Morselli

"Yes! These phenomena, the acceptance of which seemed to me at first to be due to deception or naivete, fraud or the illusion of the senses either in good faith or obstinacy, are in very large number authentic and certain: as for the few upon which I am not yet satisfied, they infringe in no wise upon the existence of an extraordinary or preternatural category of facts, dependent upon special organisms endowed with the faculty of making manifest images and wishes."

Pio Fioa

"Now that we are persuaded that the phenomena are authentic, we feel also a desire to declare it publicly and to proclaim that the rare pioneers in this branch of biology, destined to become one of the most important, see and observe, in general, with exactitude."

And now, being shown the conclusions of these modern scholars who have seriously studied the facts, one may wonder why there are still the incredulous. Why do certain persons who believe in wireless telegraphy, liquid air, and other phenomena they have never seen, of which they have not the slightest proof, and which they admit simply because they have heard of them, refuse to admit another phenomenon which has resisted sixty years of polemics, has been subjected to every test and every scientific investigation?

This is the question put by the learned neurologist of the University of Genoa. Having thus referred to his unbelief, he asserts anew:

"To-day, fortified with a sufficient experience, after long and mature reflection upon what I have seen and touched with my hands, after unrelaxed study of the question of mediumship during many years, I have changed my opinion."

In brief, here is the testimony of Morselli, upon that fact of special interest to us:

"The autonomous lifting of a table is the favorite subject for photography. In broad daylight, we have seen a table rise to the height of our heads while we were standing in the middle of a room. We have also witnessed minuets of the table, with the gas brightly lighted and while the medium was enclosed within a cabinet."

Finally, it is also important to cite the conclusion of Dr. Pio Fioa, professor of anatomy at the University of Turin, a conclusion which is infinitely valuable to us.

"One must conclude from these facts that the nervous system of the medium is in touch with currents which reach her from outside, and that currents leaving her nervous system proceed from her. These are sensitive and motive currents, not automatic, differing from those we know, and prolonged outside the organism for a certain distance, like the rays of a form of energy not yet known."

We ourselves declare that these conclusions are equivalent to the recognition of an unknown psychic organ: to us it appears to be the old Perisprit, known to the spiritists for sixty years and to the Egyptians more than six thousand years before our Christian era.

It is necessary to emphasize these scholarly witnesses, these testimonies ceaselessly renewed and these beginnings of scientific theories, because they are the very things of which the journals never make mention.

According to these journals the essence and basis of the spiritualistic movement is always either exploitation or weak-mindedness. The public is always ignorant of the serious foundation of the monument which is being raised, and it is even not rare to hear it said: "Since the papers show us that all this is only fraud and charlatanism, why do the scholars not undertake to elucidate the question? It should be settled."

But when in 1864, Count A. de Gasparin accumulated experiment after experiment, it was even then for the purpose of settling it.

When Robert Hare constructed the first apparatus to establish certitude upon an objective basis, he planned to settle the question.

When in 1869, the Dialectic Society of London created a commission of investigation, it was still for the purpose of settlement.

When still later, it was asserted that Sir William Crookes was the sole authority capable of pronouncing judgment, and the unbelievers declared in advance their intention of accepting as final the results of experiments based upon registering devices settling the matter was once more in order.

When M. Rochas added to all these proofs a new objective basis, by publishing the photographs of his work on L' Exteriorisation de la Motricite (The Outward Manifestation of Motivity), it was yet for the purpose of settlement.

When Cesar Lombroso, in 1891, accepted a celebrated challenge, and consented to examine Eusapia, that also was to settle the question.

And when journalists, who do not know the first word of the problem, come to us to say that our affirmations rest upon no objective basis, it will be for them to settle it. Let them tell us then what is an objective basis, what is a proof, and why our proofs are not proofs.

Several years ago, another attempt at solution was started. There was in Paris on the rue de Conde, a general Psychological Institute, whose beginning was not exactly favorable for our phenomena and whose method, marred with preconceived opinion and dogmatism, even succeeded in discouraging several eminent psychists who withdrew from its membership. It was this society which resolved to have done with the matter. They imagined that the previous experimenters must have been victims of collective hallucinations, and that since our senses may deceive us, their testimony could have no objective value. The Institute then declared that if the testimony of the senses corresponded to the results duly registered by the automatic apparatus constructed for this purpose, they would have set aside, this time, all possibility of error.

This was done in the course of a long series of experiments, covering three years, under the direction of Messrs. Curie, d'Arsonval, Bergson, Branly, Ed. Perrier, Boutroux, etc. These experiments should have given results which we could no longer question.

At the same time that the subject was being controlled, the automatic devices in a neighboring room were graphically inscribing the number and amplitude of the movements. They indicated liftings of the table, whether it was fully detached from the floor or if it raised one, two or three of its feet. Complete levitations of the four feet were registered during thirty to sixty seconds, while the attention of the spectators, thus relieved from the care of noting down the phenomenon, was occupied only in watching, some the hands, some the feet and others the knees or head of the medium.

But it were better to give some extracts from the report of the General Institute.

Extract from The Bulletin of the General Psychological Institute, p. 436:

"Eusapia asks the Countess de Grammont, who is outside the chain, to seat herself upon the table. She sits upon the small side of the table opposite Eusapia. Under these conditions, the third and fourth feet (those farthest from the medium) are raised and as the table falls back, a foot is broken. (Controllers: on the left, M. Yourievitch: at the right, M. Curie).

"Complete Lifting of the Table. The blinds of the two windows in the experimental room are open. (Controllers: at left, M. Yourievitch: at right, M. d'Arsonval.) Eusapia asks if M. Bergson (who is outside of the chain) sees both her knees. M. Berg-son: 'Very well.' "

The table suddenly rises from all four feet. M. Yourievitch: "I am sure that I did not loose her hand."

M. d'Arsonval: "I, also."

Another Case. Everyone is standing. At the request of Eusapia, M. Courtier holds her limbs: the table rises with its four feet about fifty centimeters above the carpet.

M. Debierne: "Her hand was upon the table."

M. Courtier: "I hold both her legs."

The table is lifted a second time under the same conditions.

Let us cite a last example, in which the conditions of evidence seem absolute: p. 472.

The small table (placed to the left of Eusapia, fifty centimeters from her chair), is completely lifted while Eusapia's feet are fastened to the feet of her chair, by the laces of her boots, and her wrists attached to the wrists of the controllers.

Reaching in its ascension the height of M. Curie's shoulders it turns over, with feet in air, then alights, its top against the top of the large table. The movement is not rapid, but appears to be carefully guided. Controllers: at left, M. Curie: at right, M. Yourievitch.

Neither Curie, nor Fielding, nor Yourievitch, nor Courtier, under whose eyes the occurrence took place in a light sufficient to analyze its phases, noticed at this moment any suspicious movement of the subject, who remained, as has been stated, bound hand and foot.

We have' felt that facts so simple, so clear, observed in broad daylight, subjected to an absolute control, and affirmed without restriction by scholarly authorities, could not be denied, save by persons suffering from cerebral anemia. That is also the opinion of Dr. Flournoy, the eminent psychologist, who, still hostile to our theories, but a conscientious scholar, bows before the facts and concludes:

"The report of the General Psychological Institute is overwhelming. ... I feel that the report constitutes a shining and decisive testimony in so much as there can be anything decisive in science."

And the reader will draw the same conclusion, we trust.