The Shadow World Part 23

"That's what troubles me," said Miller. "If a phantom hand can bring a real book and thumb its leaves, or drum with a real pencil or write, why isn't it, for all practicable purposes, a real hand?"

"What _is_ a real hand?" retorted Fowler. "Isn't the latest word of science to the effect that matter like the human body is only a temporary condition of force?"

"Precisely so; and every advance along the line of these experiments goes to prove the power of mind to transform matter. It almost seems to me at times as though these psychic minds were able to reduce matter to its primal atom and reshape it. In Bottazzi's seventh sitting, under the same rigorous restraint of Eusapia, a vase of flowers was transported, a rose was set in a lady's hair, a small drum was seized and beaten rhythmically, an enormous black fist came out from behind the curtain, and an open hand seized Bottazzi gently by the neck. Now listen to his own words: 'Letting go my hold of Professor Poso's hand,' he says, 'I felt for this ghostly hand and clasped it. _It was a left hand, neither hot nor cold, with rough, bony fingers which dissolved under pressure.

It did not retire by producing a sensation of withdrawal--it dissolved, "dematerialized," melted._'"

I paused to say: "Remember, this is not the tale of a perfervid spiritist. On the contrary, it is the scientific account of a laboratory experiment by a physiologist of high rank. The incident is not a part of a seance in the home of a medium in a dark parlor full of side-doors and trick windows. It is a registered phenomenon in the physiological department of a great university, occurring under scientific test conditions. I confess it gives verity to many a doubtful thing I have myself seen."

"It certainly staggers me," said Cameron. "How does the scientific gentleman explain it?"

"He goes on to say: 'Another time, later on, the same hand was placed on my right forearm--I saw a human hand, of natural color, and I felt with mine the back of a lukewarm hand, rough and nervous. _The hand dissolved (I saw it with my own eyes) and retreated as if into Madame Paladino's body, describing a curve._ If all the observed phenomena of these seven seances were to disappear from my memory, this one I could never forget.'"

Fowler was smiling with calm disdain. "Let him go on with his psycho-dynamic theories. He will be confounded yet. These are only the first stages of the game."

"But all this happened while the hands of the psychic were merely held,"

protested Miller. "He says he controlled her hands rigorously. Why didn't he handcuff her, or nail her down? The facts he claims to have established are too subversive to accept on his word alone."

This amused me. "There you go again! Not satisfied with wonders, you want miracles. Happily, you may be satisfied. In the eighth sitting, which took place in the same room of the physiological laboratory, with Bottazzi, Madame Bottazzi, Professor Galeotti, Doctors j.a.ppelli and d'Errico present, Eusapia submitted to the most rigorous restraint of her life. Two iron rings were fastened to the floor, and by means of strong cords, which were sealed with lead seals like those used in fastening a railway car, her wrists were rigidly confined. She was, in fact, bound like a criminal; and yet the spectral hands and fists came and went, jugs of water floated about, and as a final stupendous climax, while Galeotti was controlling Eusapia's right arm, which was also manacled, he _saw_ the duplications of her left arm. 'LOOK!' he exclaimed, 'I SEE TWO LEFT ARMS IDENTICAL IN APPEARANCE. ONE IS ON THE LITTLE TABLE. THE OTHER SEEMS TO COME OUT OF THE MEDIUM'S SHOULDER, TOUCH MADAME BOTTAZZI, AND THEN RETURN TO EUSAPIA'S BODY AGAIN. THIS IS NOT AN HALLUCINATION. I AM CONSCIOUS OF TWO SIMULTANEOUS VISUAL SENSATIONS WHEN MADAME BOTTAZZI SAYS SHE HAS BEEN TOUCHED.'"

For a moment the entire company sat in silence, as though stunned by the force of my blow. Then all turned to Miller as though to ask: "What do you think of that?"

He slowly replied: "To grant the possible putting forth of a supernumerary arm and hand would make physiological science foolish. It is easier to imagine these gentlemen suffering a collective hallucination."

"Ah! Bottazzi provided against all that. He called in the aid of self-registering contrivances. It won't do, Miller--he proved the objective reality of 'spirit phenomena.' He lifted the whole performance to the plane of the test-tube, the electric light, and the barometer.

His experiments, his deductions, came as a splendid sequence to an almost equally searching series by Crookes, Zollner, Wallace, Thury, Flammarion, Maxwell, Lombroso, Richet, Foa, and Morselli. His laboratory was the crucible wherein came the final touch of heat which fuses all the discordant facts into a solid ingot of truth."

