Professor Barrett, with his accustomed caution, comments thus:—
"The results, it is true, were very remarkable and unaccountable; but though I had not the slightest doubt of the good faith of Mr. L. and Miss I., yet I do not adduce this evidence as unexceptionable. I should have preferred to have taken precautions which were not so easy to impose on a lady, and I should also have preferred to have had the seance at my own house."
This latter objection was met by Mr. L. and Miss I. going to Professor Barrett's house shortly afterwards, no one else besides Professor Barrett being present. Some remarkable sounds were again heard. Then, this happened—again quoting Professor Barrett's own words:—
"Suddenly, only the tips of our fingers being on the table, the heavy loo-table at which we were sitting made a series of very violent prancing movements (which I could not imitate afterwards except by using both hands and all my strength); the blows were so heavy that I hurriedly stopped the performance, fearing for the safety of the gas chandelier in the room below. Here, too, I cannot avoid the conclusion that the phenomena described are inexplicable on any known hypothesis."
After discounting the "pious platitudes" spelt out by the tilts of the table, and the possibility, and even probability, that "unintentional muscular movements" were the cause of these, and after recognising the impossibility of keeping up a continuous vigilant watch on the hands and feet of any person, and after supposing that Miss I. had some ingenious mechanism concealed about her person, whereby she could produce the sounds that were heard, Professor Barrett says: "This would fail to account for the undoubted motion of a heavy table, free from the contact of all present. After giving due weight to every known explanation, the phenomena remain inexplicable to me."
Testimony Collected by Frederic W. H. Myers.
Next in order of time come two papers by Mr. F. W. H. Myers, under the title of "Alleged Movements of Objects without Contact, occurring not in the Presence of a Paid Medium." They are published in vol. vii. of the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research.[8] The first article goes over most of the ground traversed in the earlier part of this chapter, but devotes twenty lines only to the Report of the Committee of the Dialectical Society, and refers only to Professor Barrett's cases as having been already published. A number of other cases are, however, described in detail. The evidence in these scarcely comes up to the level of scientific, and unless it had been sifted by so careful a critic as Mr. Myers, who convinced himself of the reality of the facts, could hardly be considered of much value. The two following cases in the first article present the strongest evidence.
(1) The Armstrong Case.—Mr. George Allman Armstrong, of 8 Leeson Place, Dublin, and Ardnacarrig, Bandon, writes an account dated 13th June 1887. After vouching for the perfect good faith of the small group of experimenters, he describes in detail the movements of a table. The "rising" was generally preceded by a continuous fusillade of "knocks" in the substance of the table. When the knocks had, as it were, reached a climax, the table slowly swayed from side to side like a pendulum. It would stop completely, and then, as if imbued with life, and quite suddenly, would rise completely off the floor to a height of twelve or fourteen inches at least. It nearly always came down with immense force, and on several occasions proved destructive to itself, as the broken limbs of the table used at Kinsale could testify. The table was a round, rather heavy walnut one, with a central column standing on three claw legs. Mr. Armstrong says that on several occasions he succeeded in raising the table without contact. It rose to the fingers held over it at a height of several inches, like the keeper of a strong electro-magnet.[9]
(2) A Bell-ringing Case.—Mr. Myers, in introducing this case, says: "The usual hypotheses of fraud, rats, hitched wires, &c., seem hard to apply. The care and fulness with which it has been recorded will enable the reader to judge for himself more easily than in most narratives of this type. Our informant is a gentleman [Mr. D.], occupying a responsible position; his name may be given to inquirers."[10] The detailed report of the occurrences occupies no less than twelve pages, the greater part of which consists of a long letter addressed by Mr. D. to the Society for Psychical Research. He explains that he is writing in the main from notes taken at the time and not from memory. The following is an abstract:—
On Friday, 23rd September 1887, he took his four pupils to a circus, his lady housekeeper also going, leaving two servants at home. They left at about 2 p.m. All but himself returned about 5.30 p.m. The two servants were on the doorstep, telling the boys not to go in by the area door—the kitchens being below ground—and explaining that all the bells were ringing violently, no one touching them, and that they had been doing so almost ever since half-past two. When the master of the house came home, he found the same state of things, the servants almost in hysterics and the bells ringing. Nine bells hung in a row just inside the area door, opposite the kitchen door, and there was one bell—a call bell—on the landing at the top of the house.