1. Noises of varied nature, apparently arising from the furniture, floor or walls of the room, accompanied by vibrations which are often perceptible to the touch, are present without being produced by muscular action or any mechanical means whatever.
2. Movements of heavy bodies occur without the aid of mechanical apparatus of any sort, and without equivalent development of muscular force on the part of persons present, and even frequently without contact or connection with any one.
3. These noises and movements are produced often at the moment wished for and in the manner demanded by persons present, and, by means of a simple code of sounds, respond to questions and write coherent communications.
4. The response and communications obtained are, for the most part, hackneyed and commonplace, but sometimes they give facts and information only known to one person in the room.
5. The circumstances under which the phenomena are present vary, the most striking feature being that the presence of certain persons seems necessary to their production, and that the presence of some people serves as a check; but this difference does not seem to depend on the belief or the unbelief of those present as to the nature of the phenomena.
The testimony, oral and written, received by the commission affirmed the reality of phenomena much more extraordinary still, such as heavy bodies rising in the air (men in certain cases floated through the atmosphere) and remaining in suspension without tangible support; apparitions of hands and forms belonging to no human beings, but seemingly alive, judging by their aspect and motions.
This report was signed by savants of the first order, as sceptical before commencing their investigations as the most positive Materialists of our academies of science. Let us cite, among the celebrated names of men known throughout the world for their learning and scientific veracity, those of the great naturalist and collaborateur of Darwin, Russell Wallace, Professor A. Morgan, President of the Mathematical Society of London and Secretary of the Royal Astronomical Society; F. Varley, Chief Engineer of the Trans-Atlantic Telegraph Company and member of the Royal Society of London.
Mr. Morgan does not fear to add to the report the following lines: “I am perfectly convinced, from what I have seen and heard, in a manner that renders doubt impossible, that Spiritualists, without doubt, are upon a track that will lead to the advancement of the psychal sciences; their opponents are those who seek to trammel all progress.”
Mr. Varley writes to the celebrated Professor Tyndall: “I am obliged to investigate the nature of the force that produces these phenomena, but, up to the present time, I have been unable to discover anything save the source from which this psychic force emanates, i.e., from the vital systems of the mediums. I am only studying, however, a thing that has been the object of investigation for two thousand years; brave men, whose minds are elevated above the narrow prejudices of our century, seem to have sounded the depths of the subject in question,” etc.
This opinion of the learned English physicist proves, once more, that we are right in connecting Demonomania to the magic of antiquity and to modern spiritualism. One must be perfectly blind or of poor judgment not to see the connecting links that unite these various phenomena. And if our men of science dare no longer say that these facts are worthy of credit, although refusing to investigate the same, it is because they lack courage, it is because they dare not brave the criticism of pretended strong-minded men and the jests of the ignorant. If the vulgum pecus, the amorphous matter that stuffs the superior element of society, contest the value of the works of Crookes, Wallace, Morgan, Varley, Gibier, Zoellner, Mapes, Hare, Oxon, Sexton, and others, they can only be included in the same class of people who ridiculed Galileo, Harvey, Jenner, Franklin, Young, Davy, Jussieu, Papin, Stephenson, and Galvani, with all the authors of great discoveries and scientific truths, who have invariably been combatted by the pseudo-scientific and half-fledged goslings whose names adorn our so-called colleges and other mutual admiration societies.[93]