I pushed the easy chair back three times. Three times it returned. The same phenomenon was reproduced several days afterward.
It is observable that if she had been able to detach her foot from mine, she would have been able to reach the chair (by some little twisting,) and the production of the phenomenon must have been within the range of her circle of activity (and of possible trickery). But, as the case was, deception was impossible.
Since we could not obtain any levitation of the table, and since the psychical force of the four of us (Eusapia, myself, my wife, and Eusapia's companion, who had joined us for a moment, but, who at other times, always remained apart) was clearly insufficient, I went and secured a lighter round table. Then, with her hands placed upon it in contact with mine, three of its feet were raised to a height of ten or twelve inches from the floor. We repeated the experiment three times, with gratifying success. Eusapia squeezed my hands violently in one of hers (the right hand) which rested on the table.
The whole séance is thus seen to have been a web of intermingled truth and falsehood.
These notes remind us once more that there is almost always a mingling of veritable fact and of fraudulent performance.
It is easy to admit that the medium, wishing to produce an effect, and having at her disposal for this purpose two means,—the one easy and demanding only skill and cunning, the other distressing, costly, and painful,—is tempted to choose, consciously or even unconsciously, that which costs her the least.
The following is her method of procedure for obtaining the substitution of hands. The figures shown in [Plate XI] represent four successive positions of the medium's hands and those of the sitters. They show how, owing to the darkness and to a skilful combined series of movements, she can induce the sitter on the right to believe that he still feels the right hand of the medium on his own, while he really feels her left hand, which is firmly held by the sitter on the left. This right hand of hers, being then free, is able to produce such effects as are within its reach.
The substitution may be obtained in different ways. But, whichever method is used, it is evident that the freed hand can only operate in a space within its reach.
Who of us is always master of his impressions and of his faculties? writes Dr. Dariex in this connection.[43] Who of us can at will put himself into such and such a physical condition and such and such a moral state? Is the composer of music master of his inspiration? Does a poet always write verses of equal worth? Is a man of genius always a man of genius? Now, what is there less normal, more impressionable, and more capricious than a sensitive, a medium, especially when she is away from home, thrown out of the routine of her daily life, and staying with those with whom she is unacquainted or knows very slightly, who are to be her judges and who expect from her the rare and abnormal phenomenon the production of which is not under the constant and complete control of her will?
A sensitive placed in such a situation, will have a fatal propensity to feign the phenomenon which does not spontaneously materialize or to heighten by deceit the intensity of a partially successful experiment.