At the last séance, the tambourine fringed with bells, which had been rubbed with phosphorous, went circling around the whole room, and in such a way that all its movements could be followed.
During almost all the sittings, mysterious touchings were noticed,—among others, those produced by an enormous hairy hand!
In the first, fourth and fifth séances there were "materializations." Prof. Italo Palmarini believed that he recognized his daughter, who had been dead three years. He felt himself embraced; everybody heard the sound of a kiss. The same manifestation took place in the fifth séance. Professor Palmarini believed that he still recognized the person of his daughter.
At the opening of each séance the medium was searched, and was then placed in a kind of big sack, made to order for this purpose, and fastened at the neck, the wrists, and the feet.
Another medium, the Russian Sambor, was the object of numerous experiments at St. Petersburg during a period of six years. (1897-1902.) It will be interesting also to give a summing up in this place of the report about this man published by M. Petrovo Solovovo.[74]
In the first séances a large folding screen placed behind the medium was observed to be vigorously shaken. The medium's feet and hands were carefully held. A table in a neighboring chamber moved of its own accord. In a metal cone placed on the table, enclosing a bit of paper and a lead-pencil, and then riveted up, there was found, when it was unriveted, a ribbon, and a phrase written on the paper in script that had to be read in a looking-glass (écriture en miroir). Other cases of the passage of matter through matter were tried, none of which succeeded. But further on the reports relate the following experiments:
In the month of February, 1901, one of Sambor's séances took place at my house, in my study, against the windows of which I had hung curtains of black calico in such a way that the room was plunged in the deepest darkness. The medium occupied a place in the chain. Next to the medium were M. J. Lomatzsch, on his right, myself on his left. Sambor's hands and feet were faithfully held the whole time in a way that gave perfect satisfaction.
The phenomena soon began to develop. I do not intend to take the time here to describe them, but I wish to mention a remarkable case of the passage of matter through matter.
M. Lomatzsch, controller on the right, declares that someone is pulling his chair from under him. So, redoubling our attention, we continue to hold the medium. M. Lomatzsch's chair is soon positively lifted up, so that he is obliged to stand. Sometime after, he declares that someone is trying to hang the chair on the hand with which he is holding Sambor. Then the chair suddenly disappears from the arm of M. Lomatzsch, and at the same moment I feel a light pressure upon my left arm (I do not mean the one which was in contact with the medium, but with my neighbor on the left M. A. Weber); after which I feel that something heavy is hanging from my arm. When the candle was lighted, we all saw that my left arm had been passed through the back of the chair. In this way the chair was nicely balanced upon that one of my arms which was not in contact with Sambor, but with my neighbor on the left. I had not let go of the hands of my neighbors.
Such an observation as this needs no commentary (says the reporter of this occurrence, M. Petrovo Solovovo). The fact is simply incomprehensible. I give here some other phenomena which were observed in May, 1902: