These results may be briefly stated thus. A peculiar whitish matter
exuded from the subject, a girl named Eva, coming partly through her
skin, partly from her hands, partly from the orifices of her face,
especially her mouth. This was photographed repeatedly at every stage
of its production, these photographs being appended to the printed
treatise. This stuff, solid enough to enable one to touch and to
photograph, has been called the ectoplasm. It is a new order of
matter, and it is clearly derived from the subject herself, absorbing
into her system once more at the end of the experiment. It exudes in
such quantities as to entirely, cover her sometimes as with an apron.
It is soft and glutinous to the touch, but varies in form and even in
colour. Its production causes pain and groans from the subject, and
any violence towards it would appear also to affect her. A sudden
flash of light, as in a flash-photograph, may or may not cause a
retraction of the ectoplasm, but always causes a spasm of the subject.
When re-absorbed, it leaves no trace upon the garments through which it
has passed.
This is wonderful enough, but far more fantastic is what has still to
be told. The most marked property of this ectoplasm, very fully
illustrated in the photographs, is that it sets or curdles into the
shapes of human members--of fingers, of hands, of faces, which are at
first quite sketchy and rudimentary, but rapidly coalesce and develop
until they are undistinguishable from those of living beings. Is not
this the very strangest and most inexplicable thing that has ever yet
been observed by human eyes? These faces or limbs are usually the size
of life, but they frequently are quite miniatures. Occasionally they
begin by being miniatures, and grow into full size. On their first
appearance in the ectoplasm the limb is only on one plane of matter, a
mere flat appearance, which rapidly rounds itself off, until it has
assumed all three planes and is complete. It may be a mere simulacrum,
like a wax hand, or it may be endowed with full power of grasping
another hand, with every articulation in perfect working order.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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