Mysterious Psychic Forces / An Account of the Author's Investigations in Psychical Research, Together with Those of Other European Savants

by Camille Flammarion

A bouquet of flowers, placed in a carafe on the larger table, comes over onto ours, preceded by an agreeable perfume. Stems of flowers are placed in the mouth of No. 5; and No. 8 is hit by a rubber ball, which rebounds upon the table. The carafe comes over to join the flowers on our table; it is then immediately lifted and put to the mouth of the medium, and she is made to drink from it twice; between the two times it sinks down to the table and stands there for a moment right side up. We distinctly hear the swallowing of the water, after which Mme. Paladino asks some one to wipe her mouth with a handkerchief. Finally, the carafe returns to the large table.

But a transfer of a totally different character is effected in the following way. I had complained several times that my position in the chain at a distance from the medium had hindered me from being touched during the séance. Suddenly, I hear a noise on the wall of the room, followed by the tinkling of the strings of the guitar, which vibrate as if some one were trying to take down the instrument from the wall on which it hung. At last the effort succeeds, and the guitar comes toward me in an oblique direction. I distinctly saw it come between me and No. 8, with a rapidity which rendered the impact of it rather unpleasant. Not being able at first to account to myself for this dim black object which was driving at me, I slipped to one side (No. 8 was seated at my left). Then the guitar, changing its route, struck forcibly with its handle three blows upon my forehead (which remained a little bruised for two or three days), after which it came to a rest with delicate precision upon the table. It did not remain there very long before it began to circle about the hall, with a rotation to the right, quite high above our heads, and at great speed.

It is proper to remark that, in this rotation of the guitar, the vibration of its own strings was added to the sound of the tambourine struck sometimes on one side, sometimes on the other, in the air; and the guitar, bulky as it was, never once struck the central supporting electric-light rod, nor the three gas lamps fixed on the walls of the chamber. When we take into consideration the contracted dimensions of the room, we see that it was very difficult to avoid these obstacles, since the space remaining free was very limited.

The guitar took its flight twice around the room, coming to a stand-still (between the two times) in the middle of the table, where finally it came to a rest. In a final supreme effort, Eusapia turns toward the left, where upon a table is a typewriting machine weighing fifteen pounds. During the effort the medium falls exhausted and nervous upon the floor; but the machine rises from its place and betakes itself to the middle of our table, near the guitar.

In full light, Eusapia calls M. Morselli, and, controlled by the two persons next her, brings him with her toward the table, upon which is placed a mass of modelling-plaster. She takes his open hand and pushes it three times toward the plaster, as if to sink the hand into it and leave upon it an impression. M. Morselli's hand remains at a distance of more than four inches from the mass: nevertheless, at the end of the séance, the experimenters ascertain that the lump of plaster contains the impression of three fingers,—deeper prints than it is possible to obtain directly by means of voluntary pressure.

The medium lifts her two hands, all the time clasped in mine and in those of No. 5 (Morselli), and uttering groans, cries, exhortations, she rises with her chair, so far as to place its two feet and the ends of its two front cross-bars upon the top of the table. It was a moment of great anxiety. The levitation was accomplished rapidly, but without any jarring or jolting or jerking. In other words, if, in an effort of extreme distrust you insisted on supposing that she employed some artifice to obtain the result, you would rather have to think of a pulling up, by means of a cord and pulley, rather than of a pushing from beneath.

But neither of these hypotheses can stand the most elementary examination of the facts....

There is more to follow. Eusapia was lifted up still farther with her chair, from the upper part of the table, in such a way that No. 11 on one side and I on the other were able to pass our hands under her feet and under those of the chair.

Moreover, the fact that the posterior feet of the chair were entirely off of the table, without any visible support makes this levitation still more irreconcilable with the supposition that Eusapia could have made her body and the chair take an upward leap.

M. Porro judges that this phenomenon is one of those which are less easily explained if we decline to have recourse to the Spiritualistic hypothesis. It is a little like the man who fell into the water and thought he could pull himself out by his own hair.