"But, to me, he is misreading the facts," objected Fowler. "I maintain that he is as prejudiced in his way as the spiritist. He says: 'The mediumistic limbs explored the cabinet.' A spiritist would say: '_John King_ explored the cabinet.' The synchronism he speaks of might exist, and only be a proof of what the spiritist admits--that the presence and activity of the materializing spirit are closely circ.u.mscribed by the medium."

"Bottazzi proved the relationship to be something more intimate than that. He demonstrated that the movement of the hands in the cabinet and of those outside had a common origin--namely, the will and brain of Eusapia. He proved that these invisible hands were, after all, material, and limited in their powers. He proved that the 'spirits' shared all Eusapia's likes and dislikes, and knew no more of chloride of iron or ferro-cyanide of pota.s.sium than she herself possessed--in short, while admitting the mystery of the process, he reduces all these phenomena to human, terrestrial level, and relates them wholly and simply to the brain and will of the psychic. Perhaps his state of mind is best expressed at the close of his statement concerning the registration of the movements of 'the spirit hand.' He says, in effect: 'These tracings demonstrate irrefutably that the keys were repeatedly pressed with perfect synchronism, the outside key with Eusapia's left hand, the one inside the cabinet by another, which a convinced spiritist would call that of a "materialized spirit," and which I believe to be neither the one nor the other, although I am not able to explain what it was.'"

"Oh, lame and impotent conclusion!" exclaimed Brierly. "After that superb test, why didn't he frankly say the discarnate had been proved?"

"Because his proof, his knowledge, was not yet sufficient. Besides, it requires heroic courage to admit our ignorance. 'I don't know,' he says, and that is the att.i.tude of Morselli. Dr. Foa believes the phenomena to come within the domain of natural law, and to result from a trans.m.u.tation of energy acc.u.mulated in the medium. He calls this 'vital energy' or 'psychic energy,' and adds: 'If these phenomena appear strange by virtue of their comparative rarity, they are not really more marvellous than the biological phenomena which we witness every day.'"

"According to this theory, then," said Miller, "Mrs. Smiley has remained, as you believe, motionless in her chair, but has been able to 'energize' at a distance."

"More than that. She has been able to emit supernumerary etheric limbs, perhaps a complete material double of herself, which is able to move with lightning speed and perfect precision. It is this actual externalization of both matter and sense that makes darkness so essential to the medium. Vivid light forces this effluvia, this mysterious double, back into its originating body with disrupting haste.

Witness the several times when Mrs. Smiley was convulsed merely by being touched at the wrong moment."

"There is a different interpretation to be put upon the psychic's hatred of light," remarked Howard.

"By-the-way, yet bearing on this very subject, I read in the _Annals of Psychic Science_ the account of a singular experiment in the matter of independent writing. A certain Dr. Encausse, in giving a lecture before the Society for Psychical Research at Nancy, said that in 1889, having heard that a professional magnetizer named Robert was able to put a subject into such a state of hypnosis that he could project lines of writing on paper without use of pen or pencil, he was curious to see the performance. Together with a colleague, Dr. Gibier, Encausse hastened to witness this marvel. One of the subjects was a girl of seventeen. The magnetizer put her to sleep, 'and during this seance,' says Dr.

Encausse, 'we were able to obtain in full light on a sheet of paper signed by twenty witnesses, the precipitation of a whole page of written verses signed "Corneille." I examined under the microscope the substance that formed the writing, and I was led to the conclusion that it consisted of globules of human blood, some scattered as if calcined, others quite distinct. I thus verified the theory of the occultists of 1850 that the nervous energy as well as the physical force of a medium, the material of which he is const.i.tuted, such as his blood, could exteriorize itself and reconstruct itself at a distance.'"

"What a stunning experiment!" exclaimed Cameron.

"Important, if true," sneered Harris.

"What do you know about this learned doctor?" asked Miller.

"Nothing; but you will see that these later experiments of the Italian scientists are sustaining De Rochas and Aksakof in their claim that the medium is in a sense dematerialized to build up the phantasms. Dr.

Encausse goes on to say: '_Moreover, the medium who had produced this phenomenon was preparing for the stage and had been studying Corneille during the whole of the preceding day._ I was thus able to discover the origin of the substance of the materialization of the writing, and also its psychic origin.' In other words, he claims that the message was not from the shade of the great dramatist, but was a precipitation of the blood of the psychic and an exercise of her subconscious mind, all of which accords with Bottazzi's theory.

"Now, then," said I, in the tone of one about to conclude, "in the light of these experiments, my own sitting at Miller's, and especially those that I held at Fowler's house, take on the greatest significance.

Miller, Mrs. Smiley's _visible limbs_ did not handle the books--of that I am positive--and yet I am equally certain that she governed every movement."

