1. I did not find any proofs in favor of the Spiritualistic hypothesis; that is to say, in favor of the intervention of an intelligence other than that of the medium. "John" is for me only a psychic double of the medium. Consequently, I am not a Spiritualist.
2. Mediumistic phenomena are confirmatory of "magnetism" as opposed to "hypnotism"; that is to say, they imply the existence of a fluidic action apart from suggestion.
3. Still, suggestion plays an important rôle in them, and the medium is only a mirror reflecting the forces and the ideas of those present. Moreover, she possesses the power of realizing her own somnambulistic visions or those suggested by the company, simply by the process of externalizing them.
4. No purely physical force explains these phenomena, which are always of a psycho-physical nature, having a centre of action in the mind of the medium.
5. The phenomena proved do not contradict either mechanics in general or the law of the conservation of forces in particular. The medium acts at the expense of her own proper powers and at the expense of those of the persons present.
6. There exists a series of transitions between mediumship of an inferior kind (automatism, unconscious fraud) and mediumship of a superior kind or externalization of motivity (action at a distance without visible and palpable connecting link).
7. The hypothesis of a "fluidic double" (astral body), which, under certain conditions, detaches itself and acts independently of the body of the medium, seems necessary for the explanation of the greater part of the phenomena. According to this conception, the moving of objects without contact would be produced by the fluidic limbs of the medium.[35]
Sir Oliver Lodge, an eminent English physicist, rector of the University of Birmingham, says that, on the invitation of Dr. Richet, he went to attend the experiments at Carqueiranne, thoroughly convinced that he should not see there any instance of physical movement without contact but that what he saw completely convinced him that phenomena of that kind can have, under certain conditions, a real and objective existence. He vouches for the following verified facts:
1. Movements of a chair at a distance, seen by the light of the moon, and in circumstances which proved that there was no mechanical connection.
2. The inflation and the movement of a curtain in the absence of wind or of any other ostensible cause.