Mysterious Psychic Forces: An Account of the Author's Investigations in Psychical Research, Together with Those of Other European Savants
John Stuart Mill · en
The violin then fell upon the floor behind the curtains, or portieres.
One of these which was nearest to me resumed its vertical position,
and for a time I heard upon my right upon the floor behind the
curtains a kind of scrimmage between the violin and the tambourine,
which were displaced, pulled about, and lifted, clashing and
resounding at a great rate; and yet it was impossible to attribute any
of these manifestations to Eusapia, whose foot never moved, but
remained firmly pressed against my own.
A little after, I felt against my right leg, behind the curtain, the
rubbing of a hard body which was trying to climb upon me, and I
thought it was the violin. And so it was, in fact; and, after an
unsuccessful effort to climb higher than my knee, this apparently
living creature fell with a bang upon the floor.
Almost immediately I felt a new pressure upon my right hip, and
mentioned the circumstance. You disengaged your left hand from the
chain, and, turning toward me, twice made in the air the gesture of
the director of an orchestra moving his baton to and fro. And each
time, with perfect precision, I felt upon my side the repercussion of
a blow exactly tallying your gesture, which reached me after the delay
of a second more or less, and which seemed to me to correspond exactly
to the time necessary for the transference of a billiard ball or a
tennis ball from you to me.
Some one, Dr. Richet, I believe, having spoken at that time of strokes
upon the shoulders of the sitters in which the action and shape of a
human hand was very marked, I will mention as a proof of his remark
that I received in succession three blows upon the left shoulder (that
is to say, the one most distant from the curtain and from the medium),
more violent than the preceding ones; and this time the heavy pressure
of the five fingers was very evident. Then a last blow with the flat
of the hand, applied in the small of the back, without hurting me at
all, was strong enough to make me lean forward, in spite of myself,
toward the table.
Some moments after, my chair, moving under me, glided over the floor,
and was shifted in such a way as to leave my back turned a little in
the direction of the dark closet.
I leave to other witnesses the task of telling the results of their
personal observations,--how, for example, the violin, having been
picked up by you from the floor and replaced upon the table, was held
out by Mme. Brisson, as you had already done, and lifted up in the
same way in the sight of all, while I held the left hand of Eusapia,
you her right hand, and with the hand which remained free you pressed
the wrist of her left hand.
Nor do I say anything of a hand-pressure through the opening in the
curtain, having seen nothing of this myself.