Mysterious Psychic Forces Part 19

In order to decide if we had to do with a human hand ... or with any other way of dealing, we fixed a sheet of paper, blackened with the smoke of a lamp, upon the table, on the side opposite that of the medium, and expressed a wish that the hand would leave an impression on it, that the hand of the medium should remain unsoiled, and that the lampblack be transferred to the hands of one of us. The hands of the medium were held by those of MM. Schiaparelli and Du Prel. The chain was made in the darkness, then we heard a hand lightly tap upon the table, and presently M. Du Prel announced that his left hand, which he held on the right hand of M. Finzi, had had the sensation of fingers rubbing it. As soon as the room was lighted, we found upon the paper several imprints of fingers, and the back of M. Du Prel's hand was covered with lampblack; _but the hands of the medium, examined then and there, had no trace of it_. This experience was repeated three times. When we insisted upon having a complete impression, we obtained five fingers upon a second sheet of paper, and upon a third the impression of almost an entire left hand. After that the back of M. Du Prel's hand was completely blackened, the hands of the medium remaining perfectly clean.

_Apparition of Hands upon a Dimly Lighted Background_

We placed upon the table a large cardboard covered with a phosph.o.r.escent substance (sulphide of calcium), and we placed other pieces of cardboard upon chairs in different parts of the chamber.

Under such conditions we saw very plainly the outline of a hand imposed on the cardboard of the table. Upon the background formed by the other pieces we saw the shadow of the hand pa.s.s and repa.s.s around us.

On the evening of September 21 one of us several times saw the image, not of one, but of _two hands at once_, thrown upon the gla.s.s panes of a feebly illuminated window (outside it was night, but the darkness was not complete). These hands exhibited a rapid tremulous motion, but not so rapid as to hinder us from seeing the outline clearly. They were wholly opaque and were thrown upon the window as absolutely black silhouettes.

This simultaneous appearance of two hands is _very significant_, for they cannot be explained on the hypothesis of a trick of the medium, who would not have been able in any way to free more than one of her hands, owing to the surveillance of those who sat beside her. The same conclusion applies to the clapping of two hands, one against the other, which was several times heard in the air.

_The Levitation of the Medium to the Top of the Table_

We regard this levitation as among the most important and most significant of Spiritualistic achievements. It took place twice, on September 28 and October 3. The medium was seated at one end of the table, uttering deep groans, and was lifted up with her chair and placed upon the table, not moving from her position, those next her still holding her hands as she rose.

On the evening of September 28, while her two hands were held by MM.

Richet and Lombroso, the medium complained of their grasping her under the arm. Then, in a state of trance she said, with the changed voice which she usually has while in this state, "Now I bring up my medium upon the table." At the end of two or three seconds the chair, with the medium seated in it, was not thrown, but lifted with precaution and placed upon the table. MM. Richet and Lombroso are sure they did not a.s.sist her in this ascension. After she had spoken, being all the time in a state of trance, the medium announced her descent, and (M.

Finzi being subst.i.tuted for M. Lombroso) was placed upon the floor with care and precision, MM. Richet and Finzi following her movements without at all a.s.sisting them.

Moreover, during the descent, both gentlemen felt a hand touching them lightly several times upon the head. On the evening of October 3 the same phenomenon was repeated in similar circ.u.mstances.

_Touchings_

Some of these merit particular notice, owing to a circ.u.mstance capable of giving us an interesting notion of their possible origin. Our first business is to describe the touchings which were felt by persons beyond the reach of the hands of the medium. Thus, on the evening of October 6, M. Gerosa, who was separated from the medium by three places (about four feet, the medium being a little to one side and M.

Gerosa in one of the adjacent corners at the opposite short end of the table), having lifted his hand that it might be touched, felt a hand strike his own several times to make him lower it; and, as he persisted, he was. .h.i.t with a trumpet, which an instant before had been making sounds in the air.

