Experimental investigation of the spirit manifestations, [electronic ...

80 FOREIGN CORROBORATIVE EVIDENCE OFthe facts well seen and satisfactorily produced by myself^ in whom youhave, I think, as much confidence a.s in yourself. The explanation willcome hereafter, rest assured. Believe firmly that in these phenomena ofturning tables there is something more than you see—a j^^W^i^al realityoutside of the imagination and of the faith of those who appear to makethem move.'379. " It is impossible, as we see, to be more positive, or better to defendi\iQ physical evidence on the ground of facts. M. Seguin has a thousandtimes the advantage over his learned antagonist; but let us see if M., theAbb6 Moigno, defeated on this ground, will not take his revenge on another.380. ^^ Referring to a communication made to the academy by one M.Yauquelin, about one of these enchanted tables, which in his hands wasable to reply to the most mysterious questions, divine the most secretthoughts, &c., M. Meigno exclaims in Le Cosmos Revue Enci/clopidiquedes Sciences: 'This time it is too strong ; we find ourselves definitively atthe mercy of magic, and the moment has come to proclaim it at Rome.Then there is neither magnetism nor electricity; not even the influenceof human volition on matter; but supposing the fact to be certain—WHICHIS HARD TO SWALLOW—there must be in it the intervention of spirits^ ormagic. Intelligence that can refuse these deductions of common sense,would be DISORDERED intelligence, as useless to dispute with as with fools.If you have not been mistaken, if the extraordinary facts which youafiirm are true, we ourselves are believers. The intervention of spiritsand of magic became the sorrowful but great realities.'381. " M. Agenor De Gasparin, one of our most sedate philosophers,writes what follows in La Gazette de France :—' I will not insist on thispoint. The phenomenon of rotation, if alone, would not appear to meentirely satisfactory.I am mistrustful, though not an academician, and,I admit, that it may be possible (at a pinch) that a mechanical impulsionmight be communicated. But the rotation only serves to present otherphenomena, the explanation of which it isimpossible to refer to any kindof muscular action.382. '' Each ' of us, in his turn, gave orders to the table, which itpromptly obeyed ; and I should succeed with difficulty in explaining toyou the strange character of these movements, of blows struck with anexactness, with a solemnity that fairly frightened us. " Strike three blows :strike ten blows. Strike with your left foot; with your right foot; withyour middle foot. Rise on two of your feet; on only one foot ; remain upprevent those on the side raised from returning the table to the floor."After each command the table obeyed. It produced movements that nocomplicity, involunt^ary or voluntary, could have induced ;for ice shouldhave affcncard fried in vain to place it on one foot, and keep) it there bythe pressure of the hands, resisting incontestably the efforts to press it down.