Mysterious Psychic Forces Part 16

Some days after, you cite the savants, men whose competence has been proved in the objective sciences of observation, which attest these very facts, and you hear the sneerers answer that those savants are competent witnesses in their special lines of study and work, but in nothing apart from these.

So, after this fas.h.i.+on, all testimony is refused. They declare that the thing, being impossible, cannot have been observed at all.

Of course there is room for a good deal of a.n.a.lysis in discussing the claims of human testimony. But, if we suppress every piece of testimony, what will there be left?--our native ignorance.

But, to tell the truth, there are some of these negative gentry who are sure of everything, and who impose their aphorisms upon us with the authority of a czar giving out his ukase or edict.

From these different experiments with Eusapia Paladino, including those described in the first and second chapters, the impression is left that the phenomena observed are, to a great extent, real and undeniable; that a certain number may be produced by fraud; but that, in fact, the subject is very complex. Again, certain movements simply belong to the material order, while others belong at once to the physical order and the psychical order. All this study is vastly more complicated than people in general have any idea of. I am going to pa.s.s summarily in review other experiments made by the same medium, and shall afterwards devote a special chapter to the examination of frauds and mystifications.

Let us look, first, at other achievements of Eusapia, and select from them whatever they also have to impart in the way of instruction or caution.

CHAPTER IV

OTHER SeANCES WITH EUSAPIA PALADINO

The medium, whose marvellous seance performances we have been describing has been the subject of a long series of observations by eminent and careful experimenters. Her endowments are indeed exceptional. When you study with Eusapia, the comparison of her powers with those of ordinary cases makes you think of the difference between a fine electrical machine operated under good atmospheric conditions and a bad one operated on a rainy day. You see more with her in one hour than in a host of faulty trials with other mediums.

Our study of these unknown forces will progress rapidly if, in place of limiting the results obtained to one or two groups, such as those which precede, we examine the totality of the observations made in the seances of this medium. My readers can then compare them with the preceding ones; they can judge, they can make their own estimates.

The doc.u.ments which I am now going to print are all borrowed from the _Annales des sciences psychiques_ and from the valuable collection of M.

Albert de Rochas upon _The Externalization of Motivity_.

A few words, first, about the debuts of Eusapia in her mediumistic career.

Professor Chiaia, of Naples, to whom I owe it that I was able to receive Eusapia at my house and obtain the experiments reported above, was the first to bring her gifts into public notice. He first published on the 9th of August, 1888, in a journal issued at Rome, the following letter addressed to Professor Lombroso:

_Dear Sir_,--In your article, _The Influence of Civilization upon Genius_ (which has incontestable beauties of style and of logic), I noticed a very happy paragraph. It seems to me to sum up the scientific movement (starting from the time when man first invented that head-breaking thing called an alphabet) down to our own day. This paragraph reads as follows:

"Every generation is prematurely ready for discoveries which it never sees born, since it does not perceive its own incapacity and the means it lacks for making further discoveries. The repet.i.tion of any one manifestation, by impressing itself upon our brains, prepares our minds and renders them less and less incapable of discovering the laws to which this manifestation is amenable. Twenty or thirty years are enough to make the whole world admire a discovery which was treated as madness at the moment when it was made. Even at the present day academic bodies laugh at hypnotism and at h.o.m.oeopathy. Who knows whether my friends and I, who laugh at Spiritualism, are not in error, just as hypnotized persons are? Thanks to the illusion which surrounds us, we may be incapable of seeing that we deceive ourselves; and, like many persons of unsound mind who stubbornly oppose the truth, we laugh at those who are not of our way of thinking."

Struck by this keen thought, which by chance I find adapted to a certain matter with which I have been occupied for some time, I joyfully accept it, without abatement, without any comment which might change its sense; and, confining myself to the fine old rules of chivalry, I make use of it as a challenge. The consequences of this challenge will neither be dangerous nor b.l.o.o.d.y: we shall fight fairly; and, whatever may be the results of the encounter, whether I succ.u.mb or whether I make my opponent yield, it will always be in a friendly way. The result will tend to the improvement of one of the two adversaries and will be in every way useful to the great cause of truth.

There is much talk nowadays of a special malady which is found in the human organism. We notice it every day; but we are ignorant of its cause and know not what to call it. The cry is raised that it be subjected to the examination of contemporary science; but science, in reply, only meets the request with the mocking ironical smile of a Pyrrhus, for the precise reason (as you say) that the time is not yet ripe.

But the author of the paragraph I have quoted above, of course did not write it merely for the pleasure of writing. It seems to me, on the contrary, that he would not smile disdainfully if he were invited to observe a special case that is worthy to attract the attention and to seriously occupy the mind of a Lombroso. The case I allude to is that of an invalid woman who belongs to the humblest cla.s.s of society. She is nearly thirty years old and very ignorant; her look is neither fascinating nor endowed with the power which modern criminologists call irresistible; but, when she wishes, be it by day or by night, she can divert a curious group for an hour or so with the most surprising phenomena. Either bound to a seat or firmly held by the hands of the curious, she attracts to her the articles of furniture which surround her, lifts them up, holds them suspended in air like Mahomet's coffin, and makes them come down again with undulatory movements, as if they were obeying her will. She increases their weight or lessens it according to her pleasure. She raps or taps upon the walls, the ceiling, the floor, with fine rhythm and cadence. In response to the requests of the spectators, something like flashes of electricity shoot forth from her body, and envelop her or enwrap the spectators of these marvellous scenes. She draws upon cards that you hold out everything that you want--figures, signatures, numbers, sentences--by just stretching out her hand toward the indicated place. If you place in the corner of the room a vessel containing a layer of soft clay, you find after some moments the imprint in it of a small or a large hand, the image of a face (front view or profile), from which a plaster cast can be taken. In this way, portraits of a face taken at different angles have been preserved, and those who desire so to do can thus make serious and important studies.[30]

This woman rises in the air, no matter what bands tie her down. She seems to lie upon the empty air as on a couch, contrary to all the laws of gravity; she plays on musical instruments--organs, bells, tambourines--as if they had been touched by her hands or moved by the breath of invisible gnomes.

You will call that a particular case of hypnotism; you will say that this sick woman is a fakir in petticoats, that you would shut her up in a hospital. Let me beg of you, most eminent professor, not to s.h.i.+ft the argument. As is well known, hypnotism only causes a momentary illusion; after the seance, everything takes its original form. But here the case is different. During the days which followed these marvellous scenes there remained traces and records worthy of consideration.

What do you think of that?

But allow me to continue. This woman, at times, can increase her stature by more than four inches. She is like an india-rubber doll, like an automaton of a new kind; she takes strange forms. How many legs and arms has she? We do not know. While her limbs are being held by incredulous spectators, we see other limbs coming into view, without knowing where they come from. Her shoes are too small to fit these witch-feet of her, and this particular circ.u.mstance gives rise to the suspicion of the intervention of mysterious power.

Don't laugh when I say "_gives rise to the suspicion_." I affirm nothing; you will have time to laugh presently.

When this woman is bound, a third arm is seen to appear, and n.o.body knows where it comes from. Then follows a long series of droll teasing tricks. She abstracts bonnets, watches, money, rings, pins, and produces them again with great adroitness and gayety; she takes coats and waistcoats, pulls off boots, brushes hats and puts them back upon the heads of those to whom they belong, curls and strokes mustaches, and occasionally hits you with a fist, for she also has fits of ill-temper. I said _a_ fist, because it is always a clumsy and callous hand that strikes the blow. It has been noticed that the hand of the sorceress is small. She has large finger-nails; has a moist skin, the temperature of which varies from the natural warmth of the body to the icy chill of a corpse the touch of which makes you s.h.i.+ver; she allows herself to be handled, pinched, observed; and ends by rising into the air, remaining suspended there with no visible means of support, like one of those plump wooden hands hung out over the sidewalk as a sign at the shops of the glove merchants.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE VII. PLASTER CASTS OF IMPRESSIONS IN CLAY PRODUCED BY AN UNKNOWN FORCE.]

I swear to you that I emerge with a very calm spirit from the cave of this Circe. Freed from her enchantments, I pa.s.s all my impressions in review, and end in scepticism, although the testimony of my senses a.s.sures me that I have not been the sport of an error or of an illusion.

All these extraordinary manoeuvres cannot be attributed to prestidigitation. We ought to be on our guard against every kind of trickery, and make a scrupulous investigation in order to forestall mendacity or fraud.

But the test sometimes fails; the facts do not always meet the demands of the eager and restless spectators. This is one more mystery to explain, and proves that the individual herself who works these wonders is not their sole arbiter. Undoubtedly, she possesses the exclusive power of producing these portentous feats; but they cannot materialize except with the co-operation of an unknown agent, some _deus ex machina_.

From all this two things result; namely, the great difficulty there is in examining the true inwardness of this stupefying piece of charlatanry, and the necessity of making a series of experiments in order to get together enough of them to illuminate the dark intellects of the dupes and to overcome the obstinacy of the wranglers.