In the second place, we must note touchings which const.i.tute very delicate operations, and which cannot be made in the darkness with the precision which we have noted in them. Twice (on September 16 and 21) M. Schiaparelli had his spectacles removed from his nose and laid down on the table before another person. These gla.s.ses are fixed to the ears by means of two springs, and a certain amount of attention is necessary in order to remove them, even to one working in full light.

Yet they were removed in complete darkness with so much delicacy and promptness that the said experimenter only perceived the loss of them when he no longer had the usual feeling of them on his nose, on his temples, and behind his ears, and he was obliged to feel with his hands in order to be sure that they were no longer in their usual place.

Many other touchings produced similar effects, and were executed with extreme delicacy; for example, when one of the company felt his hair and beard stroked.

In all of the innumerable manoeuvres executed by mysterious hands, there was never any awkward stumbling or collision to be noted, though ordinarily this is inevitable when one is working in the dark. I may add, in this connection, that bodies tolerably heavy and bulky, such as chairs and vessels full of clay, were deposited upon the table without having collided with any of the numerous hands resting upon the table,--a particularly difficult thing in the case of chairs which, owing to their dimensions, occupied a large part of the table.

A chair was turned over on its face upon the table and lay there at full length without causing the least annoyance to anybody; and yet it covered almost the entire surface.

_Contact with a Human Face_

One of us having expressed the wish to be kissed, felt before his very mouth the peculiar quick sounds of a kiss, but not accompanied by any contact of lips. This happened twice. On three different occasions one of the experimenters felt the touch of a face with hair and beard. The feeling of the skin was exactly that of a living man. The hair was much coa.r.s.er and more bristly than that of the medium, and the beard seemed very soft and delicate.

Such are the experiments made at Milan in 1892 by the group of savants cited above.

How can we help admitting, after the reading of this new official report, the following things?

1. The complete levitation of the tables.

2. The levitation of the medium.

3. The movement of objects without contact.

4. Accurate and delicate touches made by invisible organs.

5. The formation of hands and even of human figures.

These phenomena take their place in this book as things which were observed with the most scrupulous care.

Let us note also the action of the little piece of furniture (chair or round table), which tries to climb up on one of the company or upon the large table,--a thing also observed by myself.

Although the savants of the Milan group regretted that they did not make _experiments_, but only _observations_ (I said above (p. 20), what we ought to think about this), the facts were none the less proved.

I will add that after the reading of this _proces-verbal_, the cautious reserves of M. Schiaparelli seem exaggerated. If fraud has sometimes crept in, still what has been accurately observed remains safe and sound and is an acquisition to science.

Our medium, Eusapia, has been the subject of a fruitful series of experiments. Let me also mention those of Naples in 1893, under the direction of M. Wagner, Professor of Zoology at the University of St.

Petersburg; that of Rome in 1893-1894, under the direction of M. de Siemiradski, correspondent of the Inst.i.tute; those of Varsovie, from the 25th of November, 1893, to the 15th of January, 1894, at the house of Dr.

Ochorowicz; those of Carqueiranne and of l'ile Roubaud, in 1894, at the house of Professor Richet; those of Cambridge in August, 1895, at the house of Mr. Myers; those of the villa de l'Agnellas, from the 20th to the 29th of September, 1895, at the house of Colonel de Rochas; those of Auteuil, in September, 1896, at the house of M. Marcel Mangin, etc. It would be entirely superfluous and an unconscionably long task to a.n.a.lyze them all. Let us merely select some special characteristic instances.

In the report of M. de Siemiradski we read as follows:

In the corner of the hall there was a piano, placed to the left of Ochorowicz and Eusapia, and a little in the rear. Some one desired to hear the keyboard touched. We at once hear the moving of the piano.

Ochorowicz can even see the displacement, thanks to a ray of light which falls upon the polished surface of the instrument through the window shutters. The piano then opens noisily, and we hear the ba.s.s notes of the keyboard sounding. I utter aloud my desire to hear high notes and low notes touched at the same time, as a proof that the unknown force can act at the two ends of the keyboard. My wish is granted, and we hear ba.s.s notes and treble notes sounded at the same time, which seems to prove the action of two distinct hands. Then _the instrument advances toward us_. It presses against our group, and we are obliged to get up and move back with our experiment table, and we do not stop until we have thus moved back several yards.

