Mysterious Psychic Forces Part 17

During the trance her eyes are turned up, and only the white is visible. Her presence of mind and her general consciousness are diminished or not at all in evidence. She gives no reply, or, if she does, her reply is r.e.t.a.r.ded by questions. Eusapia has no recollection of what has taken place during the seances, except for states of mind bordering close on those of her normal state; and, consequently, they only relate, as a general thing, to phenomena of slight intensity.

In order to aid in the manifestations, she frequently asks that her force be increased by putting one more person in the chain. It has frequently happened to her to address a sympathetic spectator, to take his fingers and press them as if to draw something out of them, then push them abruptly away, saying that she has enough force.

In proportion as her trance increases, her sensibility to light increases. A sudden light causes difficulty in her breathing, rapid beatings of the heart, an hysterical feeling, general irritation of the nerves, pain in the head and eyes, and a trembling of the whole body, with convulsions,--except when she herself asks for light (a thing which frequently happens to her when there are interesting verifications to be made upon the subject of displaced objects), for then her attention is strongly called in other directions.

She is in constant motion during the active period of the seances.

These movements may be attributed to the hysterical crises which then agitate her; but they appear to be necessary to the production of the phenomena. Every time that a movement is being caused at a distance, she imitates it, either with her hands or with her feet, and by developing a much stronger force than would be necessary for producing the movement by contact.

Here is what she herself says of her impressions when she wishes to produce a movement at a distance. _She suddenly experiences an ardent desire to produce the phenomena; then she has a feeling of numbness and the goose-flesh sensation in her fingers; these sensations keep increasing; at the same time she feels in the inferior portion of the vertebral column the flowing of a current which rapidly extends into her arm as far as her elbow, where it is gently arrested. It is at this point that the phenomenon takes place._

During and after the levitations of the tables she has a feeling of pain in her knees; during and after other phenomena, in her elbows and all through her arms.

It was only in the end of February, 1891, that Professor Lombroso, whose curiosity had finally been strongly excited, decided to come to Naples to examine these curious manifestations about which everybody in Italy was speaking. The following reports by M. Ciolfi were published apropos of this visit.[32]

_First Seance_

A large room, selected on the first floor by these gentlemen, had been put at our disposal. M. Lombroso began by carefully examining the medium, after which we took places around a gaming table. Mme.

Paladino sat at one end; at her left, MM. Lombroso and Gigli; I faced the medium, between MM. Gigli and Vizioli; then came MM. Ascensi and Tamburini, who closed the circle, the last named at the right of the medium and in contact with her.

The room was lighted by candles placed upon a table behind Mme.

Paladino. MM. Tamburini and Lombroso each held a hand of the medium.

Their knees touched hers, at a certain distance from the feet of the table; and her feet were under theirs.

After a rather long wait the table began to move, slowly at first,--a matter explained by the scepticism, not to say the positively hostile spirit, of those who were this night in a seance circle for the first time. Then, little by little, the movements increased in intensity. M.

Lombroso proved the levitation of the table, and estimated at twelve or fifteen pounds the resistance to the pressure which he had to make with his hands in order to overcome that levitation.

This phenomenon of a heavy body sustained in the air, off its centre of gravity and resisting a pressure of twelve or fifteen pounds, very much surprised and astonished the learned gentlemen, who attributed it to the action of an unknown magnetic force.

At my request, taps and scratchings were heard in the table. This was new cause for astonishment, and led the gentlemen to themselves call for the putting out of the candles in order to ascertain whether the intensity of the noises would be increased, as had been stated. All remained seated and in contact.

In a dim light which did not hinder the most careful surveillance, violent blows were first heard at the middle point of the table. Then a bell placed upon a round table, at the distance of a yard to the left of the medium (in such a way that she was placed behind and to the right of M. Lombroso), rose into the air, and went tinkling over the heads of the company, describing a circle around our table, where it finally came to rest.

In the midst of the expressions of deep amazement which this unexpected phenomenon drew forth, M. Lombroso showed a strong desire to hear and to prove it again. Whereupon the little bell began to sound, and again made the tour of the table, redoubling its strokes upon it, to such a degree that M. Ascensi, divided between astonishment and the fear of having his fingers broken (the bell weighed fully ten ounces), hastened to rise and go and seat himself on a sofa behind me.

