“I was obliged to make an early call on our medium this morning. Lucky visit! for he was in a working mood and gave two fine movements without contact. We began by sitting at a table, where we received raps by means of the lead-pencil; the words: Put yourselves against the daylight were rapped out. We did not understand what this meant, and ceased experimenting. We went downstairs and walked about in the garden for a few minutes. When we went back to the study, we resumed our seance. M. Meurice sat down on the divan and I in front of him. Raps without contact dictated: Lie down for a while, we want to try for a physical effect.
“The raps directed that I was to lie down on the sofa and M. Meurice was to take my place. We followed these directions.
“M. Meurice said he felt ‘queer’; that his hands seemed to be full of hair, or rather of spider’s web, and he tried to rub the feeling away. I got up and took down from the mantelpiece the statuette of St. John, the history of which you know.[29] He tried to attract it, but without results. We waited, the spider’s web sensation returned, and this time I prevented him from rubbing it off; he drew his hands together over and then in front of the statuette and—his fingers at a distance of five inches from the object—attracted it to him. The statuette moved two inches.
“M. Meurice felt ill after this movement, and was obliged to lie down for a while. He soon got up, and tried again. But I stopped him, fearing he might over-tire himself; though the statuette did not move forward this time, it swayed about.”
“18th July 1904.
“On Thursday morning, M. Meurice again succeeded in attracting the statuette of St. John. He told me he felt the cobwebby sensation, which—in his case—coincides with telekinetic phenomena; he took the statuette in question and placed it on a table. He then proceeded as though he were putting something behind the object, making several passes with his hands all round it. As he was drawing his hands away from the statuette—they had reached a distance of nine inches—I heard something like the crackling of a hair or silken thread on the wood of the statuette, and then the latter moved.
“The excellent conditions of light under which the experiment took place, the control of sight and touch which I most carefully exercised, the proximity of the statuette to my eyes, all this renders the absence of any hair or thread most certain for me. This is the second time I have heard this scraping sound.
“M. Meurice was extremely fatigued after the production of this phenomenon, and fainted. On recovering himself, he insisted on trying once more, and succeeded in making the statuette sway about.
“The day following this experience, he attracted several small articles—wine-glasses, bread, etc.—near his reach on the luncheon-table. I was not present, however.