Chapter 3

If now asked for my explanation of all this, I hesitate to reply. I should not have hesitated in Jersey. I should have unhesitatingly affirmed the presence of spirits. It is not the opinion of Paris which now retards me. I know what respect is due to the opinion of the Paris of to-day, of that Paris so wise, so practical, and so positive, which believes in nothing but dancing skirts and brokers' bulletins; but the capital's shrugging shoulders would not compel me to lower my voice. I am even happy to say, in the face of Paris, that as to the existence of what are called _spirits_, I have no doubts. I have never had that fatuous vanity as to our race, which declares that the ascending ladder of being ends with man. I am persuaded that we have at least as many rounds above us as there are beneath our feet, and I believe as firmly in spirits above as I do in donkeys beneath. The existence of spirits once admitted, their intervention becomes merely a question of details. Why could they not communicate with man by some means, and why may not that means be a table? Because immaterial beings cannot move a table? But who can say these beings _are_ immaterial? They also may have bodies, but more subtile than ours,--bodies as imperceptible to our sight, as light is to our touch. It is fairly presumable that there are transitional states between the human condition and the immaterial. Death comes after life, as man supersedes the animal. The inferior animals are men, with less soul. Man is an animal with more equipoise and self-direction. Death brings a condition of less materiality, but still with some matter left. I know therefore no reasonable argument against the reality of the table phenomena.

Nine years, however, have passed away since all this occurred. I gave up my daily interviews after a few months, for the sake of a friend whose insufficient mind could not bear these breaths from the unknown. I have never reperused the sheets whereon sleep the words which moved me so profoundly. I am no longer in Jersey, upon that rock lost among the waves, where the exile was torn from his native soil, away from life. Myself a living corpse, it did not astonish me to encounter the dead alive; and so little is certainty natural to man, that one may doubt even the things he has seen with his eyes and touched with his hands.

Finally, Victor Hugo, who assisted at these experiments, has said: "The moving and speaking table has been greatly ridiculed. Let us speak plainly! This ridicule is misplaced. It is the bounden duty of science to sound the depths of all phenomena. To ignore spiritualistic phenomena, to leave them bankrupt by inattention, is to make a bankrupt of truth itself." (Les Genies [The Geniuses]: Shakespeare.)

It is table movements which are here spoken of, dictations by tipping or rapping; that is to say, by the third method heretofore referred to. This method has always appeared to be the most independent. In placing our fingers on a planchette, armed with a pencil, and in aiding its motions, we are brought into direct personal association with the results. We may be under the illusion that an outside spirit is guiding the hand, when we are unintentionally controlling it ourselves. We put questions relating to subjects which specially interest us. Passively we write things which we already know more or less about, and unconsciously inspire ourselves with the name of the personage invoked. Far more reliable are the answers given by a table.

4

Several persons place themselves around a table, their hands resting thereupon and await results. After a given time, if the required conditions for the production of the phenomena have been complied with, raps are heard, apparently within the table, and there are certain motions of the furniture. Sometimes the table tips on one or two legs, and slowly oscillates. Sometimes it rises entirely from the floor, and remains suspended, as if adhering to the palms lying upon it; and this lasts during ten, twenty, thirty seconds. Sometimes the table fastens itself to the floor with such tenacity that its weight seems to be doubled or tripled. At other times, and almost always when so requested by one of the sitters, a noise is heard like that of a saw, a hatchet, or a pencil at work. These are physical effects, which have been observed, and prove undeniably the existence of an unknown force.

This force is physical. If one perceived only movements devoid of purpose, blind and irrelevant, or movements only in sympathy with the will of the assistant, one might rest in the conclusion that there is a new and unknown force, which, mayhap, is a transmutation of one's own nervous energy, derived from organic electricity, and this fact in itself would be important; but the blows are apparently struck inside the wooden substance of the table, and the movements are in response to questions put to invisible beings.

In this way did the phenomena begin in 1848, in the United States, when the Misses Fox heard, in their chamber, the noise of raps within the walls and furniture. When their father, after several months of vexatious inquiry, at last bethought himself of old ghost stories, and appealed to the cause of these noises, the cause answered the questions asked, by means of certain raps agreed upon, and declared itself to be the soul of a former proprietor, killed in that very house. This soul asked for their prayers, and for the burial of its former body.

Is this invisible cause within us, or is it outside of ourselves? Are we capable of doubling ourselves in some way, yet without knowing it,--of unconsciously giving, by mental suggestion, the answers to our own questions, and of so producing certain physical effects without being aware of it? Again, is there around us an intelligent atmosphere, a sort of spiritual cosmos? or are there invisible beings, who are not human, but so many gnomes, hobgoblins, or imps?--for such an invisible world may exist around us. Finally can these effects really come from the souls of the departed, who are able to return from the other world? And where is this other world? Four hypotheses thus present themselves.

The lifting of a table, the displacement of an object, might be attributed to an unknown force, developed by our nervous systems, or by some other means; at any rate, these movements do not prove the existence of an outside spirit. But when--by naming the letters of the alphabet or by pointing to them on a tablet--the table, by certain sounds in the wood, or by certain tips, composes an intelligent paragraph, we are compelled to attribute this intelligent effect to an intelligent cause. The medium himself may be the cause; and the easiest way would evidently be to admit that he is tricking us, either by simply striking the leg of the table with his foot, if he operates by raps, or by directing the movements of the table, through bearing upon it more or less heavily.

This, indeed, happens very often, and is what discourages so many inquirers.

There are conditions, however, in which fraud is not supposable. The fact that phenomena can be counterfeited is no reason for concluding they do not exist. In experiments with magnetism and hypnotic suggestion, many delusions beset the experimenters, and there is more or less intentional foolery on the part of the subjects. Thus have I seen, at the prison-hospital of Salpétrière and elsewhere, young women outrageously deceiving the most serious investigators, who did not in the least suspect such insincerity. At market fairs there may often be seen booths where sleepwalkers are exhibited, who simulate genuine somnambulism more or less cleverly. Yet one would palpably err who should deny the existence of real magnetism, somnambulism, or hypnotic suggestion, because of these humbugs and mockeries.

Let us, therefore, pass by fraud, and examine cases where all the experimenters knew one another, and did not knowingly deceive, and thus let us consider a series of observed facts. Here are some communications for which I can vouch. They are sentences, dictated by raps:

God does not enlighten the world with thunder and meteors. He controls peacefully the stars which shine. Thus do divine revelations follow one another, with order, reason, and harmony.

Religion and Friendship are two companions, who help us along life's painful road.

My brother: in the Law [this communication was addressed to an Israelite] revive thy memory! Saul came to the Pythoness of Endor, and begged her to raise the spirit of Samuel; and the spirit of Samuel appeared, announcing to the King the nation's destiny and his own. (1 Samuel xxviii.) "The spirit [wind] bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, nor whither it goeth: so is everyone that is born of the Spirit." (John iii. 8.)

This New Testament text was the more remarkable because it was written in Latin. Here, therefore, are intelligible sentences and accurate quotations. Could blind chance have composed them? Without forgetting possible imposition, our hypotheses still await explication.

Here are other specimens which demand a certain astuteness and decided mental struggle for their dictation. One paragraph begins thus: _Suov imrap engèr_. The other: _Arevèlé suov neib_. It is necessary to spell these two phrases backward, commencing at the end. Here the hypothesis of mental suggestion becomes very complicated, as also the theory of environment, and would imply special adroitness in the medium. Someone asked: "Why have you dictated thus?" The power replied: "In order to give you marvellous and unexpected evidence."

Here is another communication of a different kind, beginning, _Aimairs vn oo uu ssevt_. To the demand what this bizarre assemblage of letters signified, the answer came: "Read every alternate letter!" This arrangement brought out these four lines:--

Amis, nous vous aimons bien tous, Car vous êtes bons et fidèles. Soyez unis en Dieu; sur vous L'Esprit Saint étendra ses ailes.

This stanza may be translated thus:

You one and all, oh friends, we love, For you are good, and faithful tread. Be one in God; and then above The Holy Ghost his wings will spread.

Surely this is sufficiently innocent of poetic pretension; but the mode of dictation was decidedly difficult. This somewhat reduced, as it seemed to us, the supposition of fraud, but did not altogether destroy it.

A communication of a yet different kind is an imitation of Rabelais, which is not so badly done, but cannot be well translated into English, because of its grotesque and idiomatic character.

As to the identity of spirits, even if it could be demonstrated that the preceding quotations emanated from disembodied minds, this would not be a sufficient reason for admitting that the signatures are not entirely apocryphal.

5

In a great many cases, too long to be reported in this essay, where the communicating cause has declared itself to be the soul of a certain dead person,--of a father, a mother, a child, or a kinsman,--names, dates, and details were given, which were absolutely in accordance with facts whereof the medium was ignorant; but in the cases where the identity appeared to be best indicated, the questioner had his hands resting on the table, repeated the alphabet, and might have unconsciously induced the result. You try to invoke a man who bore, let us suppose, the name of Charles. When the letter _c_ is pronounced, you exercise your influence without knowing it. If the experiment is made by rocking the table; you exercise a different pressure at that particular moment. If the communication is by raps, and the letter passes without the expected sound, you naturally allow it to be seen that there is a mistake. We deceive ourselves without being aware of it. This frequently happened to me during two years with this word Charles, which was the name of my mother's brother, living in New Orleans. During those two years he told me how he died; yet at that very time he was in the vigor of life. This was in 1860 and 1861, and he did not pass away till 1864. We had, therefore, been the dupes of an illusion.

Auto-suggestion, or self-suggestion, is also extremely frequent in these experiments, as well as with writing mediums. I have before my eyes some charming fables, published by Monsieur Jaubert, President of the Civil Tribunal of Carcassonne, and some delicate poems, obtained through planchette, by P. F. Mathieu,--besides some historic and philosophical works,--all leading to the conclusion that these mediums have written under their own influence; or, at best, affording no scientific proof of a foreign influence.

There remain still unexplained the raps, and the motion of objects more or less heavy. On this point I fully share the opinion of the great chemist, Mr. Crookes, who says:

When manifestations of this kind are exhibited, this remark is generally made: "Why do tables and chairs alone show these effects? Why is this the peculiar property of furniture?"

I might reply that I am simply observing and reporting facts, and that I need not enter into the _whys_ and _wherefores_. Nevertheless it seems clear that if, in an ordinary dining-room, any heavy inanimate body is to be lifted from the floor, it cannot very well be anything except a table or a chair. I have numerous proofs that this property does not appertain alone to articles of furniture; but in this, as in other experimental demonstrations, the intelligence or force--whichever it be that produces these phenomena,--cannot choose but use objects appropriate to its ends.

At different times during my researches I have heard delicate raps, which sounded as if produced by a pin's point; a cascade of piercing sounds, like those of a machine in full motion; detonations in the air; light and acute metallic taps; cracking noises, like those produced by a floor-polishing machine; sounds which resembled scratching; warbling, like that of birds.

Each of these noises, which I have tested through different mediums, had its special peculiarity. With Mr. Home they were more varied; but, in strength and regularity, I have heard no sounds which could approach those which came through Miss Kate Fox. During several months I had the pleasure, on almost innumerable occasions, of testing the varying phenomena which took place in the presence of this lady, and it was the sounds which I specially studied. It is usually necessary with other mediums, in a regular séance, to sit awhile before anything is heard; but with Miss Fox it seems to be merely necessary to place her hand on something, no matter what, for the sounds to manifest themselves like a triplicated echo, and sometimes loud enough to be noticeable across several intervening rooms.

I have heard some of these noises produced in a living tree, in a large pane of glass, on a stretched wire, on a tambourine, on the roof of a cab, and in the box of a theatre. Moreover, immediate contact is not always necessary. I have heard these noises proceeding from the flooring and walls, when the medium's hands and feet were tied, when he was standing on a chair, when he was in a swing suspended from the ceiling, when he was imprisoned in an iron cage, and when he lay in a swoon on a sofa. I have heard them proceed from musical glasses. I have felt them on my own shoulders, and under my own hands. I have heard them on a piece of paper, fastened between the fingers by a string through the corner of the sheet. With a full knowledge of the numerous theories which have been brought forward to explain these sounds, especially in America, I have tested them in every way I could devise, until it was no longer possible to escape the conviction that these sounds were real, and produced neither by fraud nor by mechanical means.

An important question forces itself upon our attention: Are these movements and noises governed by intelligence? From the very beginning of my investigations I have satisfied myself that the power producing these phenomena was not simply blind force, but that some intelligence directed it, or at least was associated with it. The noises, whereof I have spoken, were repeated a determinate number of times. They became either strong or feeble, at my request, and came from different places. By a vocabulary of signals previously agreed upon, the power answered questions, and gave messages with more or less accuracy.

The intelligence governing these phenomena is sometimes obviously inferior to that of the medium, and is often in direct opposition to his wishes. When a determination has been reached to do something which could not be regarded as quite reasonable, I have seen communications urging a reconsideration of the matter. This intelligence is at times of such a character that one is forced to believe it does not emanate from any person present. (Researches in Spiritualism, by William Crookes.)

This last sentence might be slightly modified, and the words _forced to believe_ might be replaced by the words _disposed to believe_; for human nature is complex, and we are not perpetually the same, even to ourselves. What uncertainty we often find in our own opinions, upon points not yet elucidated; and this we feel, even when called upon to judge actions or events! Are we not sometimes contradictions to ourselves?

Among the experiments made with these physical and psychical manifestations of the tables, I will mention, as among the best, those of Count de Gasparin, and of my sympathetic friend, Eugene Nus. The Count has obtained rotations, upliftings, raps, revelations of numbers previously thought of, movements without any human contact, and so on. He concludes that human beings are endowed with a fluid, with an unknown force, with an agency capable of impressing objects with the action determined by our wills. (On Table-turning, Supernaturalism in General, and Spirits.)

Eugene Nus has obtained, besides sentences dictated by the table, certain philosophic definitions given almost invariably in exactly a dozen words each. Here are some of them:

Geology: Studies in the transformation of the planets in their periods of revolution.

Astronomy: Order and harmony of the external life of worlds, individually and collectively.

Love: The pivot of mortal passion; attractive sexual force; the element of continuity.

Death: Cessation of individuality, disintegration of its elements, a return to universal life.

Let us note, in passing, the strangely singular fact of a departed soul declaring that death is always the cessation of individuality!

There are whole pages of this kind. Eugene Nus had, as companions in his experiments, Antony Méray, Toussenel, Franchot, Courbebaisse, a whole group of transcendental socialists. Well, this is absolutely the language of Fourier. The words _aroma_, _passional_, _solidarity_, _clavier_, _composite_, _association_, _harmony_, _pivotal force_, are in the vocabulary of the table. The author therefore inclines towards the following explanation, as given in his Choses de l'Outre Monde (Things of the Other World), Volume I. Paris, 1887.

Mysterious forces residing in human nature; emanations from inmost potentiality, unknown till our day; the duplication of our experimental power, which gives ability to think and act outside ourselves.

(_To be concluded in July Arena._)

THE CHIVALRY OF THE PRESS.

BY JULIUS CHAMBERS.

In the splendid days of Rome, the editor was he who introduced the gladiators as they entered the arena to fight the tigers.

To-day, the editor directs the newspaper and he often affects to believe that his mission on earth is to fight the tiger himself.

The editor of this class is a barbarian who forgets that Rome is only a memory.

The successful editor of to-day recognizes the fact that the newspaper exists to amuse and instruct, to uphold public honor and private virtue quite as much as to denounce fraud or expose official corruption. The newspaper is powerful exactly in proportion as it is successful in representing the people who read it; in following, rather than dictating, their line of policy; and, whether it exists for the people or not, it certainly endures only by their sufferance and good-will. Therefore, it is well that we consider the relations of the people at large to the newspaper; then, the editor's relation to his neighbors, the public; and, finally, the chivalry of editors toward each other.

The newspaper is so large a part of our modern life that it would be trivial to argue the question whether it can be dispensed with. Men who live abreast of the age cannot consent to miss a single day's communion with the news of the world. The non-arrival of the mail will render an active man absent from town utterly miserable. The purchaser of the daily newspaper of to-day receives for the price of a half yard of calico a manufactured article that has required the employment of millions of capital to produce,--to say nothing of genius to sustain.

And he is often somewhat grateful.

But the chivalry of the public toward the newspaper is peculiar. The public would appear to believe that anything it can coax, wheedle, or extort from the newspaper is fair salvage from the necessary expenditures of life.

Recently I listened in amazement to the Rev. Robert Collyer boast at a Cornell University dinner of having beguiled the newspapers of the country. He told how he had schemed and got money to build a new church after the Chicago fire. He did not make it very clear that the civilized members of his race clamored for the new edifice, but he made painfully apparent his ideas of chivalry to the press.

"In this matter," he began, "I have always been proud of the way in which I 'worked the newspapers.' I succeeded in raising the money, because I coaxed the editors into coöperating with me. I wrote long puffs about the congregation and its pastor, and got them printed. Then I hurried 'round with the subscription list and a copy of the paper."

Of course, this was all said good-naturedly, was meant to be funny, and was uttered from a public rostrum with an utter obliviousness to the mental obliquity that a moment's thought will disclose. It left upon my mind much the same impression as that once made by hearing an apparently respectable man boast of having stolen an umbrella out of a hotel rack.

Later in the evening, when the reverend gentleman occupied a seat near mine, I asked, with as much naiveté as I could command, if he had "worked" the plumbers, the architects, the masons, the carpenters, and the bell-founders? To each of these questions he returned a regretful, "No."

Despite his apparent innocence regarding the purport of my inquiry, I doubt if this gentleman would have boasted that he secured his clothes for nothing, that he wheedled his chops from his butcher, or coaxed his groceries from the shopkeeper at the corner of his street.

And yet, he spoke with condescension of the editor and his means of livelihood!