive knowledge of the powers of nature as to justify him in using the word "impossible" with regard to facts which I and many others have repeatedly witnessed.

We evidently have here facts similar to those which I observed in my experiments with Eusapia and with other mediums.

Alfred Russel Wallace continues his account by the citation of cases analogous to those which have been described in this work; then sums up the experiments of Crookes, of Varley, Morgan, and other English scientists; does me the honor of citing my letter to the Dialectical Society which I have printed above; passes in review the history of Spiritualism, and declares that (1) the facts are incontestable, and that (2), in his opinion, the best explanatory hypothesis is that of spirits, or the souls of the disembodied—the theory of "the unconscious" being evidently inadequate.Such is also the opinion of the electrician Cromwell Varley. Neither he nor Wallace believes that there is anything supernatural in the phenomena. Discarnate spirits are in nature, as well as the incarnate. "The triviality of the communications ought not to astonish us, if we consider the myriads of trivial and fantastic human beings who every day become ghosts and are the same beings the day after their death that they were the day before."

Professor Morgan, the brilliant author of the Budget of Paradoxes (an excellent piece of work, and highly complimented by the London AthenÆum, in 1865), expresses the same opinion in his work on Mind (1863). Not only does he think that the facts are incontestable, but he also believes that the hypothesis that explains the facts by intelligences exterior to ourselves is the only satisfying one. He relates, among other things, that, in one of the sÉances attended by him, a friend of his (a very sceptical person), was making a little fun of the spirits, whereupon, while they were all standing (a dozen experimenters of them) around the dining room table, and forming the chain above it, without contact, the heavy table began to move of its own accord, and, dragging along the whole group, made a rush at the sceptic, and pinned him against the back of the sofa, until he cried "Hold! enough!"

Still, does that constitute proof of an independent spirit? Was it not an expression of the collective thought of the company? And, likewise, in the experience which Wallace has just cited, were not the dictated names latent in the brain of the questioner? And was not the little centre-table, in its climbings acting under the physical and pyschical influences of the medium?

Whatever may be the explanatory hypothesis, the FACTS are undeniable.

We have here, before all, a group of substantial English scientists of the first rank, in whose opinion the denial of the phenomena is a sort of madness.

French scientists are a little more belated than their neighbors. Nevertheless, I have already called attention to some of them during the course of this work. I should have taken pleasure in adding the names of the lamented Pierre Curie and of Professor d'Arsonval, if they had published the experiments they made with Eusapia during July, 1905, and March and April, 1906, at the General Institute of Psychology.

Among the most judicious of experimenters in psychical phenomena I ought also to mention M. J. Maxwell, a doctor of medicine and (a very different function) advocate-general at the Court of Appeals in Bordeaux.

The reader may have already noticed (p. 173) the part which this investigator, at once a magistrate and a scientist, took in the experiments made at l'AgnÉlas in 1895. Eusapia is not the only medium with whom he studied, and his acquaintance with our subject is supported by the best of documentary evidence.

It is fitting that I present to the reader at this point the most characteristic facts and the essential conclusions set forth in his work.[70]

The author has made a special examinations of raps.

Raps (coups frappÉs).—The contact of hands is not necessary to obtain raps. With certain mediums I have very readily obtained them without contact.

When one has succeeded in obtaining raps with contact, one of the surest means of continuing to thus obtain them, is to keep the hands resting on the table for a certain time, then to lift them very slowly, keeping the palms turned downward toward the table, the fingers loosely opened, but not held stiffly. It rarely happens under such circumstances, that the raps do not continue to make themselves heard, at least for some time. I need not add that the experimenters should not only avoid touching the table with their hands, but even with any other part of their bodies, or their clothes. The contact of garments with the table may be sufficient to produce raps which have in them nothing supernormal. It is necessary therefore to exercise great care that the dresses of ladies do not come in contact with the legs of the table. When the necessary precautions are used, the raps sound in a very convincing way.

In the case of certain mediums, the energy set free is powerful enough to act at a distance. I once happened to hear raps upon a table which was almost six feet from the medium. We had had a very short sitting and had left the table. I was reclining in an easy-chair; the medium, standing, was conversing with me, when a series of raps was made upon the table which we had just left. It was broad daylight in midsummer, about five o'clock in the evening. The raps were forcible and lasted for several minutes.