I kept insisting that we had to do with an intelligent force,--a matter that he persistently denied,--and that consequently there was nothing to fear. But M. Ascensi refused, under any circ.u.mstances, to take his place again at the table.

I called attention to the fact that the circle was broken, since one of the experimenters had left, and that, under penalty of no longer being able to observe the phenomena in a cool judicious spirit, it would be necessary that he should at least keep silent and motionless.

M. Ascensi was very willing to pledge himself to that.

The light was extinguished, and the experiments began again. While, in response to a unanimous wish, the little bell was beginning again its tinklings and its mysterious aerial circuits, M. Ascensi, taking his cue, unknown to us, from M. Tamburini, went (unperceived, owing to the darkness), and stood at the right of the medium, and at once with a single scratch lighted a match, so successfully, as he declared, that he could _see the little bell, while it was vibrating in the air_, suddenly fall upon a bed about six feet and a half behind Mme.

Paladino.

I will not attempt to depict for you the amazement of the learned body, the most striking manifestation of which was a rapid exchange of questions and comments upon this strange occurrence.

After some remarks I made about the intervention of M. Ascensi, who seemed likely to seriously trouble the psychic condition of the medium, the darkness was turned on again, so to speak, in order to continue the experiments.

At first it was a little work-table, small, but heavy, that moved about. It was placed at the left of Mme. Eusapia, and it was upon it that the little bell was placed at the beginning of the seance. This small piece of furniture struck against the chair on which M. Lombroso was seated, and _tried to hoist itself up_ on our table.

In the presence of this new phenomenon, M. Vizioli gave up his place at our table to M. Ascensi and went to stand between the work-table and Mme. Eusapia, to whom he turned his back. At least he said he did all this, for we could not see him on account of the darkness. He took the little table between his two hands and tried to hold it; but, _in spite of his efforts, it released itself_ and went rolling over the floor.

An important point to note is that, although MM. Lombroso and Tamburini had not for a moment let go of the hands of Mme. Paladino, Professor Vizioli announced that he felt a pinch in the back. General hilarity followed this declaration.

M. Lombroso stated that he had felt his chair lifted up so that he was compelled to remain standing for some time, after which his chair had been so placed as to permit him to sit down again.

He also experienced twitches upon his clothes. Then he and M.

Tamburini felt the touches of an invisible hand upon their cheeks and fingers.

M. Lombroso, especially struck with the two facts of the work-table and the little bell, judged them of sufficient importance for him to put off till Tuesday his departure from Naples, which had been first fixed for Monday.

Upon his request I promised a new seance, on Monday, at the Hotel de Geneve.

_Second Seance_

At eight o'clock in the evening I arrived at the Hotel de Geneve, accompanied by the medium, Eusapia Paladino. We were received under the colonnade by MM. Lombroso, Tamburini, Ascensi, and several other persons whom they had invited; namely Professors Gigli, Limoncelli, Vizioli, and Bianchi (superintendent of the insane asylum at Sales), Dr. Penta, and a young nephew of M. Lombroso, who lives at Naples.

After the customary introductions, we were asked to go up to the highest story in the house, where we were introduced into a very large room with an alcove. Curtains, or portieres, were let down across the front of the alcove. Behind the curtains at a distance of about three feet and a half, measured by MM. Lombroso and Tamburini, there was placed, in this alcove, a round table, with a porcelain salver filled with flour, in the hope of obtaining face-imprints in it. The alcove also contained a tin trumpet, writing-paper, and a sealed envelope containing a sheet of white paper, to see if we could not get _direct writing_ on it.

The gentlemen inspected the alcove with extreme care, in order to a.s.sure themselves that there was nothing there of a fixed-up, suspicious nature.

Mme. Paladino sat down at the table, a little less than two feet from the alcove curtains, turning her back to them. Then, at her request, she had her body and her feet tied to her chair by means of cloth bands. This was effected by three members of the company, who left only her arms free. That done, places were taken at the table in the following order: on the left of Mme. Eusapia, M. Lombroso; then, in succession, M. Vizioli, myself, the nephew of M. Lombroso, MM. Gigli, Limoncelli, Tamburini; finally, Dr. Penta, who completed the circle and sat at the right of the medium.

MM. Ascensi and Bianchi refused to form part of the circle, and remained standing behind MM. Tamburini and Penta. I paid little attention to these two, being certain that their action was a premeditated combination in order to redouble the vigilance. I simply recommended that, while they were observing with extreme care, each should remain quiet.

The experiments began in candlelight strong enough to light up the whole room. After a long wait the table began to move, slowly at first, then more energetically. However, the movements remained intermittent, labored, and much less vigorous than at Sat.u.r.day's seance.

The table volunteered a request by taps of its leg designating the letters of the alphabet, that MM. Limoncelli and Penta should exchange places. This exchange effected, the table called for the turning out of lights.

A moment after, and with more force this time, the movements of the table began again. Suddenly, in the midst of these, violent blows were heard. The chair placed at M. Lombroso's right tried to climb up on the table, then hung suspended upon the arm of the learned professor.

All of a sudden the curtains of the alcove were shaken, and swung forward over the table in such a way as to envelop M. Lombroso, who was very much moved by such a wonder, as he himself has declared.

All these phenomena, happening at long intervals, in the darkness, and in the midst of noisy conversation, were not estimated at their true worth. It was thought that they were only the effects of chance or were jests of some member of the company.

While we are all waiting and discussing the import of the phenomena and the greater or less value that should be set on them, the noise of the fall of an object is heard. When the room is lighted, there is found at our feet under the table the trumpet which had been placed on the round table in the alcove behind the curtains. This circ.u.mstance, which MM. Bianchi and Ascensi receive with a burst of laughter, surprises the experimenters, and has the effect of more completely fixing their attention.

The room is darkened again, and, by urgent request some fugitive glimmers of light are seen to appear and disappear at long intervals.

This phenomenon impressed MM. Bianchi and Ascensi, and put an end to their incessant railleries, so much so that they came and formed a part of the circle. At the moment of the appearance of the gleams, and even some time after they had ceased to show themselves, MM.

Limoncelli and Tamburini, at the right of the medium, said that they were touched in several places by a hand. M. Lombroso's young nephew, absolutely sceptical, who had taken a seat by the side of M.

Limoncelli, declared that he felt the touch of a flesh-and-blood hand, and asked with some impetuosity who did that. He forgot--being not only sceptical, but artless--that, like himself, all the persons present were helping to form the chain of hands and were in mutual contact.

It was getting late, and the lack of h.o.m.ogeneity in the circle was abridging the phenomena. Under these conditions I thought I ought to end the seance and cause the candles to be lighted.

When MM. Limoncelli and Vizioli were taking leave, the medium being still seated and bound, and all of us were standing around the table conversing about the luminous phenomena, and comparing the scattered and feeble effects obtained in this soiree with those of the Sat.u.r.day preceding, and seeking the reason for this difference, we heard noise in the alcove, and saw the portieres which enclosed it vigorously shaken, and the round table which was behind them slowly advancing toward Mme. Paladino, still seated and bound.

On seeing this strange, unexpected phenomena occur in full light, we were all stupefied with amazement. M. Bianchi and M. Lombroso's nephew dashed into the alcove, under the impression that some person concealed there was producing the movement of the portieres and the round table. Their astonishment was unbounded when they ascertained that there was no one there, and that, under their very eyes, the table continued to glide over the floor in the direction of the medium. That is not all. Professor Lombroso observed that, while the table was in movement, the salver on it had been turned upside down without a single particle of the flour which it contained being spilled; and he added that no prestidigitator would have been able to accomplish such a feat. In the presence of these phenomena taking place as they did, after the breaking up of the circle, in such a way as to eliminate the hypothesis of a magnetic current, Professor Bianchi, in obedience to the love of truth, confessed that it was he who, for the sake of a joke, had contrived and brought about the fall of the tin trumpet, but that in the presence of such achievements as this he could no longer be sceptical, and was going to apply himself to the study of them in order to investigate their causes.

Professor Lombroso complained of the trick, and said to M. Bianchi that, as between professors met in order to make scientific studies and researches in common, mystifying pranks like this could not but cast a slur upon the respect due to science.