Now you see my challenge. If you have not written the paragraph cited above simply for the pleasure of writing it; if you have the true love of science; if you are without prejudices,--you, the first alienist in Italy,--please have the kindness to take the field, and persuade yourself that you are going to measure swords with a worthy adversary.

When you can take a week's vacation, leave your beloved studies, and, instead of going into the country, show me a place where we can meet.

Choose the time yourself.

You are to have a room into which you will enter alone before the experiment; there you will arrange the furniture and other objects just as you wish; you will lock the door with a key. I believe it would be useless to present the lady to you in the costume worn in the Garden of Eden, because this new Eve is incapable of retaliating upon the serpent and of seducing you.

Four gentlemen will be our seconds, as is fitting in all knightly encounters; you will choose two, and I will bring the other two.

No easier conditions were ever drawn up by the Knights of the Round Table. It is evident that, if the experiment does not succeed, I shall be able to accuse only the harsh decrees of destiny; you will consider me but as a man suffering from hallucination, who longs to be cured of his extravagances. But, if success crowns our efforts, your loyalty will impose upon you the duty of writing an article, in which, without circ.u.mlocution, reticence, or error, you will attest the reality of the mysterious phenomena and promise to investigate their causes.

If you decline this meeting, please explain to me your sentence, "The time is not yet ripe." Undoubtedly, that might apply to common intellects, but not to a Lombroso, to whom is addressed this advice of Dante: "Honor ought to close the lips of falsehood with truth."

Yours very devotedly and respectfully, (PROFESSOR) CHIAIA.

M. Lombroso did not at once accept this eloquent and witty challenge.

However, we shall presently find that learned professor himself experimenting. In the mean time read what M. de Rochas tells us of Eusapia's youth:--

Her first mediumistic manifestations began at the age of p.u.b.erty, when she was about thirteen or fourteen years old. This coincidence is found in almost all the cases in which the singular power of producing movements at a distance has been observed.

At this epoch of her life it was remarked that the Spiritualistic seances to which she was invited succeeded much better when she was seated at the table. But they tired and bored her, and she refrained from taking part in them for eight or nine years.

It was only in her twenty-second or twenty-third year that the Spiritualistic education of Eusapia began. It was directed by an ardent Spiritualist, M. Damiani. It was then that the personality of _John King_ appeared, a spirit who took possession of her when she was in the trance state.[31]

This John King is said to be the brother of Crookes's Katie King, and to have been Eusapia's father in another existence. It is John who speaks when Eusapia is in her trance; when he speaks of her, he calls her "my daughter," and gives advice about the care of her person and life. M. Ochorowicz thinks this John is a personality created in the spirit of Eusapia by the union of a certain number of impressions collected in the different psychic environments in which her life has been pa.s.sed. This would be almost the identical explanation for the personalities suggested by the hypnotists, and for the variations of personality observed by MM. Azam, Bourru, and Burot, et al.

Some have thought they noticed that Eusapia prepared herself, consciously or unconsciously, at the seance, by diminis.h.i.+ng her respiration,--a very singular thing. At the same time, her pulse gradually rises from 88 to 120 pulsations a minute. Is this a practice a.n.a.logous to that which the fakirs of India employ, or a simple effect of the emotion which, before every seance, Eusapia experiences?--a fact which has a strong tendency to convince the sitters, but is never sure of the production of the phenomena.

Eusapia is not hypnotized; she enters of herself into the trance state when she becomes a link in the chain of hands.

She begins to sigh deeply, then yawns and hiccoughs. A series of varied expressions pa.s.ses over her face. Sometimes it takes on a demoniacal look, accompanied by a fitful laugh very much like that which Gounod gives to Mephistopheles in the opera of _Faust_, and which almost always precedes an important phenomenon. Sometimes her face flushes; the eyes become brilliant and liquid, and are opened wide. The smile and the motions are the mark of the erotic ecstasy.

She says "_mio caro_" ("my dear"), leans her head upon the shoulder of her neighbor, and courts caresses when she believes that he is sympathetic. It is at this point that phenomena are produced, the success of which causes her agreeable and even voluptuous thrills.

During this time her legs and her arms are in a state of marked tension, almost rigid, or even undergo convulsive contractions.

Sometimes a tremor goes through her entire body.

To these states of nervous super-activity succeeds a period of depression characterized by an almost corpse-like paleness of the face (which is frequently covered with perspiration) and the almost complete inertia of her limbs. If she lifts her hand, it falls back of its own weight.