Mysterious Psychic Forces Part 20

repose repose.

tension of the muscles movement of the curtain.

strong tension strong inflation of the curtain.

This tabular view presents the striking proportion which I ascertained between the tension of the medium's muscles (who in this case was Mlle. X.) and the mechanical work of the curtain in movement.

This experiment is so much the more interesting since it was not Eusapia who made it; and, if she had a trick for inflating the portieres, it was not employed in this case. We already know that she had none.

Here are the conclusions of M. Ochorowicz:

1. I did not find any proofs in favor of the Spiritualistic hypothesis; that is to say, in favor of the intervention of an intelligence other than that of the medium. "John" is for me only a psychic double of the medium. Consequently, I am not a Spiritualist.

2. Mediumistic phenomena are confirmatory of "magnetism" as opposed to "hypnotism"; that is to say, they imply the existence of a fluidic action apart from suggestion.

3. Still, suggestion plays an important role in them, and the medium is only a mirror reflecting the forces and the ideas of those present.

Moreover, she possesses the power of realizing her own somnambulistic visions or those suggested by the company, simply by the process of externalizing them.

4. No purely physical force explains these phenomena, which are always of a psycho-physical nature, having a centre of action in the mind of the medium.

5. The phenomena proved do not contradict either mechanics in general or the law of the conservation of forces in particular. The medium acts at the expense of her own proper powers and at the expense of those of the persons present.

6. There exists a series of transitions between mediums.h.i.+p of an inferior kind (automatism, unconscious fraud) and mediums.h.i.+p of a superior kind or externalization of motivity (action at a distance without visible and palpable connecting link).

7. The hypothesis of a "fluidic double" (astral body), which, under certain conditions, detaches itself and acts independently of the body of the medium, seems necessary for the explanation of the greater part of the phenomena. According to this conception, the moving of objects without contact would be produced by the fluidic limbs of the medium.[35]

Sir Oliver Lodge, an eminent English physicist, rector of the University of Birmingham, says that, on the invitation of Dr. Richet, he went to attend the experiments at Carqueiranne, thoroughly convinced that he should not see there any instance of physical movement without contact but that what he saw completely convinced him that phenomena of that kind can have, under certain conditions, a real and objective existence. He vouches for the following verified facts:

1. Movements of a chair at a distance, seen by the light of the moon, and in circ.u.mstances which proved that there was no mechanical connection.

2. The inflation and the movement of a curtain in the absence of wind or of any other ostensible cause.

3. The automatic winding up and moving about of a music-box.

4. Sounds proceeding from a piano and from an accordion which had not been touched.

5. A key turned in a lock, on the inside of the room where the seances were held, then placed upon the table, and again put back into the lock.

6. The overturning, by means of slow and correct evolutions, of a heavy moving table, which was afterwards found thus turned upside down.

7. The levitation of a heavy table, under conditions in which it would have been impossible to lift it in ordinary circ.u.mstances.

8. The appearance of blue marks upon a table previously spotless, and this done without the help of the ordinary methods of writing.

9. The sensation of blows, as if some one were striking the head, the arms, or the back, while the head, the hands, and the feet of the medium were plainly in view or held apart from the portions of the body that were touched.

It is plain enough what part the above statements play in our argument.

They are throughout simply confirmations of the experiments described above.

At Cambridge, Eusapia was taken in the very act of deception; namely, the subst.i.tution of hands. While the controllers believed that they were holding her two hands, they were only holding one of them: the other was free. So these experimenters at Cambridge unanimously declared that "everything was fraud, from the beginning to the end," in Eusapia Paladino's _twenty seances_.

In a paper sent to M. de Rochas, M. Ochorowicz contested this radical conclusion, for several reasons. Eusapia is very susceptible to suggestion, and, by indulging her inclination to fraud and not hindering it, they incite her to it still more by a kind of tacit encouragement.

Moreover, her fraud is generally of an unconscious kind. I append here, as a particular ill.u.s.tration of this, a rather typical story about her:

One evening, at Varsovie (says M. Ochorowicz), Eusapia is sleeping in her chamber by the side of ours. I have not yet gone to sleep, when suddenly I hear her rising and moving about with bare feet in the drawing-room. Then she enters her chamber again and approaches our door. I make a sign to Mme. Ochorowicz, who has waked up, to be quiet and to observe carefully what is going to take place. A moment after, Eusapia gently opens the door, comes up to my wife's toilet-table, opens a drawer, shuts it, and goes away, carefully avoiding making any noise. I hastily dress myself and we enter her chamber. Eusapia is quietly sleeping. The light of our candle seems to wake her.

"What were you hunting for in our sleeping-room?"

"I? I haven't left this place."

Seeing the uselessness of further questions, we go to bed again, advising her to sleep quietly.

Next day I ask her the same question. She is very much astonished and even troubled (she blushes slightly).

"How should I dare," said she, "to enter your chamber during the night?"

This accusation is very painful to her, and she tries to persuade us by all kinds of insufficient reasons that we are wrong. She denies the whole thing, and I am obliged to admit that she does not remember getting up or _even having conversed with us_ (it was just another somnambulistic state).

I take a little table, and direct Eusapia to put her hands on it.

"Very well," says she, "John will tell you that I don't lie."

I then ask the following questions:

"Is it you, John, who came into our sleeping chamber last night?"

"No."

"Was it the chambermaid?" (I suggest this idea for the express purpose of testing John's veracity.)

"No," says he.

"Was it the medium herself?"

"Yes," says the table.--"No, it is not true," exclaims Eusapia, seeing her hope banished--"Yes," replies the table, forcibly.

"Was she in the trance state?"

"No."

"In her normal state?"

"No."

"In a spontaneous somnambulistic state?"

"Yes."

"For what purpose?"