Allan Kardec-THE Spirit's Book_ The Principles of Spiritist Doctrine (1989)

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THE SPIRITS’ BOOK
at an adverse conclusion in regard to them. The tables, however, despite that conclusion,
continued to turn; and we may say of them, with Galileo, "Nevertheless, they move!" We may
assert, still further, that the facts alluded to have been multiplied to such an extent that they
have become naturalised among us, so that opinions are now only divided as to their nature.
And here let us ask whether the fact that these phenomena are not always produced in exactly
the same way, and according to the wishes and requirements of each individual observer, can
be reasonably regarded as constituting an argument against their reality? Are not the
phenomena of electricity and chemistry subordinated to certain conditions, and should we be
right in denying their reality because they do not occur when those conditions are not present?
Is it strange, then, that certain conditions should be necessary to the production of the
phenomenon of the movement of objects by the human fluid, or that it should not occur when
the observer, placing himself at his own individual point of view, insists on producing it at his
own pleasure, or in subjecting it to the laws of phenomena already known, without
considering that a new order of facts may, and indeed must, result from the action of laws
equally new to us? Now, in order to arrive at a knowledge of such laws, it is necessary to
study the circumstances under which those facts are produced; and such a study can only be
made through long-sustained and attentive observation.
"But," it is often objected, "there is evident trickery in some of the occurrences referred to."
To this objection we reply, in the first place, by asking whether the objectors are quite sure
that what they have taken for trickery may not be simply an order of facts which they are not
yet able to account for, as was the case with the peasant who mistook the experiments of a
learned professor of physics for the tricks of a clever conjuror? But even admitting that there
has been trickery in some cases, is that a reason for denying the reality of facts? Must we
deny the reality of physics because certain conjurors give themselves the title of physicists?
Moreover, the character of the persons concerned in these manifestations should be taken into
account, and the interest they may have in deceiving. Would they do so by way of a joke? A
joke may amuse for a moment, but a mystification, if kept up too long, would become as
wearisome to the mystifier as to the mystified. Besides, a mystification carried