Mysterious Psychic Forces / An Account of the Author's Investigations in Psychical Research, Together with Those of Other European Savants

by Camille Flammarion

I shall only relate here phenomena controlled by myself personally in the séance of last Saturday. Consequently, I say nothing of the arrangement of the apartment, of the experimenters, nor of the events which were first produced in the dark and which all the participants were able to authenticate,—such as cracking sounds in the table, levitations, displacements of the table, raps, etc., as well as the blowing out of the curtain over the table, the bringing on of the violin, of the tambourine, and so forth.

Eusapia having invited me to take the place at her side which had been vacated by M. Brisson, I sat down on her left, while you preserved your place on her right. I took her left hand in my right hand, while my left hand placed upon the table was in contact with that of my neighbor, the medium insisting on this several times in order that the chain might not be broken. Her left foot rested upon my right foot. All through the experiment I never let go her hand for a single second. She grasped my hand with a strong pressure, and it followed her through all her movements. In the same way her foot always kept in contact with mine. My foot always kept touch with hers in all her foot scrapings on the floor, her shiftings of place, shrinkings, twitchings, etc., which never had anything suspicious in them, nor were they of such a nature as to explain the events which took place at my side, behind me, around me, and upon me.

In the first place, and in less than a minute after I had been placed on the left of the medium, the curtain nearest to me was puffed out and brushed against me, as if impelled by a gust of wind. Then three times I felt upon my right side a pressure which lasted but for a moment, yet was very marked. At that moment we were in a very dim light, yet enough to make the faces and the hands of all who were present distinctly visible. After Eusapia's violent nervous contractions, struggles, and energetic pushes (precisely like those which I had seen in similar cases elsewhere and which only astonish those who have slightly studied these phenomena), suddenly the curtain nearest to me was blown forward with an astonishing propulsive power between Eusapia and me, in the direction of the table, entirely concealing from me the face of the medium; and the violin, which, with the tambourine, had, before my introduction, been replaced in the dark chamber, was hurled to the middle of the table, as if by an invisible arm. To accomplish this, the arm must have lifted the curtain and drawn it along with it.

After this the curtain returned to its first position, but not completely; for it still remained puffed out a little between Eusapia and me, one of its folds remaining upon the edge of the table at my side.

Then you took the violin and held it out at such a distance from the two curtains that it was wholly visible to the company; and you invited the occult agent to take it.

This was done, the mysterious agent taking it back with him into the dark closet, with as much good will as he had shown in bringing it on.

The violin then fell upon the floor behind the curtains, or portières. One of these which was nearest to me resumed its vertical position, and for a time I heard upon my right upon the floor behind the curtains a kind of scrimmage between the violin and the tambourine, which were displaced, pulled about, and lifted, clashing and resounding at a great rate; and yet it was impossible to attribute any of these manifestations to Eusapia, whose foot never moved, but remained firmly pressed against my own.

A little after, I felt against my right leg, behind the curtain, the rubbing of a hard body which was trying to climb upon me, and I thought it was the violin. And so it was, in fact; and, after an unsuccessful effort to climb higher than my knee, this apparently living creature fell with a bang upon the floor.

Almost immediately I felt a new pressure upon my right hip, and mentioned the circumstance. You disengaged your left hand from the chain, and, turning toward me, twice made in the air the gesture of the director of an orchestra moving his bâton to and fro. And each time, with perfect precision, I felt upon my side the repercussion of a blow exactly tallying your gesture, which reached me after the delay of a second more or less, and which seemed to me to correspond exactly to the time necessary for the transference of a billiard ball or a tennis ball from you to me.

Some one, Dr. Richet, I believe, having spoken at that time of strokes upon the shoulders of the sitters in which the action and shape of a human hand was very marked, I will mention as a proof of his remark that I received in succession three blows upon the left shoulder (that is to say, the one most distant from the curtain and from the medium), more violent than the preceding ones; and this time the heavy pressure of the five fingers was very evident. Then a last blow with the flat of the hand, applied in the small of the back, without hurting me at all, was strong enough to make me lean forward, in spite of myself, toward the table.