MiHillWwMfBtii'Hit: I* Jt ■ • W! Hi::'-^f-t!:!Jjf!-^!-'.'-:;!-.tUx AFTER DEATH-WHAT? CESARE LOMBROSO £RAGILE DOES NOT CIRCULATE atiiaca. Nein fork FROM THE BENNO LOEWY LIBRARY 'collected by BENNO LOEWY 1854-l#tB '' BEQUEATHED TO CORNELL UNIVERSITY FRAGILE PAPER Please handle this book with care, as the paper is brittle. Cornell University Library BF1264 .L84 1909 olin 3 1924 028 954 638 AFTER DEATH -WHAT? Cornell University Library The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028954638 AFTER DEATH— WHAT? SPIRITISTIC PHENOMENA AND THEIR INTERPRETATION BY CESARE LOMBROSO AUTHOR OF "THE MAN OF GENIUS," "THE FEMALE OFFENDER," ETC. Rendered into English by WILLIAM SLOANE KENNEDY TRANStATOR OF CAMILLE FLAMMAKION's " MYSTERIOUS PSYCHIC FORCKS " Illustrated by Photographs., Diagrams, etc. lESSSBC^a igSCIENuVMf BOSTON SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY PUBLISHERS So Copyright, 1909 3Be Small, fliasnatO & dompanie (IHOOBTOBATID) Entered at Stationers' Hall THS UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. PREFACE When, at the close of a career — richer in fierce logomachy and struggle than in victory — in which I have figured as a champion of the new trend of human thought in psychiatry and criminal anthropology, I began investigations into the phenomena of spiritism and afterwards determined to publish a book on the subject, my nearest friends rose against me on every side, crying, " You will ruin an honorable reputation, — a career in which, after so many contests, you had finally reached the goal ; and all for a theory which the whole world not only repudiates, but, worse still, thinks to be ridiculous." But all this talk did not make me hesitate for a single moment. I thought it my predestined end and way and my duty to crown a life passed in the struggle for great ideas by entering the lists for this desperate cause, the most hotly con- tested and perhaps most persistently mocked at idea of the times. It seemed to me a duty that, up to the very last of the few days now remain- ing to me, I should unflinchingly stand my ground in the very thick of the fight, where rise the most menacing obstructions and where throng the most infuriated foes. vi PREFACE And one cannot in conscience blame these op- ponents, because spiritistic phenomena, as com- monly conceived, seem designed to break down that grand idea of monism which is one of the most precious fruits of our culture, retrieved by so sore a conflict from the clutches of supersti- tion and prejudice; and because, furthermore, when contrasted with the precision of experi- mental phenomena — always accurately tallying with each other in time and space — spiritistic observations and experiments, so frequently vary- ing with different mediums, according to the time of day and according to the mental state of the participants in the seance, notwithstanding their frequent repetition and reinforcement by accurate mechanical instruments, and however carefully sifted out by the most severely scientific ex- perimenters (one need only name such men as Crookes, Richet, Lodge, James, Hyslop), are al- ways wrapped in a dim atmosphere of uncertainty and show a tinge of mediaeval science. But note this well, that, however doubtful each separate case may appear, in the ensemble they form such a compact web of proof as wholly to baffle the scalpel of doubt. In psychical matters we are very far from having attained scientific certainty. But the spiritistic hypothesis seems to me like a conti- nent incompletely submerged by the ocean, in which are visible in the distance broad islands PREFACE vii raised above the general level, and which only in the vision of the scientist are seen to coalesce in one immense and compact body of land, while the shallow mob laughs at the seemingly auda- cious hypothesis of the geographer. Cesare Lombroso. Turin, October 29, 1908. ERRATA Page 8, 1. 29, for Hedenhain read Heidenhain. Page 63, 1. 14, for '■^ homo invisibile" read "invisible man." Page 66, 1. 6, for Galeotto read Galeotti. Pages 72, 120, 332, for Fairland read Fairlamb. Page 178, 1. II, for Berret read Barrett. Page 219, 1. 19, for Bee read Dee. Page 221, read Pelham was Pellew [not Robinson]. Page 244, 1. 29, for " Piddington " read Piddington. Page 250, II. 9, 10, read Hudson's Law of Psychic Phenomena. Page 250, 11. 29, 30, for Phys. read Psych. Research. Page 311, 1. 21, for Dialect read Dialectical. Page 325, 1. 4, for the Earth read India. Page 332, 1. II, for Vezzano read Venzano. Page 337, 1. 30, for Archives read Annates. Page 3S3, 11. 1-6, for 717 read 593 and for 43 read 83. CONTENTS Chapter Page I Hypnotic Phenomena i II Experiments with Eusapu 39 III Experiments with Accurate Scientific Instru- ments 72 IV The Power and Action of Mediums .... 103 V Mediums and Magicians in Savage Tribes . . 130 VI Limitations of the Power of the Medium . . 156 VII Phantasms and Apparitions of the Dead . . 185 VIII Belief in the Spirits of the Dead among Savages and among Ancient Peoples . . . 204 IX Identity 221 X Doubles 246 XI Transcendental Photographs and Plastiques . 258 XII Haunted Houses 269 XIII Tricks, Telepathy, the Unconscious, etc. . . 304 XIV Biology of the Spirits 329 Index 357 ILLUSTRATIONS Page Cesare Lombroso Frontispiece Figs. 1-6 12 " 7-IO 13 " 11-14 14 " iS-'8 IS " 19-21 16 Fig. 22 Eusapia Paladino in 1907 opp. 38 " 23 Motion of a Table not Due to the Direct Contact of Hands " 42 " 24 From a Photograph of Complete Levita- tion of the Table by Eusapia ... "44 " 25 Diagram of Table and Sitters 67 " 26 Mediumistic Sculptures — that to the Left by John King (Eusapia), and that to the Right by Nicolo R., 1905 . . . opp. 70 " 27 Plaster Cast of Impression in Clay of Medium's Foot " 72 " 28 Bas-relief of her Face executed by Eusapia (Chiaja) « 72 " 29 Transcendental Sculpture: Bas-reliefs of Eusapia's Face and Hand .... " 74 " 30 Experiment with Cardiograph and Re- cording Cylinder 73 " 31 Cardiographic Tracings by "John" .... 74 " 32 Cardiographic Tracing by Experimenter . . 75 " 33 Apparatus for Registering Movements of the Medium. — Rotating Cylinder un- der Bell-glass 76 " 34 Experiment with the Manometer 79 xii ILLUSTRATIONS Page Fig. 35 Imprint of Fingers, the Result of Radio- activity opp. 84 " 36 Line traced by a Supernumerary Phan- tasmal Hand 87 " 37 Synchronous Registration of Marks .... 88 " 38 Eusapia in Trance (Spasmodic Laughter, etc.) opp. 112 " 39 Magnesium Light Photograph, etc. . . "114 " 40 Eusapia after the Stance "116 " 41 Flowers drawn with Colored Crayons . " 120 " 42 a Mediumistic Designs by Machner . . . " 122 " 42 5 Mediumistic Designs by Machner . . . "124 " 42 c Mediumistic Designs by Machner - . . " 1 26 " 43 Experiment with Ring and Knotted String " 128 " 44 Experiment with Knots formed in a Sealed String 127 " 45 The Priestess Uyitshigitshi during a Pre- diction opp. 138 " 46 Kaffir Priestess "140 " 47 Experiment in Levitation with Zuccarini " 168 " 48 Luminous Bands as seen in Stances with the Randones " 188 " 49 Phantasmal Portrait of Katie King . . "194 " 50 Phantasmal Photograph of Yolanda, and the Phantom of Yolanda " 196 " 51 Spirit Photograph of a Woman buried in the Walls of Civita Vecchia .... " 260 " 52 Spirit Photograph of Bebella .... "262 " 53 Another Spirit Photograph of Bebella . " 266 " 54 Spirit Photograph taken by Rochas with the Medium M. A " 268 " 55 a Auto-sculptures by Eusapia "270 " 55^ Auto-sculptures by Eusapia .... "276 " 56 Madame D'Espdrance enveloped by the Net "310 AFTER DEATH -WHAT? AFTER DEATH— WHAT? CHAPTER I Hypnotic Phenomena If ever there was an individual in the world opposed to spiritism by virtue of scientific edu- cation, and, I may say, by instinct, I was that person. I had made it the indefatigable pursuit of a lifetime to defend the thesis that every force is a property of matter and the soul in emanation of the brain, and for years and years had laughed at the idea of centre-tables and chairs having souls ! But if I have always had a passionate devotion to my own special science, my own flag, I have had a still more ardent love of the truth, the veri- fication of the fact. Now, although I had such an aversion to' Spiritualism that for years I refused even to be present at a test seance, I was fated to be a witness, in 1882, as a neuropathologist, of cer- tain very singular psychic phenomena for which no scientific explanation whatever has been found, except that they occurred in hysteric or hypno- tized individuals. 2 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? TRANSPOSITION OF THE SENSES I refer to the ease of a certain C. S., the fourteen-year-old daughter of one of the most active and inteUigent men in all Italy. The girl suffered from no ailment except sciatica. Her mother was healthy, intelligent, and robust. Her two brothers at about the age of puberty had an extraordinary increase of stature, accompanied by a certain degree of pulmonary trouble. The girl also, — who was of pleasing aspect, height four feet four and one-half inches, the pupil of the eye somewhat "midriatic," sense of touch normal, and sensitiveness to pain and to colors normal, — when near the age of puberty, rapidly increased in stature to the amount of six inches, and, at the first hints of the menstrual function, experienced severe hysterical troubles connected with the stomach (vomitings, dyspepsia), so that during one month she could swallow only solid food, and in another only liquids; the third month hysterical convulsions were the symptoms, — a state of hypersesthesia so marked that the patient believed a wire placed on her hand to be as heavy as a bar of iron. Another month blindness developed, with hysterogenic points on the little finger and on the rectum, which, when touched, exhibited not only convulsive move- ments, but motor paresis in the legs, with exag- gerated spastic reflex movements, contractions, HYPNOTIC PHENOMENA 3 and muscular energy increased to such a de- gree that the pressure of the hand on the dynamometer caused a rise from 32 kilograms to 47. At this point extraordinary phenomena mani- fested themselves ; that is to say, somnambulism appeared, during which the girl showed singular activity in domestic labor and great affection for her parents and unusual aptitude for music. Later a change in her character appeared, — a virile audacity and immorality. But the most extraordinary circumstance was that while she had lost the power of vision with her eyes, as a compensation she saw with the same degree of acuteness (7 in the scale of Jaeger) at the point of the nose and the left lobe of the ear. In this way she read a letter which had just come to me from the post-office, although I had blind- folded her eyes, and was able to distinguish the figures on a dynamometer. Curious, also, was the new mimicry with which she reacted to the stimuli brought to bear on what we will call im- provised and transposed eyes. For instance, when I approached a finger to her ear or to her nose, or made as if I were going to touch it, or, better still, when I caused a ray of light to flash upon it from a distance with a lens, were it only for the merest fraction of a second, she was keenly sensitive to this and irritated by it. "You want to blind me!" she cried, her face 4 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? making a sudden movement like one who is men- aced. Then, with an instinctive simulation en- tirely new, as the phenomenon itself was new, she lifted her forearm to protect the lobe of the ear and the point of the nose, and remained thus for ten or twelve minutes. Her sense of smell was also transposed; for ammonia or asafoetida, when thrust under her nose, did not excite the slightest reaction, while, on the other hand, a substance possessing the merest trace of odor, if held under the chin, made a vivid impression on it and excited a quite special simulation (mimica). Thus, if the odor was pleasing, she smiled, winked her eyes, and breathed more rapidly; if it was distasteful, she quickly put her hands up to that part of the chin that had become the seat of the sensation and rapidly shook her head. Later the sense of smell became transferred to the back of the foot; and then, when any odor displeased her, she would thrust her legs to right and to left, at the same time writhing her whole body; when an odor pleased her, she would re- main motionless, smiling and breathing quickly. Next appeared phenomena of prediction and clairvoyance, for she foresaw, with what I would call mathematical exactness, and sometimes fif- teen or sixteen days previously, the day of her cataleptic fits, — the hour in which they were to occur and the particular metal to be used in HYPNOTIC PHENOMENA 5 checking them. Thus, on the 15th of June she predicted that on July 2 she would be delirious and would then have seven cataleptic fits that would be healed with gold; on the 25th of July pharyngismus and pains in her limbs; on July 6 cataleptic fits at the first drop of water that should be sprinkled on her, and a state of calm thereafter up to the 12th, when she would be taken with a fit at six o'clock in the morning, with a tendency to bite and tear things, which would not be quieted but by a half-teaspoonful of quinine and three drops of ether. All took place precisely as she had predicted. On the 14th she predicted that the four fits to come on the 15th would be cured with lead; and, to tell the truth, this was found useful, but gold helped still more. If there was any mistake made here, it was not in the selection of gold (which she had foretold the use of with precision) nor in the number of the fits. She later predicted things that were to happen to her father and brother, and two years afterward they were verified. She clairvoyantly saw from her sick-bed her brother in the coulisses of a theatre (as in fact he was), distant more than half a mile from the house. Nor are such phenomena as these at all iso- lated. As early as 1808 Petetin cited the cases of eight cataleptic women in whom the external senses had been transferred to the epigastric re- gion and into the fingers of the hand and the 6 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? toes of the feet (Electricite Animate, Lyons, 1808). In 1840 Carmagnola, in the Giornale dell' Ac- cadetnia di Medicina, describes a case quite analo- gous to ours. It concerned a girl fourteen years old, in whom, as in the other case mentioned, the menstrual function had begun only a few months previous, and who was troubled with convulsive coughing fits, with headaches, swoonings, sob- bings when she drank, fits of dyspnoea, mimetic convulsions during which she would sing, sleep- ing spells that lasted for three days, and true fits of somnambulism during which she saw distinctly with the hand, selected ribbons, identified colors, and read even in the dark. Wishing to look at herself in the mirror, she put her hands before it, and, when she saw nothing there but these, lowered them in order to see her face. Not succeeding in this, she grew enraged, and, stamping on the floor, ran away. The first act (lowering the hands) was spontaneous, instinctive, and the exact counter- part of the action of the " C. S." mentioned above, who would cover up the lobe of the ear when it was irritated by the finger of the experi- menter or by an unexpected ray of light, — a phenomenon in itself sufficient to exclude simu- lation. That my readers may no longer claim that these are matters of recent discovery, let them note that in this case, as in that of Petetin, HYPNOTIC PHENOMENA ^ the application of gold or of silver always calmed the frenzies of the girl and made her light- hearted again, — so much so that during her fits she would run eagerly about hunting for those metals. One day she touched bronze, believing it to be gold; but, although her delusion was complete, she got no comfort. Silks and furred things deprived her of all strength. Little by little she improved, although she relapsed on the occasion of every menstruation. Despine tells us of a certain Estella of Neu- chatel, eleven years old, who was afflicted with paresis as the result of an accidental wound in the back (trauma), but had improved by the use of the baths of Aix, and after magnetic treatment was found to have suffered transposition of the sense of hearing to various parts of the body, — the hand, the elbow, the shoulder, and (during her lethargic crisis) the epigastrium, and at the same time acquired greater skill in swimming and horseback riding. The application of gold pro- duced extraordinary energy. Frank {Praxeos Medicce, Univ. Torino, 1821) publishes an account of a person named Baerk- mann in whom the sense of hearing was trans- posed to the epigastrium, the frontal bone, or the occiput. Dr. Augonova studied at Carmagnola, in 1840, a certain G. L., a girl fourteen years old, who had become dyspeptic and amenorrhceic as the 8 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? consequence of a fit of displeasure. During som- nambulistic states, toward the middle of the night, she would identify pieces of money placed before the nape of the neck and