Mysterious Psychic Forces Part 9

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE V. EUSAPIA PALADINO, SHOWING RESEMBLANCE TO THE IMPRINT IN PUTTY.]

Dr. Ochorowicz writes as follows apropos of these prints of faces and of the study which he made of them at Rome:[22]

The imprint of this face was obtained in darkness, yet at a moment when I held the two hands of Eusapia, while my arms were entirely around her. Or, rather, it was she who clung to me in such a way that I had accurate knowledge of the position of all her limbs. Her head rested against mine, and even with violence. At the moment of the production of the phenomenon a convulsive trembling shook her whole body, and the pressure of her head on my temples was so intense that it hurt me.

At the moment when the strongest convulsion took place, she cried, "_Ah, che dura!_" ("Oh, how severe!") We at once lighted a candle and found a print, rather poor in comparison with those which other experimenters have obtained,--a thing due, perhaps, to the bad quality of the clay which I used. This clay was placed about twenty inches to the right of the medium, while her head was inclined to the left. Her face was not at all soiled by the clay, which was yet so moist as to leave traces upon the fingers when touched. Moreover, the contact of her head with mine made me suffer so much that I am absolutely sure it was not intermitted for a single moment. Eusapia was very happy when she saw a verification made under conditions in which it was impossible to suspect her good faith.

I then took the tray of clay, and we pa.s.sed into the dining-room in order to better examine the imprint, which I placed on a large table near a big kerosene lamp. Eusapia, who had fallen into a trance, remained for some moments standing, her hands resting upon the table, motionless and as if unconscious. I did not lose sight of her, and she looked at me without seeing anything. Then, with an uncertain step, she moved backward toward the door and pa.s.sed slowly into the chamber which we had just left. We followed her, observing her all the while, and leaving the clay behind upon the table. We had already got into the chamber when, leaning against one of the halves of the double door, she fixed her eyes upon the tray of clay which had been left upon the table. The medium was in a very good light: we were separated from her by a distance of from six to ten feet, and we perceived distinctly all the details. All of a sudden Eusapia stretched her hand out abruptly toward the clay, then sank down uttering a groan. We rushed precipitately towards the table and saw, side by side with the imprint of the head, a new imprint, very marked, of a hand which had been thus produced under the very light of the lamp, and which resembled the hand of Eusapia. I have, myself, obtained head prints a dozen times, but always rather poor, owing to the quality of the clay, and often broken while the experiment was going on.

The Chevalier Chiaia, of Naples, who first obtained these fantastic pictures through the agency of Eusapia, wrote as follows, in this connection, to Count de Rochas:

I have imprints in boxes of clay weighing anywhere between fifty-five and sixty-five pounds. I mention the weight in order to let you see the impossibility of lifting and transporting _with one hand alone_ so heavy a tray, even upon the supposition that Eusapia might, unknown to us, free one of her hands. In almost every case, in fact, this tray, placed upon a chair _three feet behind the medium_, was brought forward and placed very gently upon the table about which we were seated. The transfer was made with such nicety that the persons who formed the chain and held firmly the hands of Eusapia did not hear the least noise, did not perceive the least rustling. We were forewarned of the arrival of the tray upon the table by seven taps, which, according to our conventional arrangement, John struck in the wall to inform us that we could turn on the light. I did so at once by turning the c.o.c.k of the gas-fixture which was suspended above the table. (We had never completely extinguished it.) We then found the tray upon the table, and, upon the clay, the imprint which we supposed must have been made before its transfer, and while it was behind Eusapia, in the cabinet where John usually materializes and manifests himself.

The totality of these observations (which are very numerous) leads us to the thought that, in spite of the improbability of the thing, these imprints are produced at a distance by the medium.

However, some days after the seance at Montfort-l'Amaury I wrote as follows:

These different manifestations are not to me equally authentic. I am not sure of all of them, for the phenomena were not all produced under the same conditions of certainty. I should wish to cla.s.s the facts in the following order of decreasing certainty:

1. Levitations of the table.

2. Movements of the round table without contact.

3. Mallet blows.

4. Movements of the curtain.

5. Opaque silhouette pa.s.sing before the red lamp.

6. Sensation of a beard upon the back of the hand.

7. Touchings.

8. s.n.a.t.c.hing of the block of paper.

9. Throwing of the lead-pencil.

10. Transference of the round table to the top of the other table.

11. Music from the little box.

12. Transfer of the guitar to a point above the head.

13. Imprints of a hand and of a face.

The first four events, having taken place in full light, are incontestable. I should put almost in the same rank Nos. 5 and 6. No.

7 may perhaps be due very often to fraud. The last in the list, having been produced toward the end of the seance, at a time when attention was necessarily relaxed, and being still more extraordinary than all the others, I confess that I cannot admit it with certainty, although I can not understand how it could have been due to fraud. The four others seem genuine; but I should like to observe them anew; a man could wager ninety-nine to one hundred that they are true. I was absolutely sure of them during the seance. But the vividness of the impressions grows weak, and we have a tendency to listen only to the voice of plain common sense,--the most reasonable and the most deceptive of our faculties.

The first impression we get upon the reading of these reports is that these different manifestations are rather vulgar, altogether ba.n.a.l, and do not tell us anything about the other world--or about other worlds. Surely it does not seem probable that any _spiritual being_ would take part in such performances. For these phenomena are of an absolutely material cla.s.s.

On the other hand, however, it is impossible not to recognize the existence of unknown forces. The simple fact, for example, of the levitation of a table to a height of six and one-half, eight, sixteen inches from the floor is not ba.n.a.l at all. It seems to me, speaking for myself alone, so extraordinary that my opinion is very well expressed when I say that I do not dare to admit it without having seen it myself, with my own eyes: I mean that which is called seeing, in full light and under such conditions that it would be impossible to suspect. While we are very sure that we have proved it, we are at the same time sure that in such experiments there emanates from the human body a force that may be compared with the magnetism of the loadstone, able to act upon wood, upon matter (somewhat as the loadstone acts upon iron), and counterbalancing for some moments the action of gravity. From the scientific point of view, that is a weighty fact in itself. I am absolutely certain that the medium did not lift that weight of fifteen pounds either by her hands or by her legs, or by her feet, and, furthermore, no one of the company was able to do it. The table was lifted by its upper surface. We are, therefore, certainly in the presence of an unknown force here which emanates from the persons present, and above all from the medium.

A rather curious observation ought to be made here. Several times during the course of this seance, and during the levitation of the table, I said, "There is no spirit." Every time I said this two violent blows of protestation were struck in the table. I have already remarked that, generally, we are supposed to admit the Spiritualistic hypothesis and to ask a spirit to exert himself in order that we may obtain the phenomena.

We have here a psychological matter not without importance. Still, it does not seem to me, for all that, to prove the real existence of spirits, for it might happen that this idea was necessary to the concentration of the forces present and had a purely subjective value. Religious zealots who believe in the efficacy of prayer are the dupes of their own imagination; and yet no one can doubt that certain of these pet.i.tions appear to have been granted by a beneficent deity. The Italian or Spanish girl who goes to beg of the Virgin Mary that she will punish her lover for an infidelity may be sincere, and never suspects the strangeness of her request. In dreams we all converse every night with imaginary beings. But there is something more here: the medium really duplicates herself.

I take the point of view solely of the physicist whose business is to observe, and I say, whatever may be the explanatory hypothesis you may adopt, there exists an invisible force derived from the organism of the medium, and having the power to emerge from him and to act outside of him.

That is the fact: what is the best hypothesis to explain it? 1. Is it the medium who herself acts, in an unconscious manner, by means of an invisible force emanating from her? 2. Is it an intelligent cause apart from her, a soul that has already lived upon this earth, who draws from the medium a force which it needs in order to act? 3. Is it another kind of invisible beings? Nothing authorizes us to affirm that there may not exist, side by side with us, living, invisible forces. There you have three very different hypotheses, none of which seems to me, as far as my personal experience goes, to be as yet conclusively proved.

But there certainly emanates from the medium an invisible force; and the partic.i.p.ants, by forming the psychic chain and by uniting their sympathetic wills, increase this force. This force is not immaterial. It may be a substance, an agent emitting radiations of wave-lengths which make no impression on our retina, and which are nevertheless very powerful. In the absence of light rays it is able to condense itself, take shape, affect even a certain resemblance to the human body, to act as do our organs, to violently strike a table, or touch us.

It acts as if it were an independent being. But this independence does not really exist; for this transitory being is intimately connected with the organism of the medium, and its apparent existence ceases when the conditions of its production themselves cease.

While writing these monstrous scientific heresies, I feel very deeply that it is difficult to accept them. Still, after all, who can trace the limits of science? We have all learned, especially during the last quarter of a century, that our knowledge is not a very colossal affair, and that, apart from astronomy, there is as yet no exact science founded upon absolute principles. And then, when all is said, there are the _facts_ to be explained. Doubtless it is easier to deny them. But it is not decent or civil. He who has merely failed to find what satisfies him has no right to deny. The best he can do is simply to say, "I know nothing about it."

The fact is that, as yet, we have not elementary data enough to enable us to characterize these forces; but we ought not to lay the blame upon those who study them.

