Mysterious Psychic Forces: An Account of the Author's Investigations in Psychical Research, Together with Those of Other European Savants
John Stuart Mill · en
I have imprints in boxes of clay weighing anywhere between fifty-five
and sixty-five pounds. I mention the weight in order to let you see
the impossibility of lifting and transporting _with one hand alone_ so
heavy a tray, even upon the supposition that Eusapia might, unknown to
us, free one of her hands. In almost every case, in fact, this tray,
placed upon a chair _three feet behind the medium_, was brought
forward and placed very gently upon the table about which we were
seated. The transfer was made with such nicety that the persons who
formed the chain and held firmly the hands of Eusapia did not hear the
least noise, did not perceive the least rustling. We were forewarned
of the arrival of the tray upon the table by seven taps, which,
according to our conventional arrangement, John struck in the wall to
inform us that we could turn on the light. I did so at once by turning
the cock of the gas-fixture which was suspended above the table. (We
had never completely extinguished it.) We then found the tray upon the
table, and, upon the clay, the imprint which we supposed must have
been made before its transfer, and while it was behind Eusapia, in the
cabinet where John usually materializes and manifests himself.
The totality of these observations (which are very numerous) leads us to
the thought that, in spite of the improbability of the thing, these
imprints are produced at a distance by the medium.
However, some days after the seance at Montfort-l'Amaury I wrote as
follows:
These different manifestations are not to me equally authentic. I am
not sure of all of them, for the phenomena were not all produced
under the same conditions of certainty. I should wish to class the
facts in the following order of decreasing certainty:
1. Levitations of the table.
2. Movements of the round table without contact.
3. Mallet blows.
4. Movements of the curtain.
5. Opaque silhouette passing before the red lamp.
6. Sensation of a beard upon the back of the hand.
7. Touchings.
8. Snatching of the block of paper.
9. Throwing of the lead-pencil.
10. Transference of the round table to the top of the other table.
11. Music from the little box.
12. Transfer of the guitar to a point above the head.
13. Imprints of a hand and of a face.