distinguished odors by the back of her hands. Later, at the end of April, sight and hearing got themselves trans- posed to the epigastric region, so that with her eyes bandaged she could read from a book held a few steps away. The same doctor records his observations of a woman (Piovano), aged twenty-two, afflicted with hysterical catalepsy and epileptic fits, who in the artificial somnambulistic condition could see now with the nape of the neck and now with the epigastrium, and who heard with the feet. She claimed that she saw in her own body thirty- three worms, which after the lapse of a certain time she actually voided! And then the phenomenon is to be correlated and joined with what was well enough known at the time, but was not noticed, respecting or- dinary somnambulists who see very well either with the eyes wide open, but insensible, or with the eyelids shut, or else the head thrown back and the eyes lifted up as in the case of persons asleep. Evidently they see with some other part of the body than the eye. Preyer and Berger, who in their time observed this class of facts, just as Hedenhain does to-day, believe they in- terpret them truly on the hypothesis of greater HYPNOTIC PHENOMENA 9 tactual sensitiveness and more acute visual power. It is true that these are frequently noted in such cases; but supposing that this may explain at the utmost the visual power in a darker room (a circumstance which does not apply in the cases just noted), still it cannot explain the transposi- tion in the case just mentioned, in which the tactile sensitiveness is observed to be absolutely identical both before and after as well as during the attack, and vision shows the same degree of acuteness in the two states or stages. In the case just cited visual perception resides in two points of the skin. But the sense of touch is the lowest, and does not suffice, at any rate, to ex- plain the reading of a manuscript. If more modern authors did not bestow any attention on cases like these, and Hasse could call them " illusions," it is because, in obedience to a tendency which is praiseworthy even when excessive, they were willing to admit only those facts which could be scientifically explained. It was for this reason that scientists were so cau- tious in believing in the performances of the magnet, and many of the results that the mag- netizers empirically obtained, — catalepsy, hyp- nosis, hypersesthesia, — matters which are now, up to a certain point, accurately accounted for (Heidenhain). The truth is that it is absolutely impossible for us to give a scientific interpreta- tion of these facts, — facts which bring us to the 10 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? vestibule of that world which is properly spoken of as being still occult because unexplained.^ Still, the mysteries of clairvoyance may in part be explained by a kind of auto-suggestion, by that sharp instinct of one's own condition that enables the dying person to specify the last hour of his life. Yet there may be more in it than that: perhaps the regular unfolding of the phe- nomena of one's own nervous illness can be better observed, since, during the extraordinary excite- ment of the somnambulistic ecstasy, we acquire a deeper consciousness of our organism, in the living interlocked wheel-work of whose states, or conditions, there are registered potentially (in the germ) the varied succession of morbid phenomena. Here belongs an act noted for the first time by our countryman Salvioli (in my Archivio di Psi- chiatria e Scienze Penali, vol. ii. p. 415), — namely, that in somnambulism the flow of blood to the brain is greater than in the waking hours, and greater consequently the activity of the psyche, in the same way that there is an increase in the muscular excitability. Indeed, the invalid girl I referred to some pages back, who acquired in the somnambulistic state an increase of energy of twelve kilograms registered on the dynamom- eter, yet affirmed to me that in that state she 1 Further on, in Chapter X, I shall make some statements concerning the double which will serve as a provisional explanation. HYPNOTIC PHENOMENA II was unable to possess her soul in quiet, but must be ever grinding out new ideas. But the foregoing conclusion no longer serves when