366

TERRIBLE POWER SHOWN,

side to side, gradually becoming more powerful, and at last so violent that it was snatched from our hands. Then, at our request, the table was made so heavy that I found it scarcely possible, with all my strength, to move it even half an inch from the floor; the apparent weight some two hundred pounds. Then, again at our request, it was made so light that we could lift one end of it with a single finger; its weight seeming ten or twelve pounds only. Then it was laid down on its side; and, no one touching it, I was unable to raise it. Then it was tilted on two legs and all my strength was insufficient to press it down.

Finally, after being jerked with such sudden violence that we all drew back, fearing injury, and merely reached our fingers on the edge of its top, it was projected into the air so high that when we rose from our chairs we could barely place our fingers on it; and there it swung about, during six or seven seconds. Besides touching it, we could see its motion by the dim light.

We sat again in the evening at ten o'clock, in the same room, darkened only three at the table, N, Charles, and myself. Then-probably intensified by the darkness-commenced a demonstration exhibiting more physical force than I had ever before witnessed. I do not believe that the strongest man living could, without a handle fixed to pull by, have jerked the table with anything like the violence with which it was now, as it seemed, driven from side to side. We all felt it to be a power, a single stroke from which would have killed any one of us on the spot. Then the table was, as it were, flung upward into the air, again so high that, when we stood up, we could just touch it, and shaken backward and forward for some time ere it was set down. Again it was raised, even more violently than before and swung backward and forward, as far as by the touch we could judge, in an arc of seven or eight feet, some five or six times. A third time it was hurled into the air, sometimes out of our reach, but we felt it turn over and like a revolving wheel, eight or ten times. As nearly as we could judge without reference to our watches, it was some

over,

BUT NO HARM DONE.

367

twelve or fourteen seconds in the air, before it descended. Some times we were able to touch it, sometimes not.

Then I asked whether, some time hereafter, we might not be able to obtain objective apparitions. The answer was given by raising the table three times from the floor, each time slamming it down with such force that the noise was distinctly heard in the story above; and, when a candle was lighted, we found the top (of inch board), split entirely across and wrenched from the legs; the long nails with which it had been secured to prevent such accident being drawn out.

While these manifestations were in progress, it occurred to me, as very strong evidence of the humane care of the operating spirits, that when such tremendous power was exerted close to us, no serious accident happened; and that I had never heard of any such, on similar occasion. Once N- -'s wrist was sprained, and twice his knees and also Charles' were struck ; but though this pained them a good deal at the moment, the pain ceased in a few minutes-through spiritual influence, as they supposed. I certainly would not trust myself within reach of any similar demonstrations, if produced by human hands.

I expressed my thankfulness and gratification at having been allowed to witness such manifestations. The answer, by impression through Charles' hand, was: "Don't you know that we are as much gratified to give them as you to receive them?"

Then they informed us that "their powers were a little shattered for to-night;" and, at midnight, we adjourned.

I beg that my readers will here note the attendant circumstances. The locality, selected by myself, the drawing-room in a gentleman's house; no professional medium present; the assistants, the son of the gentleman in whose house we were sitting and two other gentlemen, his near relations; the motion out of our reach, so that it was a sheer impossibility that those present could have produced it. The shattered table remained, a tangible proof of the strong force employed.

368

SUSPICION OF IMPOSTURE OUT OF PLACE.

How thoroughly out of place here the suspicion of deception or imposture! How utterly untenable the hypothesis of illusion or hallucination ! Thomas, touching, would have believed. It would need a disciple of Berkeley to witness these phenomena, and still remain a sceptic in the reality of such manifestations.

CHAPTER III.

DIRECT SPIRIT-WRITING.

"In the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of the king's palace: and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote."— DANIEL V. 5.

A TRAVELLER, bound on some mission of passing importance, may now and then, amid the prosaic details he encounters from stage to stage in his journey, lose sight of the great object to which it leads: yet, in proportion as he nears the goal, his thoughts concentre, more and more, on the ultimate issue. So, in the journey through these pages, may it happen to the reader. He is travelling in search of proofs, cognizable by human senses, of another life. As he proceeds, the phenomena, homely at first, gain in living interest; for they go to establish, ever more and more conclusively, the existence of an agency not occult, not ultramundane only, but intelligent, but spiritual: the agency of beings like ourselves, though they be no longer denizens of earth.

There was published, in Paris in the year 1857, by a young Russian nobleman, a book* which did not attract the attention it deserved. Its author, whose acquaintance I had the pleasure of making in Paris, a year after his book appeared, had devoted his life, almost exclusively, to the study of what he deemed the Supernatural and of the relations between the

* La Réalité des Esprite et le Phénomène merveilleux de leur Ecriture directe demontrées, par le Baron DE GULDENSTUBBÉ, Paris, 1857.

For particulars regarding the Guldenstubbé family and their residence, see Footfalls, pp. 262 and 260 (note).

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EXPERIENCES IN SPIRIT-WRITING

visible world and that which we have yet to see the object of his studies being to obtain positive demonstration of the soul's immortal existence. His work is that of a classical scholar, and contains curious and interesting researches touching the Spiritualism of antiquity. It exhibits much sagacity, with the drawback that the Baron believes not only in influences from the next world but also in direct, miraculous intervention of God; as the arresting, by Him, of the earth and the moon in their orbits for the space of a day.* The book is chiefly occupied, as its title implies, with proofs of direct writing by spirits.

In the ten months from August, 1856, when M. de Guldenstubbé first observed this phenomenon, to June, 1857, he obtained more than five hundred specimens; out of which he gives us lithographs of sixty-seven. These experiences were witnessed by more than fifty persons; of whom he names thirteen. These witnesses furnished the paper that was used in the experiments.

These experiments were chiefly made, and were most successful, in old cathedrals or in other ancient places of worship, or in historic residences. But before I reached Paris, in the autumn of 1858, there had been an order issued, either by the government or the clergy, prohibiting such experiments in churches and other public buildings. It was vigorously enforced, as we found when Baron de Guldenstubbé, his sister and myself visited the Abbey of St. Denis, on the twenty-ninth of September, and placed a paper in one of the side chapels. I had determined, however, to persevere in my endeavor to

* Work cited, p. 44. Joshua x. 12–14.

Namely: Prince Léonide Galitzin, of Moscow; Prince S. Metschersky; General the Baron de Bréwern; Baron de Voigts-Rhetz; Baron Borys d'Uexkull; Count de Szapary; Count d'Ourches; Colonel Toutcheff; Colonel de Kollmann; Doctor Georgii, now of London; Doctor Bowron, of Paris; M. Kiorboë, a distinguished artist, and M. Ravené, proprietor of a gallery of paintings at Berlin.—Introduc tion, p. xv.