The observation of the facts resumed in this chapter reveals another circumstance which deserves pointing out. This is the apparent conductibility of certain bodies for the force employed. I gave some examples: table-linen, wood, dresses, etc. I related having often seen women-mediums’ dresses bulge out and approach the table, when the phenomenon was being produced; the sensitive’s feet remained visible, and, in view of the conditions under which I have been able to test this phenomenon, I consider as absurd the idea that an artificial hand or foot was introduced, as imagined by Dr. Hodgson to explain away this fact with Eusapia. I have frequently obtained movements without the contact of the medium’s dress, but I have certainly noticed that this contact facilitates the realisation of the movement.
Darkness favours it also; there is no doubt about this. Of course I am putting aside the greater facilities obscurity offers for the execution of fraudulent phenomena; and though, in this book, I have only taken into account phenomena observed in full light, I have often experimented in obscurity; and it appears to me certain, that total darkness is one of the conditions for the maximum development of the liberated energy.
The action of light is interesting to note. I have already stated that the dynamic agency of psychical phenomena appeared to me to be analogous with the nervous influx, and that the table seemed to play the rôle of condenser. In that hypothesis, light would act like certain rays of cathodic origin, which discharge the electricised condensers placed in their vicinity. The study of the influence of light upon telekinetic phenomena will certainly enable us to learn their cause. The little we already know permits us to suspect that the telenergic force ought to have some rapport with light and electricity, at least in that which concerns the amplitude of vibrations.
The study of this rapport can only be taken up by an experienced physicist. It will require delicate methods and special instruments, and I earnestly hope it will soon be seriously undertaken.
As for those who confine themselves, as I do, to simply seeking whether the facts be real or not, they should avoid working in obscurity. Light may hamper the production of telekinetic movements, but it will not prevent it. Experimenters should accustom themselves to holding their seances in the daytime, or in a light which is sufficient to permit of reading small print. Above all things, it is necessary to be personally convinced of the reality of the facts; and this conviction is not so easily acquired, when the experiment is made in obscurity.
It is difficult to imagine to what a pitch audacity of certain tricksters will carry them. I once attended a series of experiments, which interested me greatly from that point of view. The group included three young men, one of whom is a most remarkable medium. The other two, intelligent and well-educated young fellows, appeared to me to have some medianic faculties, but I withhold my judgment, because they tried so hard to cheat, that it would not be prudent to seriously notice those facts, where fraud did not strike me as coming into play; for it was always possible. These young men had nothing to gain by cheating; in any case, I have not yet understood what aim they wished to attain. The levitations of the table were splendid—in obscurity—and all the furniture in the seance-room was more or less jostled about and displaced. This was all very fine; it was all very well done; and novices were easily taken in. The ‘spirits’ caressed or struck the sitters, and I have seen sincere but inexperienced persons convinced of the reality of facts, for which the legerdemain of one of the young men present was alone responsible.
One of these youths, a medical student, presents symptoms of nervous troubles, and will become a hysteric if he is not one already. Notwithstanding my reproaches and exhortations, he could not stop himself from cheating; and I have the impression that fraud is, in his case, almost impulsive. I did not think I was authorised to examine him from a medical point of view, but I observed him carefully. He has manufactured spirit photographs very cleverly; they were wonderfully well done, and only a professional eye would detect the trick. He proceeded by double exposure.
With this group, as soon as the room was lighted up, the phenomena, which were so violent in obscurity, ceased almost entirely. This circumstance alone was suspicious; for the action of light is not such as to constitute an insurmountable obstacle to the production of telekinetic movements. Whenever phenomena are intense in obscurity, we ought to be able to obtain weaker ones of the same kind in light. This is a rule without an exception, as far as my experience goes.
Needless to add that the table, under the normal impetus which the young men gave it, insisted upon total darkness. Now, in truly good seances, on the contrary, I have always seen the table ask for light, if purely motor phenomena were desired. Naturally, it is otherwise with luminous phenomena, of which I am now going to speak.