I have often observed facts of this kind. I happened once, while travelling, to meet an interesting medium. He did not allow me to use his name, but I may say that he is an honorable man, well informed, occupying an official position. I obtained with him lively raps in restaurants and in railway lunch counters. He did not suspect that he possessed this latent faculty before he had experimented with me. To have observed the raps produced under these conditions would have been sufficient to convince anyone of their authenticity. The unusual noise made by these raps attracted the attention of persons present and gave us much annoyance. The result surpassed our expectations. It is to be noted that the more we were confused with the noise made by our raps, the more frequent they became. One would have said that some waggish creature was producing them and amusing himself with our embarrassment.

I also obtained fine raps upon the floors of museums before the pictures of the old masters. The most common are those made, with contact, upon the table or upon the floor; next, those made at a distance upon various articles of furniture.

More rarely, I have heard them on the garments of the sitters or of the medium, or upon the coverings of pieces of furniture. I have heard them on sheets of paper laid on the experiment-table, in books, in walls, in tambourines, in small wooden objects, especially in a planchette used for automatic writing. I noticed very curious raps in the case of a writing-medium. When she had automatic writing, the raps were produced with extreme rapidity at the end of her pencil; but, the pencil itself did not tap the table. Several times and very carefully I put my hand on the end of the pencil opposite the point, without the latter leaving for a single moment the paper on the table: the raps sounded in the wood, not on the paper. In this case, of course, the medium held the pencil.

The raps occur even when I place my finger on the upper end of the pencil and when I press its point against the paper. You feel the pencil vibrating, but it is not displaced. Inasmuch as these raps are very resonant, I calculated that it would be necessary to give a pretty strong blow in order to produce them artificially. The necessary movement requires a lifting of the point from two to five millimeters, according to the intensity of the raps. Now the point does not seem to be displaced. Furthermore, when the writing is going on, these raps take place with great rapidity, and the examination of the writing does not show any place where a stop occurred. The text is continuous, no trace of tapping is perceptible in it, no thickening of the strokes can be perceived. Observations made under such conditions seem to me to exclude the possibility of fraud.

I have observed that these raps occur, without apparent cause, as far as nine feet from the medium. They manifest themselves as the expression of an activity and of a will distinct from those of the observers. Such is the appearance of the phenomenon. A curious fact results from all this, that not only do the raps occur as the product of an intelligent action, but they also usually agree to perform as often as asked, and to produce definite rhythms, for example, certain airs. In like manner they imitate the raps made by the experimenters, upon demand of the latter.

The different raps frequently respond to each other, and it is one of the prettiest experiments in which one can take part to hear these blows, now slight and muffled, now sharp and abrupt, or again soft and gentle, sounding simultaneously upon the table, the floor, and the frame-work and coverings of the furniture.

I had the good fortune to be able to study these curious rappings at close range, and I believe I have reached certain conclusions. The first, and the best attested, is that the raps are closely connected with the muscular movements of the sitters. I will sum up my observations on this point as follows:

1. Every muscular movement, even a feeble one, is generally followed by a rap.

2. The intensity of the raps did not seem to me to be proportional to the muscular movement made.

3. The intensity of the raps did not seem to me to vary in proportion to their distance from the medium.

The following are the facts upon which my conclusions rest:

I frequently observed that when we had raps that were feeble and occurred only at intervals, an excellent means of producing them was to form the chain upon the table, the hands resting upon it, and the observers putting their fingers in light contact. One of them, without breaking the chain (a feat he accomplished by holding in the same hand the right hand of his neighbor on the left and the left hand of his neighbor on the right) moved his released hand in circular sweeps or passes over the table, at the level of the circle formed by the opened hands of the observers. After having made this movement four or five times, always in the same direction,—that is to say, after having thus traced four or five circles over the table, the experimenter brought his hand over toward the centre at a variable height and moved it down towards the table. Then he abruptly arrested this movement at a distance of seven or eight inches from the top. The abrupt stoppage of his hand was tallied by a rap in the wood. It is an exceptional case when this process does not yield taps,—that is to say, when there is a medium in the circle capable, even feebly, of producing them.

The same experiment can be made without touching the table, but forming around it a kind of closed chain. One of the operators then acts as in the preceding case.

I have no need to recall to the minds of my readers that with certain mediums, raps are produced without any movement being made. Almost all mediums can obtain them in this way by keeping perfectly quiet and having patience. But one would say that the execution of the movement acts as a determining cause. It seems as if the accumulated energy received a kind of stimulus.

