Smiley, I added: "I hope you are not chilled by it."
"Not a bit," she answered, cheerily.
As Mrs. Miller, a quiet little woman (not so far removed from Mrs.
Smiley"s own type), entered the door and greeted us both, the psychic"s face lighted up with pleasure. This argued well for our experiment.
I could see that Miller had made careful preparation along the lines of my suggestion. A plain old table was standing lengthwise of the room, the windows were hung with shawls, and a worn hickory chair stood with arms wide-spread to seize its victim. After surveying the room, Mrs.
Smiley turned to me with a note of satisfaction in her voice, and said: "I like this room and this furniture; I feel the right a.s.sociations here. The air is full of spirit power."
"I am glad your mind is at ease," said I, "for I am anxious for a very conclusive sitting. You tell "Mitch.e.l.l" that Miller is decidedly worth converting. I want "Wilbur" to do his best, for I intend to tighten the bonds on you to-night."
She fearlessly faced me. "I am in your hands, Mr. Garland; do as you like. Mr. Mitch.e.l.l told me this morning that he would yet convince you of the reality of the spirit world. He is a.s.sembling all the forces at his command, and will certainly do everything in his power."
"I am delighted to get that a.s.surance," I responded.
"You are to sit here," said Miller, indicating the hickory chair, which he had placed near the north wall.
She took her seat meekly, placing her hands resignedly on the wings of the chair. "I like this chair," she said, with a smile; "it is so old-fashioned."
"Now," said I, "I am going to ask Mrs. Miller to fasten this long tape about your ankles. We mean to take every precaution in order that you may not involuntarily or subconsciously move your limbs."
Under close scrutiny, Mrs. Miller secured each foot in such wise that the knots came in the middle of the tape, and to make untying them absolutely impossible, I drew the two ends of the long ribbon back under the psychic"s chair and tacked them securely to the shelf of a bookcase about two feet from the hind legs. To loosen them was entirely out of our victim"s power.
Miller then unreeled a spool of silk twist, and this I tied squarely to the arm of the chair at a point about six feet from the loose end which I intended to hold. I knotted the silk about the psychic"s wrists, drawing it to a hard knot each time, and gave the spool to Miller, while retaining the loose end of the thread in my own hands. The psychic could neither touch the tips of her fingers together nor lift her arms an inch from the chair. She was as secure as if bound with a rope, but as an extra precaution I pa.s.sed the thread beneath the chair-arm and pulled it taut. "This will enable us to feel the lightest movement of her hands," I said to Miller, who had copied my device. "Are you satisfied with the conditions?"
He answered, with some reservation: "They will do. I would like to have light, but that I suppose is impossible."
"No, not impossible," replied Mrs. Smiley, "but the work is always weaker in the light; the voices are stronger in the dark."
Mrs. Miller took her seat exactly opposite Mrs. Smiley. I was at her right. Miller, after turning out the gas, sat opposite me and at the psychic"s left.
At first the room was black as ink, but by degrees I (from my position, opposite the window) was able to perceive a faint glow of light through the curtain. Mrs. Smiley"s back was near a wall of books, and, the room being narrow, Miller"s chair pretty well filled the s.p.a.ce between the table and the window behind it. The action of a confederate was excluded by reason of the bolted door. To enter the room by the window was impossible, for the reason that the slightest noise could be heard and the least movement of the curtain would admit the light. Barring the darkness, conditions were all of our own making.
However, we were hardly settled in place when Miller was moved to further precaution. "Mrs. Smiley, I would like to pin over your dress a newspaper, so that any slightest movement of your knees or feet could be heard. Do you object?"
"Not at all," she instantly replied. "I am sure my guides will do anything they can to meet your wishes. You may nail my dress to the floor if you wish."
Miller turned on the light, and together we pinned a large, crisp newspaper over her knees and tacked it securely to the floor in front of her feet. The corners where the pins were inserted were well out of the reach of her tethered hands.
Again the lights were lowered, and at my direction Miller placed his right hand on the psychic"s left and touched fingers with Mrs. Miller. I did the same, thus connecting the circle. In this way we sat quietly conversing for some time.
"I want to make it quite plain to you," I said to them all, "that I am trying to follow Crookes"s advice, which is to strip away all romance and all superst.i.tious religious ideas from this subject. I am insisting on the normal character of these phenomena. Whatever happens to-night, Mrs. Miller, please do not be alarmed. There is nothing inherently uncanny or unwholesome in these phenomena. No one knows better than your husband the essential mystery of the simplest fact.
Materialization, for example, is unusual; but if it happens it cannot be supernatural. Nothing is supernatural. Am I right, Miller?"
"We explain each mystery by a deeper mystery," he replied.
"All depends upon the point of view. I am interested in these obscure phases of human life. If they are real they are natural. To me the spiritistic "demonstrations" are intensely human and absorbingly interesting as dramatic material, and yet I hope I am sufficiently the scientist to be alive to the significance of these telekinetic happenings, and enough of the realist to remain critical in the midst of the wildest carnival of the invisible forces."
"Don"t you believe in them?" asked Mrs. Miller, with a note of surprise in her voice.
I replied, cautiously: "I am at this moment convinced of the reality of _some_ of these phenomena by reason of my own experiments; but leaving one side my personal investigation, I must believe that Crookes, Maxwell, and Flammarion are competent witnesses. As to spiritualism--well, that is another matter."
"But where does all this lead to if not to spiritualism?" asked Mrs.
Miller.
"As to the exact country, no one knows," I answered; "but the best of our experimenters are agreed that the gate opens upon a new field of science. These powers seem to be in advance of us and not a survival, and they may prove of value in the evolution of the race. That is why I want to enlist men like your husband in the work. Mediumship needs just such critical attention as his. Nothing like Maxwell or Richet"s thoroughness of method has ever been used by an American physicist, so far as I know. On the contrary, our leading scientific men seem to have let the subject severely alone."
