“I saw, one day, in the quality of spectator, a chair on which a lady was seated raised from the floor several inches.
“On another occasion, in order to avoid being suspected of producing the phenomenon by artificial means, the lady knelt on the chair, so that the four legs of the piece of furniture were visible to every eye; then the chair was lifted from the floor three inches, remaining suspended in the air for ten seconds, when it slowly descended to the floor again.
“Another time, but separately, two children were raised to the ceiling in their chairs, under a full glare of light, under conditions entirely satisfactory to me, for I was on my knees and attentively watched the feet of the chairs in order to see that no one touched them.
“The most remarkable examples of levitation I have observed have taken place with Mr. Home. On three occasions I have seen him lifted to the ceiling of the room. On the first occasion he was seated in a chair, the second time he was kneeling on a chair, and the third experiment he stood on the chair. In all these instances I had every facility for examining the phenomena at the moment they occurred.
“Over a hundred instances where Mr. Home was raised from the floor in the presence of numerous witnesses have been published, and I have had the oral testimony of at least three witnesses to these exhibitions, i.e., Count Dunraven, Lord Lindsay, and Captain Wynne.
“To reject the numerous depositions presented on this subject would be to reject all human testimony on any other subject; for there are no facts in history, be they sacred or profane, that are supported on such a solid basis of proof.
“The number of witnesses who will testify to the levitations of Mr. Home is overwhelming. It is to be greatly desired that persons whose testimony would be accepted as conclusive by the scientific world would seriously examine with patience these facts.
“The majority of ocular witnesses of these phenomena are still living, and will most assuredly bear witness; but in a few years it will be difficult, if not impossible, to obtain such direct evidence as in the case of Home.” (Crookes.)
It is to this class of phenomena that the case of Francois Fontaine belongs, the authenticated facts of which, officially recorded and witnessed, are matters of history; her levitations in the prison at Louviers cannot be doubted.
The cataleptic symptoms accompanying the ascentional movements of this woman bear witness as to the special neuropathic condition in which she was found—a condition to-day in which most mediums develop psychic force, either spontaneously or following hypnotic maneuvers.