8. Five of the experimenters declared that they had been touched by some mysterious hand.
9. Twice the mysterious force drew sounds from the piano. The first time, this took place when the lid of the piano was open. The second time, the sounds were heard after the lid had been _locked with a key_, the key remaining on the table in the midst of the circle of experimenters. At first the unknown force began to play a melody on the high notes, and two or three times produced trills. Then chords on the ba.s.s notes were heard at the same time with the melody, and, when the piano was playing, the music-box also began to play, both performances lasting several minutes.
10. During all the phenomena which have just been described, the medium (Sambor), seemed sunk in a profound trance, and remained almost motionless. The phenomena were not accompanied by any bustle or confusion. His hands and his feet were all the time controlled by his neighbors. M. de Poggenpohl and Loris-Melikow several times saw something long, black, and slender detaching itself from him during the phenomena and moving toward the objects.
I will add, in closing (says M. Petrovo Solovovo), that this medium was accused of cupidity and intemperance. These seances were the last he gave (he died a few months afterward). But, to tell the truth, I have a tender spot in my heart for the late M. Sambor. This Little-Russian, a former telegraph operator, polished and humanized by the six or seven winters that he had pa.s.sed in St. Petersburg--can it be that blind Nature had chosen this man to be the intermediary between our world and the doubtful Beyond?--or, at least, another world of beings whose precise nature (begging the pardon of the spirits) would be an enigma to me, provided I positively believed in them.
It is with that word "doubt" (alas! is not _doubt_ the most _certain_ result of mediumistic experiments?) that I end this Report.
To this whole series of varied observations and experiments we could still add many more. In 1905 MM. Charles Richet and Gabriel Delanne held some famous seances in Algiers. But is not impossible that fraud may have crept into their experiments, in spite of all the precautions taken by them.
(The photographs of the phantom Bien-Boa have an artificial look.) In 1906, the American medium, Miller, gave in Paris several seances in which it really seems as if true apparitions were manifested. I cannot say anything personally about it, not having been present. Among other experimenters, there were two very competent ones, who studied this medium; namely, MM. G. Delanne and G. Mery. The first concludes that the apparitions were what they represented themselves to be (see _Revue scientifique et morale du spiritisme_); that is to say, the spirits of the departed. The second, on the other hand, declares in _L"Echo du Merveilleux_, that, "until there is fuller information, we must be satisfied with not comprehending."
It is not within the scope of my plan to discuss in this particular place, "apparitions" or "materializations." We may ask ourselves whether the fluid which certainly emanates from the medium may not produce a kind of condensation able to furnish to the most interested observer of the manifestation the elusive vision of an unreal personality which, besides, only lasts, as a general thing, for a few seconds. Is it a melange or combination of fluids? But it is not yet time to make hypotheses.
CHAPTER XI
MY GENERAL INQUIRY RESPECTING OBSERVATIONS OF UNEXPLAINED PHENOMENA
A certain number of my readers perhaps remember the general inquiry that I inst.i.tuted in the course of the year 1899 respecting observation of the unexplained phenomena of telepathy, manifestations of the dying, premonitory dreams, etc.--an inquiry published in part in my work _L"Inconnu et les problemes psychiques_. I received 4280 replies composed of 2456 _no_ and 1824 _yes_. Among the latter there are 1758 letters with more or less of detail. A large number of these were not presented in such a shape that their claims could be discussed. But I was able to use 786 of the most important of them. They were cla.s.sified, the essential matters transcribed, and summed up in the work of which I have just spoken. The most striking thing in all these accounts is the loyalty, conscientiousness, the frankness, and the sensitive refinement of the narrators, who are anxiously concerned to say only what they know, and as they know it, without adding or subtracting anything. In doing this, each becomes the servant of truth.
These 786 letters, transcribed, cla.s.sified, and numbered, contained 1130 different facts or observations. My examination of the instances recorded in the letters reveals several kinds of subjects which may be cla.s.sified as follows:
Manifestations and Apparitions of the Dying.
Manifestations of the Living (in Health).
Manifestations and Apparitions of the Dead.
Clairvoyance.
Premonitory Dreams. Forecast of the Future.
Dreams that give Information of the Dead.
Meetings foreseen by Presentiment.
Presentiments realized.
Doubles of the Living.
Communications of Thought at a Distance (Telepathy).
Instinctive Presentiments of Animals.
Calls heard at Great Distances.
Movements of Objects without Apparent Cause.
Bolted Doors Opening of Themselves.
Haunted Houses.
Spiritualistic Experiments.
Since my first publication of these doc.u.ments, I have received many new ones. More than one thousand are to-day crowded into my ma.n.u.script library. They contain about fifteen hundred observations which seem to me to be sincere and authentic. The doubtful ones have been eliminated. These narratives emanate as a general thing from persons who are filled with astonishment and are extremely desirous of receiving, if possible, an explanation of these strange events (often very affecting). All the narratives which I have been able to verify have been found to be fundamentally accurate--sometimes modified afterwards, as respects their mere form, by a memory more or less confused.
In _L"Inconnu_, I published a portion of these narratives. But I excluded from that work[75] phenomena not properly included within the limits of its main plan, which was to show the existence of unknown faculties of the soul.
I excluded, I say, "movements of objects without apparent cause," "bolted doors opening of themselves," "haunted houses," "Spiritualistic experiments;" that is to say, the very cases studied in the present work, in which I hoped to be able to publish them. But s.p.a.ce fails me. In my desire to offer to my readers a set of records as complete as possible, for the purpose of giving them a firmly based opinion, I have been swamped by the abundance of material, and, can only rescue a few of the most interesting specimens of them for presentation here.
First of all, I select the following communication as having a certain intrinsic value. It was sent me by my regretted friend Victorin Joncieres, the well-known composer of music.
I was on a tour of inspection of the music-schools of the Provinces (he says), and happened to be in a city which I cannot name to you for the reasons which I gave. I was coming out of the branch establishment of our Conservatory, after having examined the piano-cla.s.s there, when I was addressed by a lady who asked me what I thought of her daughter, and whether I judged that she ought to enter upon an artistic career.
After a rather long conversation, in the course of which I promised to go to hear the young artist, I found myself engaged to go the same evening (for I was leaving the next day) to the house of one of their friends, a high official in the state service, to take part in a Spiritualistic seance.
The master of the house received me with extreme cordialty, recalling the promise I had given him to keep secret his name and that of the city in which he lived. He presented his niece, _the medium_, to whom he attributes the phenomena which take place in his house. It was, in fact, after the young girl"s mother had died, and she came to live with him, that the strange occurrences began to take place.
They began with unusual noises in the walls, and in the floors, with the displacement of articles of furniture that moved without being touched, and with the warblings of birds. M. N. at first believed that it was a piece of foolery planned either by one of his own family or by one of his clerks. However, in spite of the most vigilant watching, he could not discover any trickery, and he finally came to the conclusion that the phenomena were produced, by invisible agents, with whom he believed he could communicate. He soon obtained raps, direct writing, the mysterious appearance of flowers, etc.
After this account, he led me into a large room with bare walls, in which several persons had a.s.sembled, among whom were his wife and a professor of natural philosophy at the lyceum--altogether, a dozen of experimenters. In the middle of the room there was a big oak table, upon which were placed paper, a pencil, a small harmonica, a bell, and a lighted lamp.
"The spirit announced to me a little while ago that he would come at ten o"clock," said the gentleman to me. "We have a good hour before us. I am going to utilize it by reading to you the minutes of our meetings for a year past." He laid on the table his watch, which showed five minutes to nine, and covered it with a handkerchief.
For a whole hour he applied himself to reading what seemed to be very improbable stories; but I was longing to see some of the wonders.
Suddenly a loud cracking sound was heard in the table. M. N. lifted the handkerchief which covered the watch. It was just ten o"clock.
"Art thou there, spirit?" said he.
n.o.body was touching the table; and on his recommendation, we formed the chain about it, holding each other by the hand.
A vigorous rap was heard.
The young niece placed her two fingers against the edge of the table and asked us to imitate her. Thereupon this extremely heavy table rose up well _above our heads_, in such a way that we were obliged to stand on tip-toe in order to follow it in its ascent. It hung poised for some moments in the air and then slowly descended to the floor and came to a stop without noise.
Then M. N. went to look up a large design for a church window. He put it on the table and placed beside it a gla.s.s of water, a box of colors, and a camel"s hair brush. Then he put the lamp out. He lighted it again at the end of two or three minutes: the sketch (still damp) was painted in two colors, yellow and blue, and not a single brush mark had pa.s.sed beyond the traced lines of the sketch.
Even if we admit that some one of the sitters might have been able to play the role of spirit, how, in the darkness of the room, could he have so handled the brush as to precisely follow the lines of the design? I will add that the door was closely shut, and, that, during the very short s.p.a.ce of time in which the performance took place, I heard nothing but the sound of the water splashing in the gla.s.s.
Raps were next struck in the table, corresponding to the letters of the alphabet. The spirit announced that he was going to produce a special phenomenon in order to convince me personally.
By his order the light was again extinguished. The harmonica then played a little sprightly _motif_, in six-eight. Scarcely had the last note sounded when M. X. lighted the lamp. Upon a sheet of music-paper which had been placed near the harmonica, the theme was written very correctly in pencil. It would have been impossible for any one of the company, in the complete darkness of the room, to write down these notes upon the ruled staff-lines.
Thirteen freshly cut daisies lay scattered over the table.
"h.e.l.lo!" says M. X. "these are daisies from the flower-pot at the end of the pa.s.sageway."
As I said a moment ago, the door of the room where we were met had remained closed, and no one had stirred. We went into the pa.s.sageway, and, on noticing the stems denuded of their flowers, we could see very plainly that the daisies came from the place indicated.
Scarcely had we entered the room, when the bell on the table rose up to the very ceiling, ringing as it went, but fell abruptly back as soon as it touched it.
On the next day, before my departure, I went to pay a visit to M. X.
He received me in his dining-hall. Through the large open window a beautiful June sun flooded the room with its brilliant light.
While we were conversing in a desultory way, a piece of military music rang out in the distance. "If there is a spirit here," said I, smiling, "it ought by rights to accompany the music." At once rhythmic taps, in exact harmony with the double quick time, were heard in the table. The crackle of sounds in it died away little by little in a decrescendo very skilfully timed to the last vanishing blare of the bugles.