2. Health of the medium and sitters. If the medium does not feel well, things happen as though he exteriorised no force whatever. It is the same thing with the sitters, but in a lesser degree; in the latter case it suffices to eliminate the experimenter who feels ill.
3. Mental condition of the medium and sitters.[40] Ill-humour, anxiety, sadness—especially a sadness without any specific cause, a kind of mental discomfort—are prejudicial. Joy, gaiety are often favourable.
4. Nervous exhaustion. This condition is too often overlooked. I have not unfrequently had occasion to conduct several series of experiments at one and the same time. I generally noticed that the results were not good. I have not been able to understand the cause of this want of success; it is probably other than that of simple nervous exhaustion, although this may have an action in prolonged series of seances.
Neither do seances held too frequently with the same medium give good results; in this case, nervous exhaustion is certainly in play.
The English experimenters do not appear to have taken these diverse elements into consideration; I am persuaded the results of their investigations would have been different had they shunned ‘paid mediums,’ and sought for fresh or undeveloped mediums, persons uninfluenced by private considerations, intelligent and capable of bringing a correct analysis of their subjective impressions into the research. These mediums are rare, but they are to be found.
None of these conditions were fulfilled by the Sidgwick group. These experimenters, acting with the best of intentions, took a wrong course. Eglinton, Slade, Haxby, have perhaps been genuine mediums in their time, but as soon as they made it a business to give regular seances, they were at once prepared to give fraudulent phenomena with regularity. At Newcastle, the group operated at one and the same time with Miss Fairlamb and with Miss Wood. These two parallel series of experiments could not help being prejudicial one to the other, even if these two mediums had been honest, which does not appear to have been the case, judging from Mrs. Sidgwick’s account.
I cannot think of discussing in detail all the experiments of the Sidgwick group; but I will study their experiments with Eusapia Paladino at Cambridge more carefully, for their judgment on this medium appears to me unjustified. Every one knows under what conditions Messrs. Myers, Hodgson, Sidgwick, etc., invited Eusapia to England, in order to resume experiments previously made with her at Ribaud. These experiments had obtained a favourable report from Dr. Lodge; Mr. Myers and Mr. Sidgwick associated themselves with Dr. Lodge’s conclusions. Dr. Hodgson—who is a doctor of law and not a doctor of medicine, as some people suppose—criticised the experiments summarised by Dr. Lodge. He was met with the reply that his criticisms contained nothing new; that what he said had been already pointed out by Richet and others, and that the experimenters were acquainted with every possible system of fraud; that the substitution of one hand for another, the substitution of an artificial foot for the medium’s foot, were well-known systems of imposture, against which every precaution had been taken. Nevertheless, and notwithstanding the fact that the report had been drawn up by such competent men as Richet, Ochorowicz, Lodge, and Myers, it was criticised with an undeniable appearance of logic and justice by Hodgson: the latter reproached them for insufficiently describing the manner in which the diverse controls were ensured, for omitting to dwell upon the precautions which were taken, and for the lack of a minute description of all the movements of the medium. In his article (Journal, vii. 49) he expressly says:—
‘Professor Lodge makes the following declaration concerning the raising of the table:—
‘“It appears to me impossible for any person to lift a table of this size and weight while standing up to it, with hands only on top, without plenty of leg action, and considerable strength and pressure of hands. It was quite beyond the possibility of Eusapia.”
‘Now let us suppose,’ continues Hodgson, ‘that Eusapia used a form of support which, with some variation or other, I fancy is not altogether unknown in the Italian race. Let us suppose that she had, next to her body, a light strong band round her shoulders and across her chest, with a pendant attached of a black band or cord, with a hook or other catch at the end which could be tucked out of sight in her dress front when not in use. (By the way, in a photograph which I have seen of Eusapia at a sitting, when the table is supposed to be completely off the floor, one of the buttons of the bosom of her dress seems to be unfastened.)