"But what about the voices?" asked Fowler. "Does this theory cover the whispering personalities we heard? What about 'Wilbur' and 'Maudie'?"

"That's easy," retorted Howard. "Once you explain the manipulation of the cone, the rest is merely clever ventriloquism."

"There is nothing 'easy' about any of these phenomena," I answered. "As Richet says, they are absurd, but they are observed facts. It would not be fair to the spiritists to end the account of these sittings without frankly stating that there were many other phenomena very difficult to explain by Bottazzi's theory. There came a time, as he admits, when 'a mysterious ent.i.ty behind the curtain, among us, almost in contact with us, was felt all the time.' This ent.i.ty was supposed to be 'John King,'

the psychic's control. This being, invisible for the most part, gave roses to those he liked, conversed freely, and in one case threw a bunch of flowers in the face of one of the sitters to whom Eusapia had taken a dislike. A little later 'John' presented a small drum from behind the curtain, and, when Galeotti tried to take it, 'John' pulled it out of his hands. Again he offered it, and Galeotti seized it, and the two fought for its possession with such violence that the drum was nearly torn to pieces."

"Where was Paladino meanwhile?" asked Miller.

"Seated quietly in the grasp of Bottazzi and Madame Bottazzi. Galeotti then raised the drum in his hand, high above his head and against the curtain, and requested 'John' to beat it. 'John' pushed a hand against the drum and beat a m.u.f.fled tattoo. All this was utterly out of the psychic's reach. The strife over the drum would seem to argue a complete and powerful figure behind the curtain."

"In other words, a spirit," said Brierly.

"Not so fast," put in Miller. "I am content to plod with these Italian scientists. Let us establish one supernormal fact and then reach for another. You fellows with your 'reincarnations,' and the spiritist with his foolish messages from Cleopatra, Raphael, and Shakespeare, have confused the situation. We must begin all over again. If all that Garland is detailing is true--I have not read these reports he speaks of--then it is our duty to take up the scrutiny of these facts as a part of biologic science."

Fowler clapped his hands. "Bravo! that is all we ask of you. To study frogs and mosquitoes, to peer close into the const.i.tution of the blood or the brain of man, is useful; but, to my mind, the questions raised by these Continental experimentalists are the most vital now clamoring for answer."

"Bottazzi says, with regard to his eighth and final sitting: 'The results of this seance were very favorable, because they eliminated the slightest trace of suspicion or uncertainty relative to the genuineness of the phenomena. We obtained the same kind of a.s.surance as that which we have concerning physical, chemical, or physiological phenomena.

Henceforth sceptics can only deny the facts by accusing us of fraud and charlatanism. I should be very much surprised if any one were bold enough to bring the charge against us, but it would not disturb our minds in the least. From this time forward the medium who wishes to prove the truth of her phenomena will be obliged to permit the same kind of experimentation which Eusapia so adequately sustained.'"

"Well, now," said Cameron, "the practical question is this: are we to go on with our investigation?"

"I am ready," said Miller, promptly. "Garland, will you purvey another psychic and conduct the pursuit?"

"Yes, provided you all come in with spirits attuned, ready to wait patiently and observe silently. The law of these materializations seems to be this: the forces of the psychic are proportional to the harmoniousness of the circle and in inverse proportion to the light.

Accepting this law as proved by our ill.u.s.trious fellow-experimenters abroad, are you ready to try again along the lines they have marked out?"

As with one voice, all agreed.

"Very well," said I; "I will see what I can do for you in the way of a new psychic and new phenomena. We will now experiment with design to prove the ident.i.ty of the reappearing dead. Of this I am fully persuaded. Men will be discovering new laws of nature ten thousand years from now, just as they are to-day. It is inconceivable that the secrets of the universe should ever be entirely made plain. The world of mystery retires before the dawn. Nothing is really explained--what we call familiar facts are at bottom inexplicable mysteries, and must ever remain so."

"Then why go on? Why not stop now and save ourselves the trouble of investigation?"

"Because there is joy in the pursuit--because it is in the nature of man to pursue this quest. Who knows but the conclusions of Venzano and Morselli, of Bottazzi and Foa, have opened new vistas in human nature?

These 'supernormal powers' may chance to be of immense value to the race, quite aside from their bearing upon the problem of death.

Furthermore, these reports come at a time when a hard-and-fast literalism of interpretation is the fashion among scientists like Miller. Perhaps they and the art of the day will alike be offered new inspiration by these mystifying enlargements of human faculty. I for one feel profoundly indebted to these brave and clear-brained Italian scientists. I should like to see the physicists of our own universities busying themselves with this most absorbing and vital problem."

"But they don't," retorted Fowler. "They will not even read Bottazzi's reports."

And I fear he is justified in his belief.