The more complete analysis of the facts allows us to think that the liberation of the energy employed depends upon the contraction of the muscles and not upon the movement made. The thing which reveals this peculiarity is easy to observe. When we are forming the chain about the table, we can set up a movement without contact by mutually pressing our hands together with a certain force, or by pressing the feet hard upon the floor. The first of these means is much the better of the two. The arms have only made an insignificant movement, and one can say that the muscular contraction is almost the only physiological phenomenon observable. Yet it suffices.
All these authenticated experiments tend to show that the agent which determines movements without contact has some connection with our organism, and probably with our nervous system.
Conditions of the Experiments.—We must never lose out of our sight the relative importance of the moral and intellectual status of the group of experimenters. That is one of the most difficult things to seize and comprehend. But when the force is abundant, the simple manifestation of the will is sometimes able to determine the movement. For example, upon a desire to that affect being expressed by the sitters, the table moves in the way it is requested to do. The phenomena occur as if this force were guided by an Intelligence distinct from that of the experimenters. I hasten to say that I regard that only as a probability, and that I think I have observed a certain resemblance between these personifications and the secondary personalities of somnambulists.
In this apparent bond between the indirect will of the sitters and the phenomena there is a problem the solution of which has so far completely escaped me. I suspect that this bond has nothing supernatural about it and I realize that the Spiritualistic hypothesis is a poorer explanation and inadequate to meet the facts; but I cannot formulate any satisfactory explanation.
Close observations of the relations existing between the phenomena and the will of the sitters brings out other discoveries also. I mean, in the first place, the bad affect which disagreement among the experimenters produces. It sometimes happens that one of them expresses the desire to perceive a certain phenomenon. If the thing is slow in taking place, the same experimenter, or another one, will ask for a different spectacle. Sometimes different sitters will ask for several contradictory things at the same time. The confusion which reigns in the collective thought manifests itself in the phenomena, which themselves become confused and vague.[71]
However, things do not happen absolutely as if the phenomena were directed by a will which is only the shadow or the reflex of that of the sitters. It sometimes happens that they show great independence, and flatly refuse to yield to the desires expressed.
Forms and Phantoms.—At Bordeaux, in 1897, the room where we held our sittings was lighted by a very large window. The outside Venetian blinds of this window were closed; but when the gas was lighted in a little building which formed an adjunct to the kitchen, in the corner of the court near the garden, a feeble light penetrated the room and dimly illuminated the window panes. The window itself formed in this way a bright background upon which certain dark forms were perceived by a part of the experimenters. We all saw these forms, or rather this form, for it was always the same one that appeared,—a long bearded profile, with a very high arched nose. This apparition said it was head of John, a personification who always appears with Eusapia.[72] This is a very extraordinary phenomenon. The first idea which presents itself to the mind is that this is a case of collective hallucination. But the care with which we observed this curious phenomenon—and, it seems needless for me to add, the calmness with which we experimented—renders this hypothesis very unlikely.
The supposition of fraud is still less admissible. The head, which we saw was of life size, measuring say sixteen inches from the forehead to the end of the beard. It is impossible to understand how Eusapia could have hidden in her pockets or under her clothes any kind of a cardboard profile. Nor can one understand any better how, unknown to us, she could have taken out this paper figure, mounted it upon a stick, or upon a wire, and so operated with it. Eusapia had not gone into a trance: she herself sometimes saw the profile which appeared, and, thoroughly awake and conscious, took pleasure in assisting in the phenomena which she was producing. The feeble light which the illumined window shed was sufficient to enable us to see her hands being carefully held by the controllers on the right and on the left. It would have been impossible for her to manipulate these objects. In fact, however, the profile observed seemed to form at the top of the cabinet, at the height of about three and a half feet above Eusapia's head. It descended rather slowly and so took its place above and in front of her. Then at the end of some seconds it disappeared, only to reappear some time afterwards in the same circumstances. Every time, we carefully assured ourselves of the relative immobility of the hand and arms of the medium. Hence I regard the prodigy which I am relating as one of the most certain I ever verified, so incompatible was the hypothesis of fraud with the conditions under which we observed.
I am persuaded that these facts will one day (soon perhaps) receive the stamp of scientific approval as subjects of study. They will do this in spite of the obstacles which obstinate infatuation and the fear of ridicule pile in the way.
The intolerance of certain beings matches that of certain dogmas. Catholicism, for example, considers psychic phenomena as the work of the Devil. Is it worth while at the present time to combat such a theory? I do not think it is.