"I never said it was possible, I only said it was true."

William Crookes.

Science, unwilling to recognize anything outside of matter, denies the possibility of any physical manifestation without contact, as if visibility were the essential condition of materiality. These are the manifestations which have been scorned, which are still unrecognized or admitted only to be denied all importance.

Every new idea passes through three successive phases. At first men mock and combat, later the idea becomes self-evident: and finally men claim we are forcing doors that are already open. This is the history of table-tipping, automatic writing, haunted houses, and extra-physiological formations of strange shapes and human members.

These are facts which, however absurd they may seem, nevertheless exist.

In 1854, Count Agenor de Gasparin published a large work, in two volumes, upon turning-tables which he had studied from a strictly scientific point of view. His aim had been to demonstrate that table-tipping was a purely physical manifestation, and he had the simplicity to believe that because his demonstration had been made, it would remain uncontested. Alas! other demonstrations followed, and other experimenters showed the same simplicity. This has continued for sixty years.

Gasparin placed three trays upon his table, the last being filled with stones; the table thus weighted, rose upon the desired side.

Certain scholars, witnessing the experiment, expressed the theory of unconscious pressure! They agreed, therefore, that if flour were spread upon the table and no trace of finger prints remained after the lifting, no further objection would be possible. This experiment was tried again and again with complete success.

M. Marc Thury, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Geneva, strove in his turn to throw a new light upon these feats of lifting without contact. He operated in such a way as to obtain this movement under conditions where the mechanical action of fingers would have been impossible. In his presence, a child raised a piano weighing 400 pounds, and as this movement was explained as the result of action of the knees, the child repeated the phenomenon, kneeling upon a stool and playing on the piano in this position.

The conclusions drawn by Thury were:

1. That a fluid is produced by the brain and is set free along the nerves.

2. That this fluid may go beyond the limits of the human body.

3. That it obeys will-power. Thury wrote upon this subject:

"The task of Science is to bear witness to the truth. It cannot do this if it borrows a part of its data from revelation or tradition, for that is a begging of the question and so the testimony of Science becomes void.

"Natural facts fall into two categories of forces, the one necessary, the other free. In the first category belong the general forces of gravity, heat, light, electricity and growth. It is possible that others may be discovered one day, but at present these are the only ones that we know. To the second category of forces belongs the soul both of animals and the soul of man: these are indeed forces, for they cause movements and varied phenomena in the physical world."

Thus the work of two experimenters contained already, in germ, this affirmation of something material, indeterminate, fluidic, in connection with the soul force, acting outside the human body and obedient to its will.

Later, to put this fact beyond all dispute, registering apparatus was constructed. Robert Hare, chemist at Harvard University, was the first to employ this method.

In 1869, the Dialectic Society of London resolved upon an investigation and formed a committee that held fifty seances. In the course of these, important testimony, much of which came from high authorities, was registered.

The sub-committee No. 1 wrote: 1

"Your committee has avoided employing professional or salaried mediums. The only mediumship was that of its members, all of good social position and strictest integrity.

"Your committee has limited its report to facts observed by its assembled members; these facts were perceptible to the senses and possessed a reality susceptible of indisputable proof.1

1 Report upon Spiritism.

"Four-fifths of your sub-committee, at the outset of the experiments, were skeptical concerning the reality of the above-mentioned phenomena. They were convinced that these phenomena were the result either of imposture, illusion, or unconscious muscular action. It was only in the face of overwhelming evidence, under conditions that excluded all possibility of these solutions, and after repeated experiments and proofs, that the most skeptical were convinced, little by little, despite themselves, that the phenomena observed in the course of their long investigation were incontestable facts.

"These manifestations occurred so often, under so many and such diverse conditions, surrounded by so many precautions against error or illusion, and gave such invariable results, that the members of your subcommittee who followed the experiments, although the majority had begun in absolute skepticism, became fully convinced that a force exists capable of moving heavy bodies without material contact, and that this force depends, in a manner still unknown, upon the presence of human beings."

Here we have to deal with a definite conclusion. Each time that men have seriously studied the matter in good faith, they have rendered a similar verdict. However, it will always be impossible to overcome preconceived opinion: those who had been inclined to accept this decision, refused it, because it was contrary to their expectations. They insisted that a verdict of this nature should be confirmed by a decisive authority.

1 Underlined in the report of the Committee.

This was the cause and origin of the researches undertaken by Sir William Crookes. This time it was the complete routing of the skeptics. They had declared in advance their willingness to accept the conclusions of William Crookes. But they continued to discuss, giving proof of ignorance and bad faith. "From all appearance," wrote Camille Flam-marion upon this subject, "they approved the entrance of this ingenious chemist into these occult and heretical researches, only with the idea that he would demonstrate the falsity of these prodigies."