Chapter XII: Explanatory Hypotheses--Theories and Doctrines--Conclusions of the Author (1)

It is quite in the fashion, as a general thing, to profess absolute scepticism regarding the phenomena which form the subject of the present work. In the opinion of three-quarters of the citizens of our planet all unexplained noises in haunted houses; all displacements without contact of bodies more or less heavy; all movements of tables, pianos, or other objects produced in the experiments styled Spiritualistic; all communications dictated by raps or by unconscious writing; all apparitions, partial or total, of phantom forms--are illusions, hallucinations, or hoaxes. No explanation is needed. The only rational opinion is that all "mediums," professional or not, are imposters, and the participators in a seance are imbeciles.

Sometimes one of these eminent judges consents, not to cease tipping the wink and smiling in his royal competency, but to condescend to be present at a seance. If, as only too frequently happens, no response to the command of the will is obtained, the illustrious observer retires, firmly convinced that, by his extraordinary penetration, he has discovered the cheat and blocked everything by his clairvoyant intuition. He at once writes to the journals, shows up the fraud, and sheds humanitarian crocodile tears over the sad spectacle of men, apparently intelligent, allowing themselves to be taken in by impostures, detected by him at the first blush.

This first and easy explanation, that everything in the manifestations is fraud, has been so often exposed, discussed, and refuted during the course of this work that my readers probably consider it (at least I hope they do) as entirely, absolutely, and definitely decided and thrown out of the ring.

However, I advise you not to speak too freely of these things at table, or in a drawing room if you do not like to have people making fun of you, more or less discreetly. If you air your views in public, you will produce the same effect as those eccentric fellows of the time of Ptolemy, who dared to speak of the movement of the earth and excited such inextinguishable laughter in respectable society that the echoes ring with it still in Athens, Alexandria, and Rome. It is only a repetition of what took place when Galileo spoke of the spots on the sun, Galvani of electricity, Jenner of vaccine, Jouffroy and Fulton of the steamship, Chappe of the telegraph, Lebon of gas-lighting, Stephenson of railways, Daguerre of photography, Boucher de Perthes of the fossil man, Mayer of thermodynamics, Wheatstone of the transatlantic cable, etc. If we could gather up all the sarcasms launched at the heads of these "poor crazy-wits," we should get a fine basket of venerable blunders, moldy as a remainder biscuit after a voyage.

So let us not speak too much of our mysteries--unless it amuses us, in our turn, to ask some questions of the prettiest dolls in the company. One of them inquired in my presence, yesterday evening, what the man named Lavoisier did, and whether he was dead. Another thought that Auguste Comte was a writer of songs and asked if any one knew one of them which would suit a mezzo-soprano voice. Another was astonished that Louis XIV had not built one of the two railway stations of Versailles nearer the palace.

Moreover, on my balcony, a member of the Institute, who saw Jupiter shining in the southern sky at the meridian point, over one of the cupolas of the Observatory, obstinately maintained in my presence that this luminary was the polar star. I did not dispute the point with him _too_ long!

There are not a few people who believe at once in the value of universal suffrage and in that of titles of nobility. Of course, we will not force these Janus-faced wise men to vote upon the admissibility of psychic phenomena into the sphere of science.

But we will henceforth consider this admissibility as something granted, and, tossing back to the laughing sceptics, to the habitues of clubs and cliques, the general opinion of the world, of which I have just spoken, begin here our logical analysis.

We have had under consideration during the course of this work several theories by scientific investigators which are worthy of attention. Let us first of all sum these up.

In the opinion of Gasparin, these unexplained movements are produced
by a _fluid_, emanating from us under the action of our will.

Professor Thury thinks that this fluid, which he calls _psychode_, is
a substance which forms a link between the soul and the body; but
there may also exist certain wills external to ourselves, and of
unknown nature, working side by side with us.

The chemist Crookes attributes the phenomena to psychic force, this
being the agent by which the phenomena are produced; but he adds that
this force may well be, in certain cases, seized upon and directed by
some other intelligence. "The difference between the partisans of
psychic force and those of Spiritualism," he writes, "consists in
this: we maintain that it is not yet _proved_ that there exists a
directing agent other than the intelligence of the medium and that
presence and actions of the spirits of the dead are felt in the
phenomena, while, on the contrary, the Spiritualists accept as an
article of faith, without demanding more proofs thereof, that these
spirits are the sole agents in the production of the observed facts."

Albert de Rochas defines these phenomena as "_an externalization of
motivity_," and considers them to be produced by the fluidic double,
"the astral body" of the medium, a nerve-fluid able to act and
perceive at a distance.

Lombroso declares that the explanation must be sought simply in the
nervous system of the medium, and that we have in the phenomena
_transformation of forces_.

Dr. Ochorowicz affirms that he has not found proofs in favor of the
Spiritualistic hypothesis, any more than he has in favor of the
intervention of external intelligences, and that the cause of the
phenomena is a _fluidic double_ detaching itself from the organism of
the medium.

The astronomer Porro is inclined to admit the possible action of
unknown spirits, of living forms different from our own, not
necessarily the souls of the dead, but psychical entities to be
studied. In a recent letter he wrote me that the theosophic doctrine
appeared to him to approach the nearest to a solution.[82]

Prof. Charles Richet thinks that the Spiritualistic hypothesis is far
from being demonstrated, that the observed facts relate to an entirely
different order of causes, as yet very difficult to disentangle and
that in the present state of our knowledge no final conclusion can be
agreed on.

