ASPR Journal, V14 - Iapsop.com

318 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research.
The book contains accounts of some further important ex·
periments and advice for others. Some of the experiments prove
the loss of energy in the course of the experiments, tho we should
like to know if he made adequate allowance for evaporation from
the body. But that is not important here. \Vhat I want to
summarize briefly is an experiment of great value in showing
what many of us suspected, but never had the means of testing.
This is the inadequacy of unconscious muscular action in table
tipping where we had to admit that the hands rested upon it.
Movements of tables have no value as evidence for telekinesis
when the hands are on it, unless we test the matter as Dr.
Crawford has done. The spelling out of messages not known to
sitters is another matter. It is not te1ekinesis, however, and
this is often the issue.
Dr. Crawford constructed a table which he suspended by
cords to scales fastened to the ceiling. The top of the table
had four boards hinged on a central board and under them a
spring which would be pressed down by the hands resting on
it, and if the pressure reached a certain amount, say two pounds
by all the persons present, metal contacts under the boards con·
nected with electric wires which would tum on a current of
electricity with this contact and ring a bell. If the weight on
the scales registered more than two pounds and the bell did not
ring, you had evidence of force exerted on the scales that was
not exerted by hand pressure. The experiments showed that the
scales registered twenty-seven and one-half pounds more than
the weight of the table when the bell did not ring, showing that
less than two pounds were exerted by hand pressure on the table.
This will show that we cannot always argue with absolute
assurance, when hands are on the table, that the subject is the
sole cause of the effect. I have witnessed unconscious pressure
of large amounts in some instances where the subject denied
pressing at all, tho I felt a pressure of fifty pounds at least on
my hands under hers. She was undoubtedly anresthetic and did
not know it. But Dr. Crawford's experiments eliminate the
source of doubt in his case and we shall have to admit the pos·
sibility of foreign influence, where the conditions do not refute
the sceptic but can be made to refute him by proper methods.
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