To sum up, I believe that I am able to go a little farther than M.

Schiaparelli and affirm the certain existence of unknown forces capable of moving matter and of counterbalancing the action of gravity. There is a complex totality, as yet difficult to disentangle, of psychic and physical forces. But such facts, however extravagant they may appear, are worthy of coming within the sphere of scientific observation. It is even probable that they tend powerfully to elucidate the problem (a matter of supreme importance to us) of the nature of the human soul.

After the end of that seance of the 27th of July, 1897, as I desired to see again the levitation of a table in full light, the chain was formed _standing_, the hands lightly placed upon the table. The latter began to oscillate, then rose up to a height of nine inches from the floor, remained there several seconds (all the partic.i.p.ators remaining on their feet), and fell heavily back again.[23]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE VI

PHOTOGRAPH OF THE TABLE RESTING ON THE FLOOR.

PHOTOGRAPH OF THE SAME TABLE RAISED TO A HEIGHT OF TWENTY-FIVE CENTIMETRES. MADE BY M. G. DE FONTENAY.]

M. G. de Fontenay succeeded in getting several photographs by the magnesium light. I reproduce two of them here (Pl. VI.). There are five experimenters who are, from left to right, M. Blech, Mme. Z. Blech, Eusapia, myself, Mlle. Blech. In the first photograph the table rests upon the floor. In the second it floats in air, coming up as high as the arms, at a height of about ten inches on the left and eight inches on the right.

I hold my right foot resting upon Eusapia's feet and my right hand upon her knees. With my left hand I hold her left hand. The hands of all the others are upon the table. It is therefore altogether impossible for her to employ any muscular action. This photographic record confirms that of Pl. I., and it seems to me difficult not to recognize its undeniable doc.u.mentary value.[24]

After this seance my most ardent desire was to see the same experiments reproduced at my own house. In spite of all the care I took with my observations, several objections can be taken to the absolute certainty of the phenomena. The most important arises from the existence of the little dark cabinet. Personally, I was sure of the perfect probity of the honorable Blech family, and I am unable to accept the idea of any trickery whatever on the part of any of its members. But the opinion of readers of the formal report may not be so well a.s.sured. It was not _impossible_ that, even unknown to the members of the family, some one, with the connivance of the medium, glided into the room, favored by the dim light, and produced the phenomena. An accomplice entirely clothed in black and walking barefoot would have been able to hold the instruments up in the air, put them in movement, make the touches, and cause the black mask to move at the end of a rod, etc.

This objection could be verified or quashed by renewing the experiments at my house, in a room of my own, where I should be absolutely certain that no confederate could enter. I should myself arrange the curtain, I should place the chairs, I should be certain that Eusapia would come alone to my apartments, she would be asked to undress and dress in the presence of two lady examiners, and every supposition of fraud alien to her proper personality would thus be annihilated.

At this epoch (1898) I was preparing, for _l'Annales politiques et litteraires_, some articles upon psychic phenomena, which, revised and amplified, afterwards formed my work, _The Unknown_. The eminent and sympathetic editor of the review showed himself a.s.siduous in examining with me the best means of realizing this scheme of personal experiences.

Upon our invitation, Eusapia came to Paris to pa.s.s the month of November, 1898, and to devote eight soirees especially to us--namely, the 10th, 12th, 14th, 16th, 19th, 21st, 25th, and 28th of November. We had invited several friends to be present. Each one of these seances was the subject of a formal report by several of those who were present, notably by MM.

Charles Richet, A. de Rochas, Victorien Sardou, Jules Claretie, Adolphe Brisson, Rene Baschet, Arthur Levy, Gustave Le Bon, Jules Bois, Gaston Mery, G. Delanne, G. de Fontenay, G. Armelin, Andre Bloch, etc.

We met in my salon in the avenue de l'Observatoire, in Paris. There were no special arrangements, except the stretching of two curtains in one corner, before the angle of two walls, thus forming a kind of triangular cabinet, the walls about which are there unbroken, without door or window.

The front of the cabinet was closed by these two curtains, reaching from the ceiling to the floor and meeting in the middle.

It is before this kind of cabinet that the reader will please imagine the medium to be seated, with a white wooden table (kitchen table) before her.

Behind the curtain, upon the plinth of the projection of a bookcase and upon a table, we placed a guitar, also a violin, a tambourine, an accordion, a music-box, cus.h.i.+ons, and several small objects, which were to be shaken, seized, thrown about by the unknown force.

The first result of these seances in Paris, at my house, was absolutely to establish the fact that the hypothesis of a confederate is inadmissible and ought to be entirely eliminated. Eusapia acts alone.