5
In a great many cases, too long to be reported in this essay, where the communicating cause has declared itself to be the soul of a certain dead person,—of a father, a mother, a child, or a kinsman,—names, dates, and details were given, which were absolutely in accordance with facts whereof the medium was ignorant; but in the cases where the identity appeared to be best indicated, the questioner had his hands resting on the table, repeated the alphabet, and might have unconsciously induced the result. You try to invoke a man who bore, let us suppose, the name of Charles. When the letter c is pronounced, you exercise your influence without knowing it. If the experiment is made by rocking the table; you exercise a different pressure at that particular moment. If the communication is by raps, and the letter passes without the expected sound, you naturally allow it to be seen that there is a mistake. We deceive ourselves without being aware of it. This frequently happened to me during two years with this word Charles, which was the name of my mother’s brother, living in New Orleans. During those two years he told me how he died; yet at that very time he was in the vigor of life. This was in 1860 and 1861, and he did not pass away till 1864. We had, therefore, been the dupes of an illusion.
Auto-suggestion, or self-suggestion, is also extremely frequent in these experiments, as well as with writing mediums. I have before my eyes some charming fables, published by Monsieur Jaubert, President of the Civil Tribunal of Carcassonne, and some delicate poems, obtained through planchette, by P. F. Mathieu,—besides some historic and philosophical works,—all leading to the conclusion that these mediums have written under their own influence; or, at best, affording no scientific proof of a foreign influence.
There remain still unexplained the raps, and the motion of objects more or less heavy. On this point I fully share the opinion of the great chemist, Mr. Crookes, who says:
When manifestations of this kind are exhibited, this remark is generally made: “Why do tables and chairs alone show these effects? Why is this the peculiar property of furniture?”
I might reply that I am simply observing and reporting facts, and that I need not enter into the whys and wherefores. Nevertheless it seems clear that if, in an ordinary dining-room, any heavy inanimate body is to be lifted from the floor, it cannot very well be anything except a table or a chair. I have numerous proofs that this property does not appertain alone to articles of furniture; but in this, as in other experimental demonstrations, the intelligence or force—whichever it be that produces these phenomena,—cannot choose but use objects appropriate to its ends.
At different times during my researches I have heard delicate raps, which sounded as if produced by a pin’s point; a cascade of piercing sounds, like those of a machine in full motion; detonations in the air; light and acute metallic taps; cracking noises, like those produced by a floor-polishing machine; sounds which resembled scratching; warbling, like that of birds.
Each of these noises, which I have tested through different mediums, had its special peculiarity. With Mr. Home they were more varied; but, in strength and regularity, I have heard no sounds which could approach those which came through Miss Kate Fox. During several months I had the pleasure, on almost innumerable occasions, of testing the varying phenomena which took place in the presence of this lady, and it was the sounds which I specially studied. It is usually necessary with other mediums, in a regular séance, to sit awhile before anything is heard; but with Miss Fox it seems to be merely necessary to place her hand on something, no matter what, for the sounds to manifest themselves like a triplicated echo, and sometimes loud enough to be noticeable across several intervening rooms.
I have heard some of these noises produced in a living tree, in a large pane of glass, on a stretched wire, on a tambourine, on the roof of a cab, and in the box of a theatre. Moreover, immediate contact is not always necessary. I have heard these noises proceeding from the flooring and walls, when the medium’s hands and feet were tied, when he was standing on a chair, when he was in a swing suspended from the ceiling, when he was imprisoned in an iron cage, and when he lay in a swoon on a sofa. I have heard them proceed from musical glasses. I have felt them on my own shoulders, and under my own hands. I have heard them on a piece of paper, fastened between the fingers by a string through the corner of the sheet. With a full knowledge of the numerous theories which have been brought forward to explain these sounds, especially in America, I have tested them in every way I could devise, until it was no longer possible to escape the conviction that these sounds were real, and produced neither by fraud nor by mechanical means.
An important question forces itself upon our attention: Are these movements and noises governed by intelligence? From the very beginning of my investigations I have satisfied myself that the power producing these phenomena was not simply blind force, but that some intelligence directed it, or at least was associated with it. The noises, whereof I have spoken, were repeated a determinate number of times. They became either strong or feeble, at my request, and came from different places. By a vocabulary of signals previously agreed upon, the power answered questions, and gave messages with more or less accuracy.