Will Enoch and Elijah come again? Yes.
Will the Jews be restored? Yes.
Will Russia conquer England? Yes.
Will it be in the reign of Queen Victoria? No.
In the reign of her successor? Yes.”
The testimony of Mr. Crookes, the discoverer of a new metal, and a Fellow of the Royal Society, may here be suitably recorded. Unlike some other so-called “scientific investigators,” he is reported to have resolved upon a careful and thorough examination of the spiritualistic phenomena. He is said to have maintained originally that, even if the alleged facts were true, he might be able to explain them by some natural law. Accordingly he thoughtfully pursued his inquiries and investigations over a series of years, taking unusual care to render deception out of the question and impossible. The result has been given to the public in the “Quarterly Journal of Science” for January, 1874,[50] from which the following quotations are made:—
“The phenomena I am prepared to attest are so extraordinary and so directly oppose the most firmly-rooted articles of scientific belief—amongst others, the ubiquity and invariable action of the law of gravitation—that, even now, on recalling the details of what I witnessed, there is an antagonism in my mind between reason, which pronounces it to be scientifically impossible, and the consciousness that my senses, both of touch and sight—and these corroborated, as they were, by the senses of all who were present—are not lying witnesses when they testify against my preconceptions. But the supposition that there is a sort of mania or delusion which suddenly attacks a whole roomful of intelligent persons who are quite sane elsewhere, and that they all concur to the minutest particulars in the details of the occurrences of which they suppose themselves to be witnesses, seems to my mind more incredible than even the facts they attest” (pp. 77-78).
Under the heading of “The Phenomena of Percussive and other Allied Sounds,” he makes reference to the raps and knocks of various kinds made and heard in different places, “in a living tree, on a sheet of glass, on a stretched iron wire, on a stretched membrane, a tambourine, on the roof of a cab, and on the floor of a theatre,” and where no known law, and no contrivance or trickery, could afford any clue to their cause. He then inquires whether the sounds thus heard are the result of some blind, irrational, hidden material force obeying the Laws of Nature. His conclusion, however, was that the varied phenomena being evidently governed by intelligence, a thinking being must have been concerned in their origination. “The intelligence,” he maintains, “is sometimes of such a character as to lead to the belief that it does not emanate from any person present.” The movement of heavy substances at a distance from the medium is then discussed, and Mr. Crookes thus writes:—
“On three successive evenings a small table moved slowly across the room, under conditions which I had specially pre-arranged, so as to answer any objections which might be raised to the evidence” (p. 84).
Again:—“On five separate occasions a heavy dining-table rose between a few inches and one and a half feet off the floor, under special circumstances which rendered trickery impossible. On another occasion a heavy table rose from the floor in full light, while I was holding the medium’s hands and feet. On another occasion the table rose from the floor, not only when no person was touching it, but under conditions that I had pre-arranged, so as to assure unquestionable proof of the fact” (p. 85).