A gla.s.s half full of water, which stands on a buffet, out of reach of our hands, was carried by an unknown power to the lips of Ochorowicz, Eusapia, and another person, who all drank of it. This performance took place in complete darkness and with astonis.h.i.+ng precision.

We were able to prove the existence of a real hand not belonging to any one present. We did it by means of the plaster cast and mould, as follows:

Having placed a heavy basin filled with modelling-clay upon the large table in the middle of the dining-room, we sat down with Eusapia around the little experiment-table more than a yard distant. After some minutes of waiting, the basin came of itself and stood on our table! Eusapia groaned, writhed, and trembled in all her limbs; yet not for a moment did her hands quit ours. Then she cried, "_E fatto_"

("It is done"). The candle is lighted again, and we find an irregular hollowed place upon the surface of the clay. This hollow place, afterward filled with plaster, gives us a perfect cast of the contracted fingers of a hand.

We placed upon the table a plate smeared with lampblack. The mysterious hand left there the print of the end of its fingers. The hands of the experimenters, including those of Eusapia, _remained white_. We next induced the medium to reproduce the impression of her own hand upon another lamp-smoked plate. She did so. The layer of soot removed by her fingers had deeply blackened them. A comparison of the two plates enabled us to prove a striking resemblance,--that is to say (to speak more accurately), the ident.i.ty of the arrangement of the spiral circles in the epidermis of the two hands; and we know that the arrangement of these circles is unique in every individual. This is a particular which speaks eloquently in favor of the hypothesis of the double personality of the medium.

In order mechanically to control the movements of Eusapia's feet, Dr.

Ochorowicz employed the following piece of apparatus. Two deep and narrow cigar-boxes were placed under the table, and Eusapia put her unshod feet into them. The boxes had double bottoms and were provided with an electrical arrangement of such a nature that she could move her feet freely for some inches in every direction; but, if she wished to withdraw them from the box, the electric bell tinkled before she had moved them half way to the top, and only stopped when they were returned to their place. Eusapia cannot remain utterly quiet during the seances. So she was given a certain freedom of movement; but it was impossible for her to make use of her legs for lifting the table. _Under these conditions the table, weighing twenty-five pounds, rose up twice without the bell being heard._ During the second levitation the table was photographed underneath. (The four feet of the table are seen in the photograph. The left is in contact with Eusapia's dress, as is always the case when the light is strong; but the boxes holding the feet of the medium are in their place.) Then the experimenters verified the fact that the bell was heard, not only when she removed her foot, but when she lifted it too high in the box.

After all these demonstrations, I will not do my readers the wrong of thinking that the levitation of the table is not MORE THAN PROVED for all of them.

Here, now, is a curious observation relative to the inflation of the curtain: Ten persons were seated around the table. Eusapia had her back turned to the curtain; she was controlled by General Starynkiewicz and Dr.

Watraszewski.

I was seated (writes M. Glowacki-Prus) opposite Eusapia, near Mlle.

X., a very nervous person and easily hypnotized. The seance had lasted for about an hour, with numerous and varied phenomena. Eusapia, as always, was in a semi-conscious state. Suddenly she awoke, and Mlle.

X. uttered a cry. Knowing what this cry meant, I grasped her hand with great force and then put my arm about her; for this girl becomes very strong in certain states. The room was well lighted, and this is what we saw (something, be it noted, which I myself experienced by my hands). Every time that the muscles of Mlle. X. became more tense and rigid, the curtain which hung opposite her, at a distance of from seven to ten feet, made a movement. The following table indicates the details of this correlation:

Feeble tension of the muscles the curtain is set in motion.

strong tension it bellies out like a sail.

very strong tension, cries it reaches as far as eusapia's controllers, and almost wholly covers them.