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

THE EXISTENCE OF HPIRITS. 73338. ''The Journal du Magnctismc of the 10th of March, 1853, hadalready furnished us witli the reported account given in the course of lastJanuary to thetribunal of London, by the rappinff i^pirit of the house ofSanger; the same phenomena, the same stupefaction, the same impossibilityto discover the jugglers. However, the subject appeared to rest atthis point in Germany, when, in the month of April, the first phenomenonof tabic mociiuj reached Bremen, and then the Aiigsbourg Gazette insistedon itstrue origin.339. '-'For eight days previous,* it said, 'our good town has beenin an agitation difl&cult to describe; it is completely absorbed by a miraclewhich was not thought of before the arrival of the steamer from NewTork—the Washington. The new phenomenon is imported fromAmerica.'340. " Now a certain Doctor Andr6 was the first to describe this firstexhibition of table tui'ning; therefore they called it his discovery. Whata discovery341. '"Having formed a chain,' he says, 'of seven or eight persons,the right little finger of each touching the left one of his neighbour, thetable they surround will commence turning, and continue as long as thechain remains unbroken, and stop when an individual leaves it.'342. "A general burst of pleasantry and incredulity first accompaniedthe revelation of the doctor. But soon experiment begins, and lauf'htergives place to a sort of dejection. Certain savans, professors of the Universityof Heidelberg, MM. Mittermouer and Zoepfl, M. Molh, brother of themember of the Institute, Eschenmajer, Ennemoser, and Kerner, attest thesame facts; and Doctor Loewe of Vienna undertakes to give the theory of it'This theory consists, according to him, in the opposite polarity of thehence, having formed a chain ofright and left sides of the human body ;human beings, the contrary poles of which, viz. the right and left, touch eachother, and this chain, exerting upon any body whatever a prolonged action,conveys to it an electric current, and converts it into a magnet, and thuspolarization is established in that body; and in virtue of its tendency tomagnetic orientation, the south pole of the table impressing it with amovement to the north, the latter commences a continued rotation, andturns on its axis as long as the indispensable conditions are continued.'343. "Unfortunately, the spirits are very soon seen to dispense with theseindispensahle conditions. Thus, then, at Bremen, Vienna, and Berlin,there was not a table at rest on its legs, and still the French press observeda uniform inexplicable silence !344. "We ask, however, what would have been said, had we foretoldwhat began to appear unavoidable, that in less than a month, table andhat turning would reach Paris. The announcement was scarcely knownwhen it appears that such a thing has always existed; that it is a law ofnature; and that tables never had any other destiny !