But if discord reigns, if one or more of the company persistently spy upon the acts of the medium, with the conviction that he or she must be cheating, the results are very much like the progress of a sailing vessel impelled by several contrary winds. The medium simply marks time without advancing; and little but sterile results are secured. Psychic forces are no less real than physical or chemical or mechanical forces. In spite of the desire that we may have to convince prejudiced sceptics, it is advisable to invite only one of them at a time, and to place him next to the medium, in order that he may be at once astonished, shaken, and convinced. But in general this is not worth the trouble.
In the month of September, 1895, a new series of experiments was made at l'Agnélas, in the residence of Colonel de Rochas, president of the polytechnic school, with the assistance of Dr. Dariex, editor of the Annales des sciences psychiques, Count de Gramont (doctor of science), Dr. J. Maxwell, deputy of the attorney-general at the Court of Appeals in Limoges, Professor Sabatier, of the faculty of sciences at Montpellier, and Baron de Watteville, a licentiate in science. They confirmed all the preceding details.[37]
A similar series was held in September, 1896, at Tremezzo, in the rooms of the Blech family, then in summer residence at Lake Como; again at Auteuil, at the home of M. Marcel Mangin, with MM. Sully-Prudhomme, Dr. Dariex, Emile Desbeaux, A. Guerronnan, and Mme. Boisseaux also participating. Let us stop for a moment to glance at this last séance.
I will first mention the photograph of the table suspended in the air, a levitation which did not leave any doubt in the mind of the experimenters, any more than it does in that of the observer who examines with attention this photograph ([Pl. IX]). The table descended slowly and the succession of images was registered by the photograph ([same plate, Cut B]). The following is an extract from the report by M. de Rochas upon this séance and the succeeding one:
September 21.—The table rises off its four feet. M. Guerronnan has time to take a photograph of it, but he fears that it may not be good. We beg Eusapia to begin again. She consents with good grace. The table is again lifted off its four feet. M. Mangin notifies M. Guerronnan who, from his post, could not see, and the table remains in the air until he has had time to take a picture of it (from three to four seconds at the most). The dazzling magnesium light enables us all to verify the reality of the phenomenon.
The curtain, hung in the corner of the room, suddenly blows out and covers my head. Then I feel in succession three pressures of a hand upon my head, the pressures growing stronger and stronger. I feel fingers which press as those of M. Sully-Prudhomme, my neighbor on the right, might do. I hold his left hand as a part of the chain of hands.
It is a hand, it is fingers, which have just pressed upon me so; but whose? I have continually had Eusapia's right hand upon my left hand, which she seized and tightly held at the moment of the production of the phenomenon....
I throw back the curtain, which has remained upon my head, and we sit waiting. "Meno luce" ("less light") asks Eusapia. The lamp is turned down more, and the remaining light shut off by a screen.
Facing me there is a window with closed outside shutters, but through which filters the light of the street. In the silence, my attention is caught by the appearance of a hand, the small hand of a woman. I can see it, owing to the feeble light coming from the window.
Plate IX