But this question is foreign to the psychic facts themselves. So far as my experience permits me to judge, these phenomena are entirely natural. The Devil does not show his claws in them. If the tables should announce that they were Satan himself, there would be nothing on the face of things which would lead us to believe they were speaking the truth. If called on to prove his power, this grandiloquent Satan would turn out, I fear, to be a sorry thaumaturgist. The religious prejudice which proscribes these experiments as supernatural is as little justified as the scientific prejudice which only sees in them fraud and imposture. Here again the old adage of Aristotle finds its application: Equity lies between the two extremes of opinion.
It is evident that these experiments of Dr. Maxwell are in accord with all the preceding ones. The results ascertained mutually confirm each other.
Apropos of mediums who produce physical or material effects, I should also like to mention here the one who was very specially examined at Paris, in 1902, by a group of men composed in large part of former pupils of the Polytechnic School. They held a dozen séances in July and August. This group was composed of MM. A. de Rochas, Taton, Lemerle, Baclé, de Fontenay, and Dariex. The medium was Auguste Politi, of Rome. He was forty-seven years old.
Several very remarkable table-levitations were observed and photographed by these gentlemen during their sittings. I reproduce here ([Pl. XIII]) one of these photographs, taken by M. de Fontenay which he kindly allows me to use. It is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful that has been obtained, and one of the most striking. All the hands that form the chain are carefully held away from the table. It seems to me that not to recognize the value of this photograph as a record would be to deny the evidence itself. It was taken instantaneously by a flash of magnesium light. The eyes of the medium had been bandaged, that the light might not give him a nervous shock.
This same medium was studied at Rome, in February, 1904, by a group composed of Professor Milési, of the University of Rome, M. Joseph Squanquarillo, Mr. and Mrs. Franklin Simmons (American travellers passing through Rome), and M. and Mme. Cartoni.
Plate XIII. Instantaneous Photograph
Taken by M. de Fontenay of Table Levitation
Produced by the Medium Auguste Politi.
They declare that they heard scales very well executed upon the piano (which was an upright one), at quite a distance from the sitters; yet none of the sitters knew how to play on the piano, while Professor Milési's deceased sister, who was called upon to manifest herself, was a very good pianist.
Another musical phenomenon was produced: A mandolin placed on the lid of the piano, began of its own accord to play, balancing itself in the air until it went and fell down (playing all the while) between the hands of the experimenters who formed the chain.
Later, at intervals, the piano was lifted in its turn, falling back noisily. It must be remarked that two men scarcely sufficed to lift this piano, even by one of its sides. After the sitting, it was ascertained that the instrument had been displaced about a foot and a half.