Mysterious Psychic Forces: An Account of the Author's Investigations in Psychical Research, Together with Those of Other European SavantsFlammarion, Camille
Philosophy
Mysterious Psychic Forces: An Account of the Author's Investigations in Psychical Research, Together with Those of Other European Savants
Flammarion, Camille
Parapsychology -- Investigation; Spiritualism
From this point of view (entirely physiological) it is settled that we
must distinguish between the effort which a muscle exerts and the
consciousness we have of this effort. It will be remembered that there
exist in the human organism a great number of muscles that habitually
exert considerable effort without our being in the slightest degree
aware of it. It has been pointed out that muscles exist whose
contractions are perceptible by us in a certain state of the system
and unperceived in another state. It is therefore conceivable that the
muscles of our limbs might as an exceptional thing, exhibit the same
phenomenon. The preparation for the movement of the table, the special
kind of reaction that takes place at this interval of waiting, put the
nervous system into a particular condition in which certain muscular
movements may take place in an unconscious manner.
But, evidently, this theory is not sufficient to account for movements
without contact, nor those that take place in such a way that muscular
action could not produce them. It is therefore these two classes of
movements which must serve as the basis of new experiments and as the
foundation of a new theory.
How also explain the very peculiar and truly inconceivable character
of the movements of the table?--this starting to move, so insensible,
so gentle, so different from the abruptness characteristic of the
impetus given by mechanical force; these levitations so spontaneous,
so energetic, which leap up to meet the hands; these dances and
imitations of music which you would in vain attempt to equal by means
of the combined and voluntary action of the operators; these little
raps succeeding the loud ones, when the command is given, the
exquisite delicacy of which nothing can express. Several times when
someone asked a so-called spirit his age, one of the legs of the
centre-table lifted up and rapped 1, 2, 3, etc. Then the movement was
accelerated. Finally, the three legs beat a kind of drum-roll so rapid
that it was impossible to count, and which the most skilful could
never succeed in imitating. On another occasion, under the contact of
hands, the table was turning upon three legs, upon two, upon a single
one; and, in this last position, changed feet, throwing its weight
first upon one and then upon another with great ease, and with nothing
abrupt or jerky in its motions. Neither the experimenters nor their
most eminent opponents would ever be able to imitate mechanically this
dance of the table, and, above all, the whirling pirouettes and
changes of feet.
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