“The hands and fingers have always appeared solid and like those of any living person; at times, however, they appeared nebular, condensations in the form of hands.
“These phenomena were not visible to the same extent to all the persons present. For example, one person would see a flower or other small object; another person would see a small cloud of luminosity fly over the flower; another, still, would notice a nebulous hand; while others, again, would simply see the movement of the flower.
“I have seen, on several occasions, an object move with the appearance of a luminous cloud and perfectly condense into the form of a hand; under such circumstances the hand is visible to all persons present.
“It is not always a simple form, for often the hand perfectly resembles that of a living person, and has every element of grace; the fingers move; the flesh presents a human appearance, the same as though that of a living person; at the wrist or arm this form may become nebulous, and end in a luminous cloud of vapor.
“To the touch the hand appears cold, icy as in death at times; while on other occasions it feels warm and living, clasping my hand like that of an old friend would.
“I have retained one of these hands in mine, firmly resolved not to let it escape; it made no resistance nor effort to disengage itself, but appeared to gradually resolve itself into vapor.” (Crookes).
I have heard many persons affirm that they perceived hands that touched them in full light. I never had this experience, but I can testify that during eight or ten sittings I and five or six persons who assisted me felt these hands perfectly; and among these hands were those belonging to a small child, and certainly no small child was in the house; these baby hands were soothing and caressing. Our medium was still Madam L. B., who, during the seance, was held down tightly on a sofa by Madam P., whose scrupulous attention may be relied on where science is at stake, for all our experimentations of this sort were in the dark. Several times the small baby hands were put in my sleeve, and seemed to take pleasure in pulling off my cuffs and taking them to other persons in the room. My eyeglass was also taken by the infantile fingers and carried to one of the circle.[87]
Class X.—Direct writing.
This is the expression we employ to designate a writing not produced by any person present, and Mr. Crookes gives the following description of this phenomenon: