“A pencil and some sheets of paper were placed on the center of the table. Soon _the pencil stood on its point and advanced_, by jerks, then fell over. It raised itself again and fell over; it tried a third time but with no better result. “After three fruitless attempts, a small piece of wood which laid near on the table slid towards the pencil and raised itself some inches above the table. The pencil now raised itself anew, supporting itself against the wood, and the two made an effort to write on the paper; this did not succeed and a new trial was made. On the third attempt the wooden lath abandoned its efforts and fell back to its old position on the table; the pencil remained in the position where it fell on the paper, and an alphabetical message said to us, “_We have tried to do what you have asked, but our power is exhausted_.” (Crookes.) In India, the Fakirs easily obtain direct writing; they spread fine sand on a table or other smooth surface and place on this sand a small pointed stick made of wood. At a given moment this stick rises and traces characters on the sand, which are responses to questions put by the lookers on.[88] In the experiments made with our friend Dr. Puel, we obtained writing on over twenty slates. A bit of chalk was placed on a new slate and this slate was placed on a table at some distance from the medium, Madam L. B., the experiments being made with all the cautions possible. A previous examination of both surfaces of the slate put away all doubts as to any fraud in that respect. I, meantime, held the hands of Madame L. B., the medium, who was always in a hypnotic condition during such experiments, at which several persons usually assisted—persons who were known to be capable of observing and recording facts with coolness and deliberation. All these communications have a signature, and many of them date 1900 as the epoch when _modern spiritualism_ shall be scientifically recognized by the world. Dr. Gibier, who made interesting experiments with Mr. Slade, like us, obtained spontaneous writing on many slates, of which he gives reproductions in his remarkable work, _a book that he had the courage to write and to which his celebrated name is affixed_.[89] We do not find in any Middle Age documents such spontaneously written communications; at least Demonographers do not mention them in their writings, for if they had it would have been a most striking proof of the analogy of magic with modern spiritualism and Indian Fakirism, which serves as an intermediary in the history of Occultism. CLASS XI.—_Forms and figures of phantoms._ “These phenomena are rarely ever witnessed. The conditions required for their appearance seeming so delicate, and so little prevents their production, that it is only on very few occasions that I have witnessed satisfactory results. I will cite two cases: