Up to the present moment, it is plain, there is not the least trace of divination. It is fluidic action, near-by or distant.
If the tables divine, if they think, if there are spirits, we ought to get decisive responses in the case where no one knows the facts, either in the chain or out of the chain. The problem thus stated, the solution is not difficult.
Take a book. Do not open it, but invite the table to read the first line of the page you will designate,--say page 162 or page 354. The table will not flinch: it will rap, and will compose words for you. It was thus, at least, that it always acted with us. At any rate, one thing is certain, that neither here nor elsewhere, has any spirit, however cunning, read, this simple line; nor will it be able in the future to do so. I recommend the experiment to the partisans of spirit evocations.
As to the test of pieces of money in a purse, hours, playing-cards etc., the tables betake themselves to a strict calculation of probabilities; they guess just as much as you do, or as I do. Inasmuch as it is a question of small numbers of which one can form in advance an approximate idea, the range of possible combinations is not very extensive. The mind fixes upon a number which has a fairly good chance of being the true one, and the proportion between the failures of the table and its successes is in such a case just what it would be apart from all question of miraculous divination.
_Seance of November 9_
Before entering upon the description of this sitting,--a very remarkable one,--I will say that neither the thermometer nor the mariners" compa.s.s have furnished the slightest indication of anything interesting. I thought I ought to note this, in pa.s.sing, to show to the reader that we did not neglect to employ instruments which seemed likely to put us in the way of obtaining a scientific explanation. In general, I pa.s.s by that phase of our work, as well as the different trials which remained merely trials, and did not lead to any positive results.
Our first care was to renew the experiment of the levitation of an inert weight. It was agreed among us this time that we would always start from the state of absolute immobility in the object: we wanted to produce movement, not to continue it.
The centre of the table, then, having been fixed with nice precision, a first tub of sand, weighing 46 pounds, was placed upon it. _The legs easily rose from the floor when they got the order._
A second tub, weighing 42 pounds, was next placed in the middle of the other. _They were both lifted_--less easily, but very neatly and clearly.
Then a third tub, smaller, and weighing 28-3/5 pounds, was placed on top of the two others. The levitations took place.
We had still further got ready enormous stones weighing altogether 48-1/2 pounds. They were placed on the third tub. After rather long hesitation, _the table lifted several times in succession each of its three legs_. It lifted them with a force, a decision, an elan, which surprised us. But its strength, already put to so many proofs, could not resist this last one. Bending under the powerful swaying motion imparted by the total ma.s.s of 165 pounds, _it suddenly broke down_, and its ma.s.sive centre-post was split from top to bottom--to the great peril of the operators on the side of whom the entire load rolled off.
I shall not stop to comment on such an experiment. It answers all demands. Our united muscular force would not have sufficed to determine the movements that took place. A ma.s.s of inert matter free from the suspicion of being obliging, had replaced the person whose complicity was held in suspicion. Finally, when the three legs had been lifted, each in turn, critics no longer had as a resource the insinuation that we had caused the weight to be laid more on one side than on the other.
Inasmuch as our poor table had been wounded on the field of honor and could not be repaired on the spot, we got a new one which much resembled it. But it was a little larger and a little lighter.
The interesting point was to be settled whether we were going to be obliged to wait for it to be charged with the psycho-physical fluid.
The occasion was a famous one for solving this important problem: Where does the fluid reside?--in the operators or in the piece of furniture. The solution was as prompt as it was decisive. Scarcely had our hands, in chains, been placed upon this second table than it began to revolve with the most unexpected and the most comic rapidity!
Evidently, the fluid was in us, and we were free to apply it in succession to different tables.
We lost no time. In the mood in which we then were, movement without contact must succeed better than ever. Nor did we deceive ourselves in so thinking. We first developed rotations without contact to the number of five or six.
As to levitations without contact, we discovered a method of proceeding that renders their success easier. The chain, formed a few millimetres above the top disk, is arranged so as to go in the direction in which the movement is to take place; the hands the nearest to the leg called on to rise are outside of and beyond the top; they draw near and pa.s.s gradually by, while the hands that are opposite, and which had at first advanced toward the same leg, move away from it while they attract it. It is during this progression of the chain, while all our wills are fixed upon a particular spot on the wood, and when the orders to levitate are forcibly given, that the foot quits the ground and the table-top follows the hands,--to the point of upsetting, if one did not keep hold of it.
This levitation without contact was produced about thirty times. We produced it by each of the three legs in succession, in order to remove every pretext for criticism. Moreover, we watched the hands with scrupulous care. If the reader will please observe that this surveillance was exercised during thirty operations without detecting the slightest contact, I think it will be concluded that the reality is henceforth placed beyond all doubt.
_Seance of November 21_
The chief characteristic of this seance was the absence of that one of our number who exercised the greatest authority at the table.[52] In working without her we were put in a position to establish two things: first, that one cannot with impunity do without an extraordinary gifted experimenter; and, second, that one can, nevertheless, do without him or her, if it is absolutely necessary, and that success, although less brilliant in this case, is not impossible. I call special attention to this last point, as well as to the frequent modifications of our personnel, for the benefit of suspicious persons who, not knowing the mental worth of the persons in question, might be disposed to place to the account of their dexterity the results to which they essentially contribute. The psycho-physical working power of a "sensitive" table-turner is of a mixed nature: a resolute posture and a circular movement are not sufficient to give birth to it.
Besides this, and above all, there is needed _the will_.
Our will having at last a.s.serted itself, and muscular pressure having yielded its place to the pressure of commands, the fluidic rotation arrives, after five or six minutes of concentration of our thoughts.
We felt, indeed, keenly that some important person was lacking and that we did not possess our usual power. However, we were determined to succeed, even at the price of greater mental fatigue.
So we took up boldly our most difficult feat; namely, movements without contact. Rotations without touch were obtained thrice. I should add that they were very incomplete,--a quarter of a turn, or a half-turn at most.
As to levitations without touch our success was more decisive; but it was purchased at the price of a very considerable expenditure of force. After each levitation we had to rest, and, when we had reached No. 9 we were absolutely obliged to stop, overcome with fatigue. One must have had personal knowledge of such experiments to understand what drafts they make upon one"s attention and energy, and at what point it is indispensible to will, and to will peremptorily, that such and such a knot of wood in the table shall follow the opened fingers that are alluring it at a distance.
But be that as it may, our attempt was crowned with success, and we could end the sitting with less exhausting exercises.
The idea came to us then and there to try our powers on a large table with four legs. It had often been claimed that three-legged centre-tables alone would respond to our manipulations. It was time to furnish undeniable proof to the contrary. So we took a table three feet five inches in diameter, a folding half of which (independent of the leg that supports it when it is raised) can be turned up at will.
Scarcely were our fingers in place than the table began a rotation with noisy bustle, the sprightliness of which surprised us. It thus showed that tables with four legs were no more refractory than others.
In addition to this, it furnished a new argument in favor of one of our former observations,--that the fluid is in the persons and not in the tables. In fact the movement of the large table took place almost immediately, and before it could be considered as charged with fluid.
The next task before us was to make it give raps with its different legs. We began with those fastened to one half of the top, three in number. They rose from the floor two at a time with such force that at the end of a moment one of the casters flew to pieces.[53] Now it is difficult to form an idea of the intensity which a fraudulent action of the fingers must have acquired in order to exercise a leverage upon so heavy a table, and launch it into the air to such a height.
There remained the leg of the table which was independent of the top.
We thought it would obey as well as the others. But no! In vain did we pour out the most prodigal and pressing invitations: it was never willing to rise, either along with its right-hand neighbor or with its neighbor on the left. Our next thought was that this was due to the persons placed near it, and certain members of the chain changed seats. In vain! All combinations failed one after another.
We drew great deductions from this circ.u.mstance. But since it was refuted later, when the contumacious leg yielded perfect obedience at another meeting, I will not take the public into our confidence by a display of our reasonings on the subject. I will only ask that two things be noted; first, the care we took to verify many times the phenomena before affirming them; and, second, that we have here once more a fine refutation of the critics who a.s.sert that muscular action can explain everything. If this were so, why did not muscular action lift the free leg as well as those fastened tight to the table? It could have done so just as easily; and yet for some _unknown reason_, but one evidently _foreign to the laws of mechanics_, only the attached legs consented to move.
_Seance of November 27_
We were in full muster; but two or three of the operators were slightly indisposed. On the whole, whatever was the cause, the occasion was scarcely remarkable for anything except the almost total absence of fluidic power. For a single moment we had a little of it. A half-hour of action and two hours and a half of inertia--this was our net result.
Nothing was more lamentable, and at the same time more curious, than to see us about the different tables, pa.s.sing from one to another, enjoining them to do the most elementary things, and only obtaining a weak and languid rotation, which soon stopped altogether.
_Seance of December 2_
I should have been vexed to have to close my recital with so dull and spiritless a record as the preceding one. By good fortune the last of our reports gives me the right to leave a totally different impression on the reader"s mind.
We were in fine temper. Perhaps the beautiful weather helped. It is not the first time I have noticed this. What is certain is that the very same persons who, on November 27, had only a half-hour of success and had pa.s.sed the rest of the sitting in beseeching in vain for anything better than poor abortive rotations or faint raps, to-day governed the table with an authority, a quickness, and, if I may so put it, an elasticity of bearing that left nothing to be desired.
The large table with four legs was set in motion. And this time, the ease with which the free leg lifted its share of the table proved that we were right in not drawing too definite conclusions from its former refusal. Every time that we tried to lift without contact that part of the table the farthest removed from myself I felt the table-leg nearest me gradually approach and press against my leg. Struck with this occurrence, which took place several times I drew the conclusion that the table _was gliding forward_, not having enough force to rise.
We were, then, exercising a perceptible influence on this large table without touching it in any way.
In order the better to a.s.sure myself of it, I left the chain and observed the movement of the feet of the table on the floor. It ranged from fractions of an inch to several inches. When we then tried to turn up without contact the folding leaf of a gaming-table covered with cloth, we obtained the same result: the folding leaf would not yield to our influence, but the entire table advanced in the direction of the prescribed movement. Now, I ought to add that the gliding was not at all easy, for the floor of our room was rough and uneven.
It is interesting to note in this connection the moment when this gliding movement ordinarily begins. It occurs at precisely the same time that the levitation without contact takes place when that manifestation is in process. When the portion of the chain which is pushing on has just advanced beyond the side of the table-top, where it begins to turn, and when that portion of the chain that is pulling has just crossed the middle point in its recession, then the ascensional movement--or, in default of that, the _gliding motion_--manifests itself. Our fluidic power is then at its maximum, precisely at the instant when our mechanical power is at its minimum, when the hands that are pushing have ceased to act (supposing the case of fraud) and when the hands that pull are powerless to act.
Let us now revert to our ordinary table. We tried to produce rotations and levitations without contact, and had complete success.
Such reports as the foregoing are of more value than all the dissertations. They show the undeniable reality of the levitation not total, but partial,--of the table which remained in an oblique position poised on two legs only. They show also rotations and levitations _without contact_, as well as glidings under the influence of a natural force hitherto only slightly studied.
_Levitations of a heavy table, having on it a man weighing 191 pounds, or of tubs of sand and stones weighing 165 pounds_,--no denial of these occurrences can be admitted.
The same is true of the movements of the table dancing in accordance with the rhythm of certain airs, of its over-turnings, of its obedience to the orders given. These facts have been observed precisely as mechanical, physical, chemical, meteorological, astronomical facts have been observed.
To the above reports I will add here a supplementary experiment described in the preface of Count de Gasparin"s book:
Certain distinguished savants to whom I had communicated the results we had secured, agreed in a.s.suring me that levitations without contact would have the character of absolute certain proof if we succeeded in verifying them by the following practical device: "Sprinkle flour upon the table," they said, "at the instant your hands have just left it; then produce one or more levitations; finally a.s.sure yourselves that the layer of flour bears not the slightest sign of any touch, and all objectors will be dumb."
Why, it is precisely this experiment that we have performed successfully several times. Let me give a few details: