Mysterious Psychic Forces: An Account of the Author's Investigations in Psychical Research, Together with Those of Other European Savants
John Stuart Mill · en
At this epoch of her life it was remarked that the Spiritualistic
seances to which she was invited succeeded much better when she was
seated at the table. But they tired and bored her, and she refrained
from taking part in them for eight or nine years.
It was only in her twenty-second or twenty-third year that the
Spiritualistic education of Eusapia began. It was directed by an
ardent Spiritualist, M. Damiani. It was then that the personality of
_John King_ appeared, a spirit who took possession of her when she was
in the trance state.[31]
This John King is said to be the brother of Crookes's Katie King, and
to have been Eusapia's father in another existence. It is John who
speaks when Eusapia is in her trance; when he speaks of her, he calls
her "my daughter," and gives advice about the care of her person and
life. M. Ochorowicz thinks this John is a personality created in the
spirit of Eusapia by the union of a certain number of impressions
collected in the different psychic environments in which her life has
been passed. This would be almost the identical explanation for the
personalities suggested by the hypnotists, and for the variations of
personality observed by MM. Azam, Bourru, and Burot, et al.
Some have thought they noticed that Eusapia prepared herself,
consciously or unconsciously, at the seance, by diminishing her
respiration,--a very singular thing. At the same time, her pulse
gradually rises from 88 to 120 pulsations a minute. Is this a practice
analogous to that which the fakirs of India employ, or a simple effect
of the emotion which, before every seance, Eusapia experiences?--a
fact which has a strong tendency to convince the sitters, but is never
sure of the production of the phenomena.
Eusapia is not hypnotized; she enters of herself into the trance state
when she becomes a link in the chain of hands.
She begins to sigh deeply, then yawns and hiccoughs. A series of
varied expressions passes over her face. Sometimes it takes on a
demoniacal look, accompanied by a fitful laugh very much like that
which Gounod gives to Mephistopheles in the opera of _Faust_, and
which almost always precedes an important phenomenon. Sometimes her
face flushes; the eyes become brilliant and liquid, and are opened
wide. The smile and the motions are the mark of the erotic ecstasy.
She says "_mio caro_" ("my dear"), leans her head upon the shoulder of
her neighbor, and courts caresses when she believes that he is
sympathetic. It is at this point that phenomena are produced, the
success of which causes her agreeable and even voluptuous thrills.
During this time her legs and her arms are in a state of marked
tension, almost rigid, or even undergo convulsive contractions.
Sometimes a tremor goes through her entire body.