When the table was asked to guess something known to one of the members of the chain, it pretty frequently and quite naturally happened that it guessed it. It is the case of thought-reading by numbers,—nothing more, nothing less.
When it is asked to guess a thing known to a member of the company who does not form at the time a part of the chain, it happens sometimes that it guesses it. But the person in question must be endowed with great fluidic power and be able to exercise it at a distance. We did not ourselves obtain anything like this; but others have succeded, and their testimony seems too well established to be called in question.
Up to the present moment, it is plain, there is not the least trace of divination. It is fluidic action, near-by or distant.
If the tables divine, if they think, if there are spirits, we ought to get decisive responses in the case where no one knows the facts, either in the chain or out of the chain. The problem thus stated, the solution is not difficult.
Take a book. Do not open it, but invite the table to read the first line of the page you will designate,—say page 162 or page 354. The table will not flinch: it will rap, and will compose words for you. It was thus, at least, that it always acted with us. At any rate, one thing is certain, that neither here nor elsewhere, has any spirit, however cunning, read, this simple line; nor will it be able in the future to do so. I recommend the experiment to the partisans of spirit evocations.
As to the test of pieces of money in a purse, hours, playing-cards etc., the tables betake themselves to a strict calculation of probabilities; they guess just as much as you do, or as I do. Inasmuch as it is a question of small numbers of which one can form in advance an approximate idea, the range of possible combinations is not very extensive. The mind fixes upon a number which has a fairly good chance of being the true one, and the proportion between the failures of the table and its successes is in such a case just what it would be apart from all question of miraculous divination.
Séance of November 9
Before entering upon the description of this sitting,—a very remarkable one,—I will say that neither the thermometer nor the mariners' compass have furnished the slightest indication of anything interesting. I thought I ought to note this, in passing, to show to the reader that we did not neglect to employ instruments which seemed likely to put us in the way of obtaining a scientific explanation. In general, I pass by that phase of our work, as well as the different trials which remained merely trials, and did not lead to any positive results.
Our first care was to renew the experiment of the levitation of an inert weight. It was agreed among us this time that we would always start from the state of absolute immobility in the object: we wanted to produce movement, not to continue it.
The centre of the table, then, having been fixed with nice precision, a first tub of sand, weighing 46 pounds, was placed upon it. The legs easily rose from the floor when they got the order.