"Why?" asked Mrs. Smiley.
"Partly because of inherited prejudice, and partly because of their allegiance to opposing theories; and finally, I suspect, because they are connected with inst.i.tutions that would not sanction such work. You can imagine how the physical department of a denominational college would investigate spirit phenomena! It was much the same way in England during the early part of last century, but they are far in advance of us now. The first notable step in the right direction was taken--as perhaps you may know--in 1869, by the Dialectical Society of London, which appointed a committee to look into the subject of spiritualism, with the expectation, no doubt, of being able to stop the spread of the delusion.
"The investigations which followed were under the especial charge of Alfred Russel Wallace; Cromwell Varley, chief of Electrical Engineers and Telegraphers; and Professor Morgan, president of the Mathematical Society. This committee, after careful investigation, reported voluminously to this effect: "The phenomena exist.... There is a force capable of moving heavy bodies without material contact, which force is in some unknown way dependent upon the presence of human beings.""
"Which was a long way from saying that spiritism was true," remarked Miller.
"It certainly was sufficiently vague, you would think, to be harmless; but several of the committee refused to join in even this cautious report, insisting that the conclusions ought to be verified by some other scientist. They suggested Sir William Crookes, who was at this time in the early prime of his life and a renowned chemist--just the man for the work. This suggestion was acted upon by Crookes a little later, and his report on this "psychic force" had a good deal to do with the formation of the now famous Society for Psychical Research."
"I"d hate to be held responsible for that," said Miller, with humorous intent--"of all the collections of "hants" and witches."
"On the Continent scientific observation had already begun. Count Agenor de Gasparin, of Valleyeres, was one of the first to take up this problem of telekinesis in the modern spirit. He made a long and complicated study of table-tipping in 1853, and published his conclusions in two large volumes in Paris a year later. His experiments were careful and searching, and drew the line squarely between the supernatural and the natural. He said, positively, "The agency is not supernatural; it is physical, and determined by the will of the sitters," and may be called the Charles Darwin of the subject. A year later Professor Marc Thury, of Geneva, added his testimony. He also said: "The phenomena exist, and are mainly due to an unknown fluid, or force, which rushes from the organism of certain people." To this force he gave the name "psyscode." The spirit hypothesis, he was inclined to think, was not impossible or even absurd. He used _absurd_ in the scientific sense, of course."
"It is the most natural thing in the world to me," said Mrs. Smiley. "I would be desolate without it."
"Some ten years later Flammarion, the renowned French astronomer, began his studies of these unknown forces, and for a long time fought the battle alone in France as Sir William Crookes endured the brunt of the a.s.sault in England."
Miller here interposed with a covert sneer in his voice: "Yes, but Flammarion has always had the reputation of being more of the romancer than of the astronomer."
"You scientists do him an injustice," I answered, with some heat, "just as you have all been ignorantly contemptuous of Crookes. I confess I used to share in some small degree your estimate of Flammarion; but if you will read his latest book with attention and with candor, you cannot but be impressed with his wide experience and his patient, persistent search for the truth. I am persuaded that he has been a genuine pioneer all along. I cannot see but that he has examined very critically the scores of psychics who have come under his observation, and his reports are painstaking and cautious. His work must be considered by every student of this subject. It won"t do to neglect the words of a man who has seen so much.--But here we go along lines of controversy when we should be sitting in quiet harmony. Let us defer our discussion until after our seance. Have patience, and I believe we can duplicate, if not surpa.s.s, the marvellous doings of even Richet and Lombroso. We may be able some day to take flash-light photographs of the cone while it is floating in the air."
"Has that ever been done?" asked Mrs. Miller.
"Oh yes; Flammarion secured photos of a table floating in the air. These pictures show conclusively that the psychic had nothing to do with it--at least, not in any ordinary way. Richet succeeded in fixing the apparition of a helmeted soldier on several plates. Crookes photographed "Katie King" and her medium once or twice, and Fontenay has succeeded in getting clear-cut images of the "spirit" hands which play round the head of Paladino. But it must be confessed that in Crookes"s pictures there is a lack of finality in the negatives. He never succeeded in getting the faces of both "Katie" and Miss Cook at the same time--and Richet"s photographs have a made-up look."
Pa.s.sing abruptly to a low, humming song, I made the attempt to put our psychic to sleep. In a few minutes her hands became cold and began to flutter. At last she threw my fingers away as if she found them scorching hot. Miller"s hand was similarly repulsed. She then seemed to pa.s.s into quiet sleep, and I said: "Withdraw a little, Miller, but keep your silk thread taut."
Almost immediately faint raps came upon the table, and I asked: "Are you there, "Mitch.e.l.l"?"
Tap, tap, tap--"_Yes._"
"Are we sitting right?"
Tap, tap, tap--"_Yes_," answered the force, in a grave and deliberate way.
"As to these raps," I remarked, "they are easily simulated, but they have been absolutely proven by several of our best investigators. They have been obtained on a sheet of paper held in the air, on pencils, on a strip of cloth, on an open umbrella--under every possible condition.
Maxwell secured them by pinching his own ear or by squeezing the arm of his neighbor. I have heard them on a man"s shirt-front. They are the first manifestations of intelligent spirit power, and may be regarded in the light of established fact."
"I wouldn"t be hasty about admitting even that," remarked Miller. "In the dark--or in the light--these obscure sounds may seem very ghostly, and yet be due to purely physical causes."
We sat in silence for a few moments, and at last I asked: "Is any spirit present?"