The naturalist Wallace, Professor Morgan, and the electrician Varley
declare, on the other hand, that sufficient proof has been given them
to warrant them in accepting without reserve the Spiritualistic
doctrine of disembodied souls.

Prof. James H. Hyslop, of the University of Columbia, who has made a
special study of these phenomena, in the Proceedings of the London
Society for Psychical Research, and in his works _Science and a Future
Life_ and _Enigmas of Psychical Research_, thinks that there are not
yet enough severely critical verifications to warrant any theory.

Dr. Grasset, a disciple of Pierre Janet, does not admit displacement
of objects, or levitation, or the greater part of the facts described
in this book as proved, and thinks what is called Spiritualism is a
question of medical biology, of "the physiopathology of the nervous
centres," in which a celebrated cerebral polygon with a musical
conductor named O, plays an automatic role of a very curious
description.

Dr. Maxwell concludes from his observations that the greater part of
the phenomena, the reality of which cannot be doubted, are produced by
a force existing in us, that this force is intelligent, and that the
intelligence manifested comes from the experimenters. This would be a
kind of collective consciousness.

M. Marcel Mangin does not adopt this "collective consciousness," and
declares that it is certain that the being, in the seances, who
asserts that he is a manifestation is "the sub-consciousness of the
medium."

The foregoing are some of the principal opinions. It would take a whole book to discuss in writing the proposed explanations, but that is not my object. My aim was to focus the question on what concerns THE ADMISSIBILITY OF THE PHENOMENA INTO THE SPHERE OF POSITIVE SCIENCE.

However, now that this is done, we cannot but ask ourselves, what conclusions may be drawn from all these observations.

If we wish to obtain, after this mass of verifications, a satisfactory rational explanation, it seems to me we must proceed gradually, classify the facts, analyze them, and only admit them in proportion to their absolute and demonstrated certainty. We live in a very complex universe, and the most singular confusion has arisen among phenomena which are very distinct one from another.

As I said in 1869, at the tomb of Allan Kardec, "The causes in action are of several kinds, and are more numerous than one would suppose."

Can we explain the observed phenomena, or at least any portion of it? It is our duty to try. For this purpose I shall classify them in the order of increasing difficulties. It is always advisable to begin with the beginning.

May I hope that the reader will have got a clear idea in his mind of the experiments and observations set forth in the previous pages of this work? It would be a little insipid to refer every time to the pages where the phenomena have been described.

1. ROTATION OF THE TABLE, _with contact of the hands of a certain
number of operators_.

This rotation can be explained by an unconscious impulse given to the
table. All that is necessary is that each one push a little in the
same way, and the movement will take place.

2. MOVEMENT OF THE TABLE, _the hands of the experimenters resting upon
it_.

The operators push and the table is led along without their knowing
it, each one acting in a greater or less degree. They think they are
following it, but they are really leading it along. We have in this
only the result of muscular efforts, generally of a rather slight
nature.

3. LIFTING OF THE TABLE _on the side opposite to that upon which the
hands of the principal actor are placed_.

Nothing is more simple. The pressure of the hands upon a centre-table
with three legs suffices to produce the lifting of the leg the
farthest removed, and thus to strike all the letters of the alphabet.
The movement is less easy in the case of a table with four legs; but
it can also be obtained.

These three movements are the only ones, it seems to me, which can be
explained without the least mystery. Still, the third is only
explicable in case the table is not too heavy.

4. IMPARTING LIFE TO THE TABLE.

Several experimenters being seated around the table, and forming the
chain with the desire of seeing it rise, the waves of a kind of
vibrations (light at first) are perceived to be passing through the
wood. Then balancings are noticed, some of which may be due to
muscular impulses. But already something more is now mingled in the
process. The table seems to be set in motion of itself. Sometimes it
rises, no longer as if moved by a lever, or by pressure on one side,
but _under the hands_, as if it were sticking to them. This levitation
is contrary to the law of gravitation. Hence we have here a discharge
of force. This force emanates from our organism. There is no
sufficient reason to seek for anything else. Nevertheless, what we
have detected is a thing of prime importance.

5. ROTATION WITHOUT CONTACT.

The table being in rapid rotation, we can remove our hands from it,
and see it continue the movement. The velocity or momentum acquired
may explain the momentary continuation of this movement and the
explanation given in the case of No. 1 may suffice. But there is more
in it than this. Rotation is obtained by holding the hands at a
distance of some inches above the table, without any contact. A light
layer of flour dusted over the table is found to be untouched by a
single finger. Hence the force emitted by the operators must penetrate
the table.

The experiments prove that we have in us a force capable of acting at
a distance upon matter, a natural force, generally latent, but
developed in different degrees in different mediums. The action of the
force is manifested under conditions as yet imperfectly determined.
(See pp. 81, 248 _et seq._) We can act upon brute matter, upon living
matter, upon the brain and upon the mind. This action of the will is
shown in telepathy. It is shown more simply still by means of a
well-known experiment: at the theatre, in church, when hearing music,
a man accustomed to the exercise of will-power, and sitting several
rows of seats behind a woman, say, compels her to turn around in less
than a minute. A force emanates from us, from our spirit, acting
undoubtedly by means of etherwaves, the point of departure of which is
a cerebral movement.

And there is nothing very mysterious in this. I bring my hand near a
thermometer, and ascertain that something invisible is escaping from
my hand, and, at a certain remove, making the column of mercury rise.
This something else is heat; that is to say, aerial waves in movement.
Then why might not other radiations emanate from our hands and from
our whole being?

But, nevertheless, there is a very important scientific fact to be
established.

This physical force is greater than that of the muscles, as I am going
to prove.

6. LIFTING OF WEIGHTS.

A table is loaded with sacks of sand and with stones weighing
altogether from 165 to 176 pounds. The table lifts each of its three
legs several times in succession. But it succumbs under the load and
is broken. The operators ascertain that their muscular force would not
have sufficed to produce the observed movements. The will acts by a
dynamic prolongation.

7. LIFTINGS WITHOUT CONTACT.

The hands forming the chain some inches above the side of the table
which is to be lifted, and all wills being concentrated on the one
idea, the lifting of each of the legs in succession takes place. The
liftings are more readily obtained than rotations without contact. An
energetic will seems to be indispensable. The unknown force passes
from the experimenters to the table without any contact. If the table
is dusted over with flour, as I said, not the slightest finger-touch
is seen to be imprinted on it.

The will of the sitters is in play. The table is ordered to make such
and such a movement and it obeys. This will seems to be prolonged
beyond the bodies of the operating experimenters in the shape of a
force that is quite intense.

This power is developed by action. The balancings prepare for the
rising and the latter for complete levitation.

8. REDUCING THE WEIGHT OF THE TABLE OR OTHER OBJECTS.

A quadrangular table is suspended by one of its sides to a dynamometer
attached to a cord which is held above by some kind of a hook. The
needle of the dynamometer, which, in a state of rest, indicates 35
kilograms, gradually descends to 3, 2, 1, 0 kilograms.

A mahogany board is placed horizontally, and hung by one end to a
spring balance. This balance (or scales), has a point which touches a
pane of glass blackened by smoke. When this pane of glass is put in
movement, the needle traces a horizontal line. During the experiments,
this line is no longer straight, but marks reductions and increments
of weight, produced without any contact of hands. In the experiments
of Crookes we saw that the weight of a board increased almost 1-1/4
pounds.

The medium places his hands _upon_ the back of a chair and lifts the
chair.

9. AUGMENTATION OF THE WEIGHT OF A TABLE OR OTHER OBJECTS.--PRESSURES
EXERTED.

The dynamometric experiments that we have just recalled themselves go
to show this augmentation.

I have more than once seen, in other circumstances, a table become so
heavy that it was absolutely impossible for two men to lift it from
the floor. When they succeeded in doing so, in a measure, by means of
quick jerks, it still seemed to stick to the floor as if held by glue
or india rubber, which immediately pulled it back to the floor after
it had been slightly displaced.

In all these experiments, there is proof of the action of an unknown
natural force emanating from the chief experimenter or from the
collective powers of the group, an organic force under the influence
of the will. It is not necessary to suppose the presence of superhuman
spirits.

10. THE COMPLETE LIFTING UP, OR LEVITATION OF THE TABLE.

As there may be confusion in applying the word "lifting" to a table
which only rises on one side at a certain angle, while still touching
the floor, it is expedient to apply the word "levitation" to the case
in which it is completely separated from the floor.

Generally, in levitation, it rises from six to eight inches from the
floor, for some seconds only, and then falls back. It moves up in a
balancing, undulating, hesitating way, with effort, and then falls
straight down. While resting our hands upon it, we have the sensation
of a fluid resistance, as of it were in water,--the kind of fluid
sensation we experience when we bring a piece of iron into the field
of force of a magnet.

A table, a chair or other movable article sometimes rises, not merely
a foot or so, but almost to the height of one's head, and even as high
as the ceiling.

The force brought into play is considerable.

11. LEVITATION OF HUMAN BODIES.

This case is of the same order as the preceding. The medium may be
raised with his chair and placed upon the table, sometimes in unstable
equilibrium. He may also be lifted alone (without the chair).[83]

In this case the Unknown Force does not seem to be simply mechanical:
intention is mingled with the act, and ideas of precaution, which,
however may proceed from the mentality of the medium himself, aided
perhaps by that of the sitters. This fact seems to us to contravene
known scientific laws. It is the same case as that of the cat which
knows how to turn of itself, without any outside support or leverage,
when it falls from a roof, and always falls on its feet, a fact
contrary to the principles of mechanics taught in every university in
the world.

12. LIFTING OF VERY HEAVY PIECES OF FURNITURE.

A piano weighing more than 750 pounds rises up off of its two front
legs, and it is ascertained that its weight varies. The force with
which it is animated arises from the proximity of a child eleven years
old, but it is not the conscious will of this child which acts.--A
heavy oak dining-table may rise so high that its under side can be
inspected during the levitation.

13. DISPLACEMENT OF OBJECTS WITHOUT CONTACT.

A heavy easy-chair moves about of its own accord in the room. Heavy
curtains reaching from the ceiling to the floor are forcibly swelled
out as if by a gust of wind, and envelop as with a hood the heads of
persons seated at a table, at a distance of three feet and more. A
centre table persists in _the endeavor_ to climb upon the
experiment-table--and gets there. While a sceptical spectator is
bantering the "spirits," the table about which the experiments are
taking place makes a move towards the incredulous person, drawing the
sitters along with it, and pins him to the wall until he begs for
mercy.

As in the preceding cases, these movements may represent the
expression of the will of the medium, and may not necessarily indicate
the presence of a mind external to his own. Nevertheless--?

14. RAPS AND TYPTOLOGY.

In tables, in pianos, and other pieces of furniture, in the walls, in
the air, raps are heard, and their vibrations perceived by the touch.
They somewhat resemble the sounds obtainable by tapping against a
piece of wood with the joint of the bent finger. The question arises,
Whence come these noises? The question is asked aloud. They are
repeated. The request is made that a certain number of strokes be
rapped. The raps are heard. Well-known airs are accompanied by raps
beaten in perfect time with them and identifiable as the counterpart
of the airs. When bits of music are played, the accompaniment is
rapped out. Things take place as if an invisible being were listening
and acting. But how could a being without acoustic nerve and without a
tympanum hear? The sonorous waves must strike something in order to be
interpreted. Is this a mental transmission?

These raps are made. Who makes them? And how? The mysterious force
emits radiations of wave-lengths inaccessible to our retina, but
powerful and rapid, without doubt more rapid than those of light, and
situated beyond the ultraviolet. Besides, light impedes their action.

In proportion as we advance in the examination of the phenomena, the
psychic, intellectual, mental element is more and more mingled with
the physical and mechanical element. In the case we are considering we
are forced to admit the presence, the action, of a thought. Is this
thought simply that of the medium, of the chief experimenter, or the
resultant of the thoughts of all the sitters united?

Since these raps or those made by the legs of the table, on being
interrogated, dictate words and phrases and express ideas, there is
something more in the matter than a simple mechanical action. The
unknown force, the existence of which we have been obliged to admit in
the preceding observations, is in this case at the service of an
intelligence. The mystery grows complicated.

It is owing to this intellectual element that I proposed (before 1865;
see p. xix) to give the name "_psychic_" to this force, a name
proposed anew by Crookes in 1871. We saw also that, as early as the
year 1855, Thury had proposed the name "_psychode_" and "_ecteneic_"
force. From this on, it would be impossible for us in our examination
not to take into consideration this psychic force.

Up to this point, Gasparin's fluid might suffice, just as unconscious
muscular action sufficed for the first three classes of facts. But
starting from this fourteenth class, the psychic order plainly
manifests itself (and even in the preceding class we begin already to
divine its presence).

15. MALLET-BLOWS.

I have heard--as have all other experimenters--not only sharp light
raps upon a table, like those of which I have just been speaking, but
mallet-blows, or blows of the fist upon a door, capable of knocking
down a man if he had received them. Generally, these tremendous blows
are a protestation against a denial on the part of one of the sitters.
There is in them an intention, a will, an intelligence. They may also
be due to the medium, who is indignant, or who is amusing himself or
herself. The action is not muscular; for the hands and feet of the
medium are held, and the rapping may occur some distance away from him
or her.

16. TOUCHINGS.

Fraud can explain those which take place within the reach of the
medium's hands, for they only occur in the darkness. But they have
been felt at a certain distance beyond this reach as if the hands of
the medium were prolonged.

17. ACTION OF INVISIBLE HANDS.

An accordion in an open-work case, or cage, which keeps any other hand
from touching it, is held in one hand by the end opposite the keys.
Presently the instrument begins to lengthen and shorten of itself and
plays various melodies. An invisible hand with fingers (or something
like them), must therefore be acting. (Experiment of Crookes with
Home.) As the reader has seen I repeated this experiment with Eusapia.

Another time, a music-box, the handle of which was turned by an
invisible hand, played in perfect time with the music movements that
Eusapia was making upon my cheek.

An invisible hand forcibly snatched from my hand a block of paper
which I was holding out with extended arm at the height of my head.

Invisible hands removed from M. Schiaparelli's head his spectacles
(furnished with a spring), which were firmly fastened behind his ears,
and that so nimbly and with such light touch that he did not perceive
it until afterwards.

18. APPARITIONS OF HANDS.

The hands are not always invisible. Sometimes semi-luminous ones are
seen to appear in the dim light,--hands of men, hands of women, hands
of children. Sometimes they have clear-cut outlines. They are
generally firm and moist to the touch, sometimes icy cold. At times
they melt away in the hand. For my part I was never able to grasp one.
It was always the mysterious hand that took mine,--often feeling
through a curtain, or sometimes by nude contact, or pinching my ear,
or running its fingers through my hair with great rapidity.

19. APPARITIONS OF HEADS.

For my part, I have only seen two: the bearded silhouette at
Monfort-l'Amaury, and the head of a young girl with high-arched
forehead, in my drawing-room. In the case of the first I had believed
that there was a mask held at the end of a rod. But at my own home,
there was no possibility of an accomplice, and at present I am not
less sure of the first instance than of the other. Moreover, the
testimony of other observers is so precise and so often given that it
is imperative that it be classed with my own.

20. PHANTOMS.

I have never seen any of these nor photographed them, but it seems to
me impossible to be sceptical about that of Katie King, observed for
three consecutive years by Crookes and others who experimented with
the medium Florence Cook. One can scarcely doubt, also, the reality of
the phantoms seen by the committee of the Dialectical Society of
London. We have seen that trickery plays a frequent role in this sort
of apparitions; but, in the experiments just mentioned, the
observations were really conducted with such perspicacity that they
are safe from all objection, and have on them the stamp of a purely
scientific character.

These phantoms, like the heads and the hands mentioned, seem to be
condensations of fluids produced by the powers of the medium, and do
not prove the existence of independent spirits.

When the hand is stretched out, the rubbing of a beard can be felt
upon it. This happened to me, as well as to others. Did the beard
really exist, or was it only a case of tactual and visual sensations?
The case here immediately following pleads in favor of its reality.

21. IMPRESSIONS OF HEADS AND OF HANDS.

The heads and the hands formed are sufficiently dense to leave a mould
of their features and shape imprinted in the putty or the clay.
Perhaps the most curious thing is that it is not necessary that these
weird formations, these forces, be visible in order to produce
impressions. We have seen a vigorous gesture imprint itself at a
distance in clay.

22. PASSING OF MATTER THROUGH MATTER.--TRANSFERS, OR THE BRINGING IN
OF OBJECTS.

A book has been seen passing through a curtain. A bell has passed from
a library-room, locked with a key, into a drawing-room. A flower has
been seen passing perpendicularly downward through a dining-room
table. Some have thought they had ocular proof of the mysterious
appearance of plants, of flowers, of fruits, and other objects, which
(as the claim went) had passed through walls, ceilings, doors.

The latter phenomenon took place several times in my presence. But I
was never able to get certain proof of it under unimpeachable
conditions; and I have ferreted out many a trick.

The experiments of Zoellner (a wooden ring entering into another wooden
ring, a string tied at the two ends making a knot, etc.) would, of
course, be a thing of exceptional interest if the medium Slade had not
the bad reputation of being just a skilful prestidigitator,--a
reputation probably only too well merited. I should think that there
is good reason to suppose that the experiments of Crookes are
authentic.

Has space only three dimensions? We will set this question aside.

23. MANIFESTATIONS DIRECTED BY AN INTELLIGENCE.

These have been already glimpsed in a certain number of the preceding
cases. The forces in action here are of the psychical as well as the
physical class. The question is to know whether the intellect of the
medium and of the sitters is sufficient to explain everything.

In all the cases I have previously mentioned, this intellect seem to
suffice, but only by attributing to it occult faculties of prodigious
potency.

In the present state of our knowledge, it is impossible for us to
understand the way in which mind, conscious or unconscious, can lift a
table, make raps in wood, form a hand or a head, stamp an imprint. The
_modus operandi_ is absolutely unintelligible to us. Future science
will perhaps discover it. But all these actions never overpass the
limits of man's capacities, and let us admit, the capacity required is
not an extraordinary one.

The hypothesis of spirits of another order than that of living human
beings does not seem to be necessary.

The hypothesis of the doubling of the psychic personality of the
medium is the most simple. Is it sufficient to entirely satisfy us?

Hard blows on the table like those of a fist, contrasting with gentle
taps, may have this origin, in spite of appearance.

It is the same with apparitions of the hands, of heads, of spectral
forms. We cannot declare this origin of the phenomena to be
impossible; and it is more simple than to assume that they are due to
wandering spirits.

The conveying of objects over the heads of the experimenters in
complete darkness, without touching either chandelier or heads, is
scarcely comprehensible. But do we understand any better how a spirit
can have hands? And if it did, might it not amuse itself thus?
Spectacles are taken from a face without the act being perceived; a
handkerchief is removed from the neck, then snatched from between the
teeth that are holding it; a fan is transferred from one pocket to
another. Do latent faculties of the human organism suffice to explain
these intentional actions? It is right for us neither to affirm nor to
deny.

I have thus passed in review the whole series of phenomena to be explained, at least all those within the limits of the plan of this work.

A first, and obviously safe, conclusion is that man has in himself a fluidic and psychic force whose nature is still unknown, but which is capable of acting at a distance upon matter and of moving the same.

This force is the expression of our will, of our desires; I mean as it appears in the first ten cases of the preceding classifications. For the other cases we must add the unconscious, the unforeseen, wills different from our conscious wills.

The force is at once physical and psychical. If the medium puts forth a force of twelve or fourteen pounds to lift a table, his weight undergoes a corresponding increase. The hand which we see forming near him is able to grasp an object. The hand really exists, and is then reabsorbed. Might we not compare the force which brings it into existence with that building-force of nature, which reproduces a claw for the lobster and a tail for the lizard? The intervention of spirits is not all indispensable.[84]

In mediumistic experiments things happen as if an invisible being were present, able to transport the different objects through the air, usually without striking against the heads of the persons who are sitting in various parts of the room in almost complete darkness; capable also of acting upon a curtain like a strong wind, pushing it far out, able to fling this curtain over your head, giving you a Capuchin hood or coiffure, and pressing strongly against your body, as if with two nervous arms, and touching you with a warm and living hand. I have perceived these hands in the most unmistakble way. The invisible being can condense itself sufficiently to become visible, and I have seen it passing in the air. To suppose that I, as well as other experimenters, was the dupe of an hallucination is an hypothesis which cannot be maintained for a single moment and would simply show that those who entertained the idea were far more likely to have an hallucination than we were, or else that they entertained the most inexcusable prepossession and prejudice. We were in the best possible condition for observing and analysizing any phenomena whatever and no sceptic will make us believe anything different on this point.

