Should any of our readers be sceptical as to the ability of a person to move objects without contact, and to stop a ball at will on a roulette table, I can only refer them to the experiments of Dr. Ochorowicz[1] which will be found in the June Number of the Annals of Psychical Research for the year 1905, wherein will be found an exhausted series of experiments made with a Polish medium named "Julie." In this paper the doctor demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that "Julie" could cause the ball to fall into any of the compartments of the roulette table which the doctor selected in a large percentage of the trials, and, when it failed to tumble into the right compartment, it usually fell into one or other on either side of it.
As regards the trance, I have purposely prolonged its duration to fit in with the plot of the novel, and I have also introduced certain alterations and additions in order to make the story more complete.
I may remark further that the phantom scene of Renée's mother may possibly have been an hallucination on the girl's part, as I have no direct proof of its occurrence, and have only the testimony of a highly emotional girl wearied out with vigils to rely upon. Of course there is the evidence of the lock of hair, which may be seen even to-day, but to my mind that is not sufficiently convincing, and would certainly not be allowed as evidence in a court of law.
Still others who were present assured me that they saw the same phantom (or materialized form) at the séance, and the evidence of such materialization has the great support of one of our most eminent scientists who has a well-deserved reputation for extreme accuracy of statement and cautiousness, and who has assured me personally that he has both seen, handled, and conversed with such an apparition, which was just as real and clothed with the same flesh and blood as any other human being, and he is as certain of its genuineness as he is of his own existence. Moreover, he has repeatedly photographed both the medium and the spirit-form singly and together, which photographs I have seen. Personally I have never witnessed a materialized form, and can only reserve my judgment as to the reality of the phenomenon.
But I feel sure all interpolations and additions will be pardoned by the reader; since the object aimed at was to clothe the real facts with a halo of romance, and thus, without detracting too much from the truth, to render the story much more interesting to the reader.
GEO. LINDSAY JOHNSON,
Castle Mansions, Johannesburg.
It is a vulgar mistake, for which science certainly gives no warrant, to assert that things are impossible because they contradict our experience.
P. Chalmers Mitchell, M.A., DSc., F.R.S.
Thomas Henry Huxley: A Sketch of his Life and Work, p. 245.
Whatever is intelligible and can be distinctly conceived implies no contradiction, and can never be proved false by any demonstration, argument, or reasoning, a priori.