Levitations.—One day we improvised an experiment in the afternoon, and I remember that I observed a very interesting levitation made under these circumstances. It was about five o'clock in the evening (at any rate it was broad daylight), in the salon at l'AgnÉlas. We took our places about the table, standing. Eusapia took the hand of one of us and placed it on the corner of the table, at her right. The table thereupon rose up to the height of our foreheads; that is to say, the top of the table rose at least as high as five feet above the floor.

Such experiments were very convincing, for it was impossible for Eusapia, the circumstances being such as they were, to lift the table by a normal act. It is enough to suppose that she merely touched the corner of the table, to find out how heavy a weight she would have had to lift if she had made a muscular movement. Besides, she had not a sufficient grip on the table to lift it. Evidently, the conditions of the experiment being such, she could not make use of one of the fraudulent processes mentioned by her critics, such as straps or hooks of any kind. The phenomenon is undeniably authentic.

The breathing seems to have a very great influence. In the way things take place, it seems as if the sitters released, by breathing, an amount of motor energy comparable to that which they release when rapidly moving their limbs. There is something in this very curious and difficult to explain.

The more complete analysis of the facts allows us to think that the liberation of the energy employed depends upon the contraction of the muscles and not upon the movement made. The thing which reveals this peculiarity is easy to observe. When we are forming the chain about the table, we can set up a movement without contact by mutually pressing our hands together with a certain force, or by pressing the feet hard upon the floor. The first of these means is much the better of the two. The arms have only made an insignificant movement, and one can say that the muscular contraction is almost the only physiological phenomenon observable. Yet it suffices.

All these authenticated experiments tend to show that the agent which determines movements without contact has some connection with our organism, and probably with our nervous system.

Conditions of the Experiments.—We must never lose out of our sight the relative importance of the moral and intellectual status of the group of experimenters. That is one of the most difficult things to seize and comprehend. But when the force is abundant, the simple manifestation of the will is sometimes able to determine the movement. For example, upon a desire to that affect being expressed by the sitters, the table moves in the way it is requested to do. The phenomena occur as if this force were guided by an Intelligence distinct from that of the experimenters. I hasten to say that I regard that only as a probability, and that I think I have observed a certain resemblance between these personifications and the secondary personalities of somnambulists.

In this apparent bond between the indirect will of the sitters and the phenomena there is a problem the solution of which has so far completely escaped me. I suspect that this bond has nothing supernatural about it and I realize that the Spiritualistic hypothesis is a poorer explanation and inadequate to meet the facts; but I cannot formulate any satisfactory explanation.

Close observations of the relations existing between the phenomena and the will of the sitters brings out other discoveries also. I mean, in the first place, the bad affect which disagreement among the experimenters produces. It sometimes happens that one of them expresses the desire to perceive a certain phenomenon. If the thing is slow in taking place, the same experimenter, or another one, will ask for a different spectacle. Sometimes different sitters will ask for several contradictory things at the same time. The confusion which reigns in the collective thought manifests itself in the phenomena, which themselves become confused and vague.[71]

However, things do not happen absolutely as if the phenomena were directed by a will which is only the shadow or the reflex of that of the sitters. It sometimes happens that they show great independence, and flatly refuse to yield to the desires expressed.

Forms and Phantoms.—At Bordeaux, in 1897, the room where we held our sittings was lighted by a very large window. The outside Venetian blinds of this window were closed; but when the gas was lighted in a little building which formed an adjunct to the kitchen, in the corner of the court near the garden, a feeble light penetrated the room and dimly illuminated the window panes. The window itself formed in this way a bright background upon which certain dark forms were perceived by a part of the experimenters. We all saw these forms, or rather this form, for it was always the same one that appeared,—a long bearded profile, with a very high arched nose. This apparition said it was head of John, a personification who always appears with Eusapia.[72] This is a very extraordinary phenomenon. The first idea which presents itself to the mind is that this is a case of collective hallucination. But the care with which we observed this curious phenomenon—and, it seems needless for me to add, the calmness with which we experimented—renders this hypothesis very unlikely.

