1. Let me observe, in the first place, that Eusapia frequently releases her hand for no other reason than to touch her head, which is in pain at the moment of the manifestations. It is a natural reflex movement; and, in her case, it is a fixed habit. Since, more often than not, she does not notice that she is doing it, or at least fails to give warning to her controller, the darkness justifies suspicions.
2. Immediately before the mediumistic doubling of her personality, her hand is affected with hyperæsthesia and, consequently, the pressure of the hand of another makes her ill, especially in the dorsal quarter. She then most frequently places the hand which is to be mediumistically active above and not below that of the controller, trying to touch it as little as possible. When the doubling of the personality is complete, and the dynamic hand more or less materialized, that of the medium contracts and rests heavily upon the controller, exactly at the moment that the phenomenon takes place. She is then almost insensible and all shrunken together. In very good mediumistic conditions the doubling is easy and the initial hyperæsthesia of short duration. In this case the medium allows her hand to be completely covered and the feet of the controllers to be upon hers, as was always the case in our séances at Rome in 1893; but, since that time, she can no longer endure that position, and rather prefers to be held by hands under the table.
3. In accordance with psychological laws, the hand always proceeds automatically in the direction of our thoughts (Cumberlandism). The medium acts by auto-suggestion, and the order to go as far as an indicated point is given by her brain simultaneously to the dynamic hand and the corporeal hand, since in the normal state they form only one. And since, immediately after the hyperæsthesia, the muscular sensation is excited and the hand grows benumbed, it sometimes happens (especially when the medium proceeds carelessly and does not properly govern her movements) that the dynamic hand remains in place, while her own hand goes in the indicated direction. The former, not being yet materialized, produces only a semblance of pressure; and another person, able to see a little in the darkness, will perceive nothing of it, and will even be able to ascertain by touch the absence of the medium's hand from that of the controller. At the same time the hand of the medium is going in the direction of the object; and still it may happen that it does not really reach it, acting, as it does, at a distance, by a dynamic prolongation.
It is in this way that I explain the cases in which the hand, being released, has not yet been able to reach the point aimed at (physically inaccessible), as well as the numerous experiments made at Varsovie in full light, with a little bell hung in different ways, with compasses of different forms, with a very small table, etc.,—experiments in which Eusapia's fingers were quite near, but did not touch, the object. I proved that there was no electric force at work in these cases, but that things occurred as if the arms of the medium were lengthened and acted invisibly, but mechanically. At Varsovie, when one of my friends M. Glowacki, took it into his head "that it was necessary to give the medium free rein, in order to discover her method," we had an entirely fraudulent séance and lost our time to no purpose. On the contrary, in a poor séance at l'île Roubaud, we obtained some good phenomena after having frankly told the medium that she was cheating.
And here are the conclusions of the author upon "the Cambridge frauds":
1. Not only was conscious fraud not proved on Eusapia at Cambridge, but not the slightest effort was made to do so.
2. Unconscious fraud was proved in much larger proportions than in all the preceding experiments.
3. This negative result is vindicated by a blundering method little in accordance with the nature of the phenomena.
Such is also the opinion of Dr. J. Maxwell, and of all who are competent judges of the question.
To sum up, we see that the influence of preconceived ideas, opinions, and sentiments, upon the production of phenomena, is certain. When all the experimenters have nearly the same sympathetic inclination for this kind of research, and when they have decided to exercise sufficient "control" (that is, watchful oversight) not to be the dupe of any mystification, and agree among themselves to accept the regrettable conditions of darkness necessary to the activity of these unknown radiations, and not to trouble in any way the apparent exigencies of the medium, then the resulting phenomena attain an extraordinary degree of intensity.[36]