I have obtained, like the eminent “member of the Royal Society of London,” the movement of weighty bodies by contact very easily, not only lifting massive tables of a weight altogether out of proportion and far superior to the force of a very robust man, but have also seen this furniture move in a given direction; I have even noted a small square table keep time in beating with a determined cadence. This phenomenon, well known to all experimenters, may be reproduced without the assistance of a powerful medium; it was well known in times of antiquity, but is not mentioned in the writings on sorcery during the Middle Ages.
As extraordinary as these facts seem, they are no more singular than those observed by W. Crookes, and very recently by Zoellner,[83] Professor in the University of Leipsic and correspondent of the French Institute, in presence of Professors Fechner, Braune, Weber, Scheibner, and the celebrated surgeon, Thiersch. It was with Slade, an American medium as extraordinary as Home, that Zoellner experimented. These experiments may be thus briefly mentioned:
1. Movements made by psychic force, through the medium of Slade, of a magnet enclosed in a compass box.
2. Blows struck on a table, a knife raised in air, without contact, to the height of a foot.
3. Movement of heavy bodies. Zoellner’s bed was drawn two feet from the wall, Slade remaining seated with his back to the bed, his legs covered and in full view of the experimenters.
4. A fire-screen broken with noise, without contact with the medium, and the fragments thrown five feet.
5. Writing produced on several experimental occasions between two slates belonging to Zoellner, and held well in view.
6. Magnetization of a steel needle.
7. Acid reaction given to neutral substances.
8. Imprints of hands and naked feet on smoked surfaces or surfaces powdered with flour, which did not correspond with the hands and feet of the medium, who remained meantime in full view of the experimenters, while Slade’s feet were covered with shoes.