The supposition of fraud is still less admissible. The head, which we saw was of life size, measuring say sixteen inches from the forehead to the end of the beard. It is impossible to understand how Eusapia could have hidden in her pockets or under her clothes any kind of a cardboard profile. Nor can one understand any better how, unknown to us, she could have taken out this paper figure, mounted it upon a stick, or upon a wire, and so operated with it. Eusapia had not gone into a trance: she herself sometimes saw the profile which appeared, and, thoroughly awake and conscious, took pleasure in assisting in the phenomena which she was producing. The feeble light which the illumined window shed was sufficient to enable us to see her hands being carefully held by the controllers on the right and on the left. It would have been impossible for her to manipulate these objects. In fact, however, the profile observed seemed to form at the top of the cabinet, at the height of about three and a half feet above Eusapia's head. It descended rather slowly and so took its place above and in front of her. Then at the end of some seconds it disappeared, only to reappear some time afterwards in the same circumstances. Every time, we carefully assured ourselves of the relative immobility of the hand and arms of the medium. Hence I regard the prodigy which I am relating as one of the most certain I ever verified, so incompatible was the hypothesis of fraud with the conditions under which we observed.

I am persuaded that these facts will one day (soon perhaps) receive the stamp of scientific approval as subjects of study. They will do this in spite of the obstacles which obstinate infatuation and the fear of ridicule pile in the way.

The intolerance of certain beings matches that of certain dogmas. Catholicism, for example, considers psychic phenomena as the work of the Devil. Is it worth while at the present time to combat such a theory? I do not think it is.

But this question is foreign to the psychic facts themselves. So far as my experience permits me to judge, these phenomena are entirely natural. The Devil does not show his claws in them. If the tables should announce that they were Satan himself, there would be nothing on the face of things which would lead us to believe they were speaking the truth. If called on to prove his power, this grandiloquent Satan would turn out, I fear, to be a sorry thaumaturgist. The religious prejudice which proscribes these experiments as supernatural is as little justified as the scientific prejudice which only sees in them fraud and imposture. Here again the old adage of Aristotle finds its application: Equity lies between the two extremes of opinion.

It is evident that these experiments of Dr. Maxwell are in accord with all the preceding ones. The results ascertained mutually confirm each other.

Apropos of mediums who produce physical or material effects, I should also like to mention here the one who was very specially examined at Paris, in 1902, by a group of men composed in large part of former pupils of the Polytechnic School. They held a dozen sÉances in July and August. This group was composed of MM. A. de Rochas, Taton, Lemerle, BaclÉ, de Fontenay, and Dariex. The medium was Auguste Politi, of Rome. He was forty-seven years old.

Several very remarkable table-levitations were observed and photographed by these gentlemen during their sittings. I reproduce here (Pl. XIII) one of these photographs, taken by M. de Fontenay which he kindly allows me to use. It is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful that has been obtained, and one of the most striking. All the hands that form the chain are carefully held away from the table. It seems to me that not to recognize the value of this photograph as a record would be to deny the evidence itself. It was taken instantaneously by a flash of magnesium light. The eyes of the medium had been bandaged, that the light might not give him a nervous shock.

This same medium was studied at Rome, in February, 1904, by a group composed of Professor MilÉsi, of the University of Rome, M. Joseph Squanquarillo, Mr. and Mrs. Franklin Simmons (American travellers passing through Rome), and M. and Mme. Cartoni.

Plate XIII. Instantaneous Photograph
Taken by M. de Fontenay of Table Levitation
Produced by the Medium Auguste Politi.

They declare that they heard scales very well executed upon the piano (which was an upright one), at quite a distance from the sitters; yet none of the sitters knew how to play on the piano, while Professor MilÉsi's deceased sister, who was called upon to manifest herself, was a very good pianist.

Another musical phenomenon was produced: A mandolin placed on the lid of the piano, began of its own accord to play, balancing itself in the air until it went and fell down (playing all the while) between the hands of the experimenters who formed the chain.

Later, at intervals, the piano was lifted in its turn, falling back noisily. It must be remarked that two men scarcely sufficed to lift this piano, even by one of its sides. After the sitting, it was ascertained that the instrument had been displaced about a foot and a half.

But here follows a rÉsumÉ of the phenomena observed with this medium.

In every sÉance, very vigorous raps were obtained in the table around which were grouped the experimenters and the medium (they together forming the chain), while the lamp with red light was on the table itself. "If we wished to produce raps so sharp and strong (says M. C. Caccia, the reporter of these sÉances), we had to rap with all our might on the table with some solid object, while the kind of raps which were produced in the sÉances with Politi seemed to issue from the interior of the table with loud sounds like explosions."

But now the table begins to be shaken. The white curtain of the cabinet which was behind the medium, at a distance of twenty inches, swelled out and floated in every direction, as if a violent wind had inflated it from the other side. We heard a chair moving with a gliding motion over the floor. It had been placed there before the beginning of the sitting and was now thrown violently over. During the course of the fifth sitting it came clear out of the cabinet, in the presence of everybody, and did not stop until it got near the medium.