There is certainly an invisible prolongation of the organism of the medium. This prolongation may be compared to the radiation which leaps from the loadstone to reach a bit of iron and put it into movement.

We can also compare it with the effluvium which emanates from electrified bodies.[85]

I also compared it some pages back to calorific waves.

When a medium makes a gesture of striking the table with his closed fist, but stops short at a distance of from eight to twelve inches, and when, at every gesture, a sonorous stroke of the fist echoes in the table, we see in that the proof of a dynamic prolongation of the arm of the medium.

When she pretends to imitate on my cheek the rotation of the crank of a music-box, and when this box keeps time with the imitated movement, stops when the fingers stop, plays the tune faster when the finger accelerates its circular tracings, goes slower when it goes slower, etc., we have here again proof of dynamic action at a distance.

When an accordion plays of its own will, when a bell begins to ring of itself, when a lever indicates such and such a pressure, there is a real force in action.

We must therefore admit, first of all, this prolongation of the muscular and nervous force of the subject. I am keenly sensible of the fact that this is a bold proposition, almost incredible, most strange and extraordinary; but after all the facts are there, and whether the matter irks us or not is a small matter.

This prolongation is real, and only extends to a certain distance from the medium, a distance which can be measured, and which varies according to circumstances. But is it sufficient to explain all the observed phenomena?

We are forced to admit that this prolongation, usually invisible, and impalpable, may become visible and palpable; take, especially, the form of an articulated hand, with flesh and muscles; and reveal the exact form of a head or a body. The fact is incomprehensible; but after so many different observations, it seems to me impossible to see in this curious phenomenon only trickery or hallucination. Logic lays its laws upon us and commands our respect.

A fluidic and condensable double has therefore the power of gliding momentarily out from the body of the medium (for his presence is indispensable).

How can this double, this fluidic body have the consistency of flesh and of muscles? We do not understand it. But it would neither be wise nor intelligent to admit only that which we can comprehend. It must be remembered that, for the greater part of the time, we imagine we comprehend things because we can give an explanation of them; that is all. Now this explanation rarely has any intrinsic value. It is only a framework of words tacked together. Thus you fancy you understand why an apple falls from the top of the tree, because you say that the earth attracts it. This is pure simple-mindedness. For in what does the attraction of the earth consist? You know nothing about it; but you are satisfied, because the fact is a common one.

When the curtain is inflated as if pushed out by a hand, and when you feel you are pinched in the shoulder by a hand at the moment the curtain touches you, you have the impression that you are the dupe of an accomplice hidden behind the curtain. There is some one there who is playing a practical joke on you. You draw aside the curtain. Nothing!

Since it is impossible for you to admit a trick of any kind, because you, and you alone, hung that curtain between the two walls; and since you know that there is no person behind it because you are close by it and have not lost it out of your sight; and since the medium is seated near you with his, or her, hands and legs held, you are forced to admit that a temporarily materialized being has touched you.

It is certain that these facts may be denied and that they are denied. Those who have not personally verified them are excusable. It is not a question of ordinary events which take place every day and which everybody can observe. It is evident, as a general proposition, that, if we admit only what we have ourselves seen, we shall not get very far. We admit the existence of the Philippine Islands without having been there, of Charlemagne and of Julius Caesar without having seen them, of total eclipses of the sun, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, etc., as facts of which we have not ourselves been eye-witnesses. The distance of a star, the weight of a planet, the composition of one of the heavenly bodies, the most marvelous discoveries of astronomy, do not excite scepticism, except in the minds of wholly uncultivated persons, because people in general appreciate the value of astronomic methods. But undoubtedly, in these psychical matters, the phenomena are so extraordinary that one is excusable for not believing them.

Nevertheless, if anyone will give himself the trouble to reason he will positively be compelled to recognize that, in following on this trail, he is inevitably brought to a stand in face of the following dilemma: either the experimenters have been the dupes of the mediums, who have uniformly cheated, or else these stupefying facts actually exist. Now since the first hypothesis is eliminated, we are forced to admit the reality of the occurrences.

A fluidic body is formed at the expense of the medium, emerges from his organism, moves, acts. What is the intelligent force that directs this fluidic body and makes it act in such or such a way? Either it is the mind of the medium, or it is another mind that makes use of this same fluid. There is no escape from this conclusion. I may remark that the meteorological conditions, fine weather, agreeable temperature, cheerfulness, high spirits, favor the phenomena; that the medium is never wholly out of touch with the manifestations, and frequently knows what is going to take place; that the cause escapes the mental grasp and is fugitive and capricious; and that the apparitions fade away like a dream as silently as they are formed.

Note also that, in important manifestations, the medium suffers, complains, groans, loses an enormous amount of force, exhibits an astonishing nervous energy, experiences hyperaesthesia, and at the apogee of the manifestation, seems for an instant to be absolutely prostrated. And, in truth, why should not his mind as well as his fluidic force be haled out of his body and be exhausted in external work? The psychical force of a living human being is able, then, to create "material" phenomena--organs, spectral figures.

But what is matter?

My readers know that matter does not exist as it is perceived by our senses. These only give us incomplete impressions of an _Unknown Reality_. Analysis shows us that matter is only a form of energy.

In the work called _A Propos d'Eusapia Paladino_, which sums up his experiments with this medium, M. Guillaume de Fontenay ingeniously tries to explain the phenomena by the dynamic theory of matter. It is probable that this explanation is one of those that make the nearest approach to the truth.

According to this theory, the quality which seems to us characteristic of matter--solidity, stability--is no more substantial than the light which strikes our eyes, or the sound which enters our ears. We see; that is to say, we receive upon the retina rays which affect it. But around and on every side of the retina undulate countless other rays that leave no impression upon it. It is the same with the other senses.

Matter, like light, like heat, like electricity, seems to be the result of a species of movement. Movement of what? Of the primitive monistic substance, quickened by manifold vibrations.

Most assuredly, matter is not that inert thing that we commonly suppose.

A comparison will aid in comprehending this. Take a carriage-wheel. Place it horizontally on a pivot. While the wheel is motionless, let a rubber ball fall between its spokes. This ball will almost always pass through between the spokes. Now give a slight movement to the wheel. The ball will be pretty often hit by the revolving spokes, and will rebound. If we increase the rotation, the ball will now no longer pass through the wheel, which will have become for it a wholly impenetrable disc.

We can try a similar experiment by arranging the wheel vertically and shooting arrows through it. A bicycle-wheel will serve the purpose very well, owing to the slenderness of its spokes. When not in movement, the arrows will pass through it nine times out of ten. In movement, it will produce in the arrows deviations more or less marked. With increase in the speed, it would be made impenetrable, and all the arrows would be broken as if against the steel plating of an armored ship.

These comparisons allow us to understand how matter is really only a mode of motion, only an expression of force, a manifestation of energy. It will disappear (it must be borne in mind) on analysis, which ends by taking refuge in the intangible, invisible, imponderable, and almost immaterial atom. The atom itself which was regarded as the basis of matter fifty years ago, has now disappeared, or rather has been metamorphosed and reappears as a hypothetical, impalpable vortex.

I will allow myself to repeat here what I have said a hundred times elsewhere: _The universe is a dynamism_.

The difficulty we have in explaining to ourselves apparitions, materializations, when we try to apply to them the ordinary conception of matter, is considerably lessened the moment we conceive that matter is only a mode of motion.

Life itself, from the most rudimentary cell up to the most complicated organism, is a special kind of movement, a movement determined and organized by a directing force. According to this theory, momentary apparitions would be less difficult to accept and to comprehend. The vital force of the medium might externalize itself and produce in a point of space a vibratory system which should be the counterpart of itself, in a more or less advanced degree of visibility and solidity. These phenomena can with difficulty be reconciled with the old hypothesis of the independent and intrinsic existence of matter: They better fit that of matter as a mode of motion--in a word, simple movement, giving the sensation of matter.

There is, of course, only one substance, the primitive substance, which antedates the original nebula--the womb from which all bodies in the universe have issued. The substances which the chemists take to be simple bodies--oxygen, hydrogen, azote, iron, gold, silver, etc.--are mineral elements which have been gradually formed and differentiated, just as, later, the vegetable and animal species were differentiated. And not only is the substance of the world one, but it also has the same origin as energy, and these two forms are mutually interchangeable. Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed.[86]

The unique substance is immaterial and unknowable in its essence. We see and touch only its condensations, its aggregations, its arrangements; that is to say, forms produced by movement. Matter, force, life, thought, are all one.

In reality, there is only one principle in the universe, and it is at once intelligence, force, and matter, embracing all that is and all that possibly can be. That which we call matter is only a form of motion. At the basis of all is force, dynamism, and universal mind, or spirit.

Visible matter, which stands to us at the present moment for the universe, and which certain classic doctrines consider as the origin of all things--movement, life, thought--is only a word void of meaning. The universe is a great organism controlled by a dynamism of the psychical order. Mind gleams through its every atom.

The environment or atmosphere is psychic. There is mind in every thing, not only in human and animal life, but in plants, in minerals, in space.

It is not the body which produces life: it is rather life which organizes the body. Does not the will to live increase the viability of enfeebled persons, just as the giving up of the wish to live may abridge life and even extinguish it?

Your heart beats, night and day, whatever be the position of your body. It is a well-mounted spring. Who or what adjusted this elastic spring?

The embryo is formed in the womb of the mother, in the egg of the bird. There is neither heart nor brain. At a certain moment the heart beats for the first time. Sublime moment! It will beat in the child, in the adolescent, in the man, in the woman, at the rate of about 100,000 pulsations a day, of 36,500,000 a year, of 1,825,000,000 in fifty years. This heart that has just been formed is going to beat a thousand millions of pulsations, two thousand millions, three thousand millions, a number determined by its inherent force; then it will stop and the body will fall into ruins. Who or what wound up this watch once for all?

Dynamism, the vital energy.

What sustains the earth in space?

Dynamism, the velocity of its movement.

What is it in the bullet that kills?

Its velocity.

Everywhere energy, everywhere the invisible element. It is this same dynamism that produces the phenomena we have been studying. The question at present resolves itself into this: Does this dynamism belong wholly to the experimenters? We have so little real knowledge of our mental nature that it is impossible for us to know what this nature is capable of producing, even in certain states of unconsciousness--in fact especially in these. The directing intelligence is not always the personal, _normal_, intelligence of the experimenters or of any one whatever among them. We ask the entity what its name is, and it gives us a name which is not ours; it replies to our questions, and usually claims to be a discarnate soul, the spirit of a deceased person. But if we drive the question home, this entity finally steals away without having given us sufficient proofs of its identity. There results from this the impression that the "medium," or principal subject of the experiment, has responded for himself, has reflected himself, without knowing it.

Moreover, this entity, this personality, this spirit, has his individual will, his caprices, his cantankerousness, and sometimes acts in opposition to our own thoughts. He tells us absurd, foolish, brutal, insane things, and amuses himself with fantastic combinations of letters, real head-splitting puzzles. It astonishes and stupefies us.

What is this being?

Two inescapable hypotheses present themselves. Either it is we who produce these phenomena or it is spirits. But mark this well: these spirits are not necessarily the souls of the dead; for other kinds of spiritual beings may exist, and space may be full of them without our ever knowing anything about it, except under unusual circumstances. Do we not find in the different ancient literatures, demons, angels, gnomes, goblins, sprites, spectres, elementals, etc? Perhaps these legends are not without some foundation in fact. Then we cannot but remark that, in our mediumistic studies and experiments, in order to succeed we always address an invisible being who is supposed to hear us. If this is an illusion, it dates from the very origin of Spiritualism, from the raps produced unconsciously by the Fox sisters in their chambers at Hydesville and at Rochester in 1848. But once more, this personification may pertain to our own being or it may represent a mind external to ourselves.

In order to admit the first hypothesis we must admit at the same time that our mental nature is not simple, that there are in us several psychic elements, and that one at least of these elements may act unknown to ourselves, make raps in a table, move any piece of furniture, lift a weight, touch us with a hand that seems real, play an instrument, create a spectral figure, read hidden words, answer questions, act with a personal will--and all this, I repeat, without our own knowledge.

This is tolerably complicated; but it is not impossible.

That there are in us psychic elements, obscure, unconscious, capable of acting outside of the sphere of our normal consciousness, this is something we can notice every night in our dreams; that is to say, during a quarter, or a third part of our life. Scarcely has sleep closed our eyes, our ears, all our senses, than our thoughts begin to work just the same as during the day, though without rational direction, without logic, under the most incoherent forms, freed from our customary conceptions of space and time, in a world entirely different from the normal world. The physiologists and psychologists have for centuries been trying to determine the mechanism of the dream without having yet obtained any satisfactory solution of the problem. But the proved fact that we see sometimes, in our dreams, occurrences which take place at a distance, proves that we have in us unknown powers.

Again, it is not rare for each of us to experience, sometimes (all our faculties being on the alert), the play of an interior power, distinct from our dominant reason. We are on the point of pronouncing words that are not a part of our habitual vocabulary, and ideas suddenly traverse and arrest the course of our thoughts. During the reading of a book which seemed interesting to us, our soul spreads her wings and flies to other realms, while our eyes continue in vain the mechanical act of reading. We are discussing certain projects in our mind, as if we were so many judges; and then, one would like to know in all simplicity, whence comes this distraction?

In his tireless researches, the great investigator of psychic phenomena, Myers, to whom we owe synthetic studies upon the subliminal consciousness, reached the conviction, with Ribot, that "the _me_ is a co-ordination."

These supernormal phenomena (writes this competent and learned
inquirer) are due not to the action of the spirits of deceased
persons, as Wallace believes, but, for the most part, to the action of
an incarnate spirit, either that of the subject himself or of some
agent or other.[87]

The word "subliminal" means what is beneath the threshold (_limen_) of
the consciousness,--the sensations, the thoughts, the memories, which
remain at the bottom, and seem to represent a kind of sleeping _me_. I
do not pretend to affirm (adds the author) that there always exists in
us two _me's_ correlative and parallel: I denote rather by the
subliminal _me_ that part of the _me_ which ordinarily remains latent,
and I admit that there may be not merely co-operation between these
two quasi-independent currents of thoughts, but also changes of level
and alternations of personality.[88] Medical observation (Felida,
Alma) proves that there is in us a rudimentary supernormal faculty,
something which is probably useless to us, but which indicates the
existence, beneath the level of our consciousness, of a reserve of
latent unsuspected faculties.[89]

What is it that is active in us in telepathic phenomena? We may recall the case of Thomas Garrison (_Society for Psychical Research_, VIII, p. 125) who, while sitting with his wife at a religious service, suddenly gets up in the middle of the sermon, goes out of the church, and, as if impelled by an irresistible impulse, walks twenty miles afoot to go to see his mother, whom he finds dead on his arrival, although he did not know that she was ill and although she was relatively young (fifty-eight years). I have a hundred observations similar to this in writing before me. It is not our normal habitual nature that is in action in such a case as this.

There is probably in us, more or less sentient, a sub-conscious nature, and it is this which seems to be at work in mediumistic experiences. I am pretty much of the opinion Myers expresses in the following paragraph:[90]