These phenomena took place by the red light of a photographic lamp. In the complete darkness which attended the third sÉance an extraordinary thing occurred,—so much the more extraordinary because we had taken special measures to forestall any attempt at fraud. The medium was held by two sitters who, being very sceptical, had taken their places on his right and on his left, and were holding his hands and his feet.

At a certain moment the medium ordered the operators to lift their hands from the table and not to hinder its movements; above all, not to break the chain. Whereupon a great uproar was heard in the cabinet. The medium calls for light, and, to the great amazement of all of us, we discover that the table, which was rectangular in form and did not weigh less than thirty-nine pounds, was found turned upside down upon the floor of the cabinet. The controllers declared that the medium had not stirred. It is to be remarked:

1. That the table must have been lifted high enough to pass over the heads of the sitters.

2. That it must have passed above the group forming the chain.

3. That as the opening in the curtains of the cabinet only measured thirty-seven inches across, and the table, on its shortest side, thirty inches, there only remained free seven inches for passing through this opening.

4. That the table must have come forward endwise, then moved around lengthwise (it was three feet long), and turned upside down, resting on the floor; that the whole of this difficult manoeuvre was executed in a few seconds in complete darkness and without any of the sitters having touched the table in the slightest degree.[73]Luminous phenomena were also obtained. Lights appeared and disappeared in the air. Some of them gave the outline of a curve. They did not show any radiation. In the fifth sÉance, everybody was able to testify to the appearance of two luminous crosses, about four inches in height.

At the last sÉance, the tambourine fringed with bells, which had been rubbed with phosphorous, went circling around the whole room, and in such a way that all its movements could be followed.

During almost all the sittings, mysterious touchings were noticed,—among others, those produced by an enormous hairy hand!

In the first, fourth and fifth sÉances there were "materializations." Prof. Italo Palmarini believed that he recognized his daughter, who had been dead three years. He felt himself embraced; everybody heard the sound of a kiss. The same manifestation took place in the fifth sÉance. Professor Palmarini believed that he still recognized the person of his daughter.

At the opening of each sÉance the medium was searched, and was then placed in a kind of big sack, made to order for this purpose, and fastened at the neck, the wrists, and the feet.

Another medium, the Russian Sambor, was the object of numerous experiments at St. Petersburg during a period of six years. (1897-1902.) It will be interesting also to give a summing up in this place of the report about this man published by M. Petrovo Solovovo.[74]

In the first sÉances a large folding screen placed behind the medium was observed to be vigorously shaken. The medium's feet and hands were carefully held. A table in a neighboring chamber moved of its own accord. In a metal cone placed on the table, enclosing a bit of paper and a lead-pencil, and then riveted up, there was found, when it was unriveted, a ribbon, and a phrase written on the paper in script that had to be read in a looking-glass (Écriture en miroir). Other cases of the passage of matter through matter were tried, none of which succeeded. But further on the reports relate the following experiments:

In the month of February, 1901, one of Sambor's sÉances took place at my house, in my study, against the windows of which I had hung curtains of black calico in such a way that the room was plunged in the deepest darkness. The medium occupied a place in the chain. Next to the medium were M. J. Lomatzsch, on his right, myself on his left. Sambor's hands and feet were faithfully held the whole time in a way that gave perfect satisfaction.

The phenomena soon began to develop. I do not intend to take the time here to describe them, but I wish to mention a remarkable case of the passage of matter through matter.

M. Lomatzsch, controller on the right, declares that someone is pulling his chair from under him. So, redoubling our attention, we continue to hold the medium. M. Lomatzsch's chair is soon positively lifted up, so that he is obliged to stand. Sometime after, he declares that someone is trying to hang the chair on the hand with which he is holding Sambor. Then the chair suddenly disappears from the arm of M. Lomatzsch, and at the same moment I feel a light pressure upon my left arm (I do not mean the one which was in contact with the medium, but with my neighbor on the left M. A. Weber); after which I feel that something heavy is hanging from my arm. When the candle was lighted, we all saw that my left arm had been passed through the back of the chair. In this way the chair was nicely balanced upon that one of my arms which was not in contact with Sambor, but with my neighbor on the left. I had not let go of the hands of my neighbors.

Such an observation as this needs no commentary (says the reporter of this occurrence, M. Petrovo Solovovo). The fact is simply incomprehensible. I give here some other phenomena which were observed in May, 1902:

1. A cedar apple, an old copper coin which was found to be a Persian coin of 1723, and an amateur photographic portrait of a young woman in mourning unknown to anybody present were found (coming from nobody knew where, nor in what way), upon the table about which we were seated.

2. Several different objects in the room were transported to the table by the mysterious force; such, for example, as a thermometer, which had been hung on the wall behind the piano at a distance of from one-half to seven feet from the medium; a large lantern placed upon the piano somewhere between two and four feet behind the medium; several piles of music-books which had rested on the same piano; a framed portrait; and, finally, the candlesconce, the candle, and the different parts of a candlestick belonging to the piano.

3. Several times a bronze bell placed on the table was lifted into the air by the mysterious force and noisily rung. On the request of the sitters it was once carried over to the piano (against which it struck a sounding blow), and from there again over to the table.

4. Unoccupied chairs had been placed behind the medium. One of them was several times lifted and placed noisily on the table in the midst of the sitters, and without having run against any of them. When upon the table, this chair several times moved about, fell over, and picked itself up.

5. One of these same chairs was found to be hung by the back upon the joined hands of the medium and M. de Poggenpohl. Before the beginning of that part of the sÉance which witnessed this phenomenon, a strip of cloth, slipped over the sleeves of the medium, had been several times tightly twisted around the wrists of M. de Poggenpohl.

6. At the request of the sitters, the mysterious force several times stopped the playing of the music-box (it stood on the table around which we were seated), after which it began to play again.

7. A sheet of paper and a lead pencil, placed on the table, were thrown on the floor, and everybody distinctly heard the pencil moving over the paper with a heavy pressure and, with a sharp tap, putting a period at the end of what had been written. After this the pencil was laid on the table.

8. Five of the experimenters declared that they had been touched by some mysterious hand.

9. Twice the mysterious force drew sounds from the piano. The first time, this took place when the lid of the piano was open. The second time, the sounds were heard after the lid had been locked with a key, the key remaining on the table in the midst of the circle of experimenters. At first the unknown force began to play a melody on the high notes, and two or three times produced trills. Then chords on the bass notes were heard at the same time with the melody, and, when the piano was playing, the music-box also began to play, both performances lasting several minutes.

10. During all the phenomena which have just been described, the medium (Sambor), seemed sunk in a profound trance, and remained almost motionless. The phenomena were not accompanied by any bustle or confusion. His hands and his feet were all the time controlled by his neighbors. M. de Poggenpohl and Loris-Melikow several times saw something long, black, and slender detaching itself from him during the phenomena and moving toward the objects.

I will add, in closing (says M. Petrovo Solovovo), that this medium was accused of cupidity and intemperance. These sÉances were the last he gave (he died a few months afterward). But, to tell the truth, I have a tender spot in my heart for the late M. Sambor. This Little-Russian, a former telegraph operator, polished and humanized by the six or seven winters that he had passed in St. Petersburg—can it be that blind Nature had chosen this man to be the intermediary between our world and the doubtful Beyond?—or, at least, another world of beings whose precise nature (begging the pardon of the spirits) would be an enigma to me, provided I positively believed in them.

It is with that word "doubt" (alas! is not doubt the most certain result of mediumistic experiments?) that I end this Report.

To this whole series of varied observations and experiments we could still add many more. In 1905 MM. Charles Richet and Gabriel Delanne held some famous sÉances in Algiers. But is not impossible that fraud may have crept into their experiments, in spite of all the precautions taken by them. (The photographs of the phantom Bien-Boa have an artificial look.) In 1906, the American medium, Miller, gave in Paris several sÉances in which it really seems as if true apparitions were manifested. I cannot say anything personally about it, not having been present. Among other experimenters, there were two very competent ones, who studied this medium; namely, MM. G. Delanne and G. MÉry. The first concludes that the apparitions were what they represented themselves to be (see Revue scientifique et morale du spiritisme); that is to say, the spirits of the departed. The second, on the other hand, declares in L'Echo du Merveilleux, that, "until there is fuller information, we must be satisfied with not comprehending."

It is not within the scope of my plan to discuss in this particular place, "apparitions" or "materializations." We may ask ourselves whether the fluid which certainly emanates from the medium may not produce a kind of condensation able to furnish to the most interested observer of the manifestation the elusive vision of an unreal personality which, besides, only lasts, as a general thing, for a few seconds. Is it a melange or combination of fluids? But it is not yet time to make hypotheses.

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