clairvoyance attains such a pitch of power as to predict what would happen to a father and brothers two years after the time of the predic- tion, nor can it explain to us scientifically the transposition of the senses. The sole fact that emerges here in a marked manner is that the phenomena take place in hysterical subjects and during severe hysterical attacks. TRANSMISSION OF THOUGHT (SUGGESTION) A similar state of things has been noted in the cases (for the most part unstudied by science) of suggestion, or the transmission of thought from one mind to another. Such are the circum- stances communicated to me by Grimaldi and Ardu, in the case of a certain E. B., of Nocera, a young man twenty years old, who became sub- ject to hysteria in consequence of thwarted love at the age of fifteen. This lad had the cranium dolicocephalic (76), face extraordi- narily as)nffiimetric, with a feminine look; acute- ness of vision; sense of touch normal, though keener on the left; sensitive to all the metals, and especially to copper and gold, which calm the palpitations of his heart and the pain of the muscles (myalgia). Being, as he is, a person 12 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? of exaggerated sympathies and antipathies, of timidity so extreme as to fear the shadow in a dark corner, highly changeable and capricious in his disposition, influenced by suggestion to such an extent as to obey the command not to Fig. I. Fig. 2. o Fig. 3. Fig. 4- Fig. 5. Fig. 6. feel the keenest pains inflicted on him with a needle and a red-hot iron, he also exhibits the phenomena of transposed senses. He could divine a word or a number in another's mind and re- produce figures drawn behind his back at a cer- tain distance while his eyes were blindfolded by HYPNOTIC PHENOMENA 13 a thick bandage passing around the head over the ears. If a rhomb is drawn for him (Fig. i), he re- produces it roughly (Fig. 2) arid hesitatingly, but succeeds much better with the circle (Figs. 3.4). Fig. 8. Fig. 7. Fig. 9. Fig. 10. Considerable difficulty is encountered in the reproduction of a triangle (Figs. 5, 6). After a longer meditation 6r reflection than in the first case, he draws two sides. The third, that of the base, is drawn with visible uncertainty. Instead of being a right line, it is broken in zigzag fashion. Scarcely is this experiment finished, when the subject, whose face is a little inflamed, complains of a severe pain in his head. We remove the 14 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? bandage and allow him to rest for a little while. After ten minutes the experiments are resumed. Fig. II. In executing the figure of a polygon (which might also be deemed the profile of a hut), he finds no difficulty whatever (Figs. 7, 8). On the other hand, an inverted cone requires a first and a second reproduction (Figs. 9, 10). The symptoms of exhaustion suddenly appear, — redness of the face and torpor in the move- ments of the body. Hence two experiments are unsuccessful. Fig. 13. Fig. 14. He next reproduces the head of a man (Figs. II, 12), adding ears, however, and the figure of a bird (Figs. 15, 16), with the addition of HYPNOTIC PHENOMENA 15 feathers, but does not succeed in reproducing a small tree (Figs. 13, 14), although he gives a confused idea of it in his tracings of a woman's head. We suggest in writing the word Margherita, and it is reproduced, as also the words Andrea, Fig. 15. Fig. 16. etc. (Figs. 17, 18, 19, 20, and 21). His first attempt to reproduce Margherita resulted in Maria. But on the second attempt he gets it right (Margherita). The suggestioner wrote Andrea (Fig. 17), re- Fig. 17. Fig. 18. produced as in Fig. 18, in a style much like that of a boy copying an example. The suggestioner next wrote the words Amore and Maria, erasing the first by a line drawn through it. This was reproduced as in the draw- ings shown in Figs. 20 and 21. After the subject is tired, he reproduces noth- l6 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? ing more. When mentally bid to open an ink- stand or a door, he succeeds almost without effort, although he is blindfolded; but the continuation of the trials puts him into somnambulistic and J^^'te^e^i^. Fig. 19. cataleptic states. Pressure on the temples causes him to pass into the somnambulistic state, from which he wakens when bidden. In the series of elaborate movements inspired by mental suggestion we found errors which might have led us to believe we had met with so C^Oi 'MP (A.yi^ e^t^ Fig. 20. at OCA.^«. Fig. 21. many failures. On the contrary, they fitted with admirable clearness into the list of graphic errors just described. The idea was once conveyed to him by sugges- tion that he open the door of the room. He ran to open it, and up to this point the experiment was HYPNOTIC PHENOMENA 17 successful; but in place of stopping there he called in a loud voice for the servant. The phe- nomena must positively be classified as pertaining to the hysteric and hypnotic condition of the individual. These evident proofs of the transmission of thought by neurotics stimulated us to undertake similar experiments ^ on a large scale. Out of twenty subjects studied in whom transmission of thought was successful (in that they were able tc* divine the name of a paper, a number, etc.), twelve were neuropathies and were the ones who guessed most rapidly and with the greater precision. They succeeded better if they were able to put themselves into the condition of mono-ideism, bandaging their eyes and stopping their ears. In three cases immediate contact facilitated the read- ing; or, rather, it was the indispensable condi- tion thereof. In three others it had no influence whatever. In one instance emotion was of as- sistance, the transmitter being a lady who was loved by the subject. Sometimes the human figure, as contrasted with lines and flowers, was better transmitted, with a difference in its favor of ten per cent. And this is comprehensible, be- cause living figures are more energetically per- ceived; and when one does not feel deeply he cannot transmit thought. i Studies in Hypnotism, 1882. l8 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? In some cases the transmission is facilitated by the use of alcohoHc drinks or of coffee, which stimulate the nervous centres. But these observations of mine were a very small affair compared with the hundreds and thousands of similar ones (controlled more mi- nutely in details) which were made in England and France. In England the celebrated Society for Psy- chical Research instituted very delicate experi- ments upon individuals in the sleeping state and the waking state, causing them to draw on a blackboard a figure which another person on another floor or in another and distant environ- ment sketched on a sheet of paper, — such as bits of complicated three-angled things, build- ings, strange names (for example, " chevalon "). Now, the results of these experiments were very happy. Successful were one in every 5^ among those hypnotized by suggestion, and one in every 43 among the non-hypnotized. Other more recent experiments of this Eng- lish commission (the report of which already fills a volume) were conducted in the presence of Dr. Guthrie and Professor Herdmann. The subject, or medium, in this case is Miss Relph, who remains seated while the objects selected are hidden behind a curtain and behind her back. The experiments take place without contact. HYPNOTIC PHENOMENA 19 Object Thought Red paper cut in the shape of little egg-holders with a white egg inside. Blue paper in the form of a soup-plate. Red paper cut in the form of a vase. A sword. A red circle. Silver paper cut in the shape of a tile-kiln. A yellow rectangle, A louis d'or. Three of hearts (card). Five of clubs. Eight of diamonds. A card with two red crosses. Object Divined Something red, longer than it is wide. Is it azure colored ? Wider on top than in the mid- dle; still wider like a soup-plate. Is it red? I see only the color. Something that shines ; sil- ver or steel; long and slender. Is it red? It is round. It is of shining silver; like a coffee-pot; a tile-kiln. Is it yellow? Longer than wide. It is shining yellow, of gold; it is round. It is a card with two red dots. A three of hearts or something similar. It is another card with five black points. It is a card with many red points; a ten. It is something yellow. I do not see well. It is a card with red dots. No one could believe that the laws of proba- bility would permit even a distant approxima- tion to results like these. For mark well that even the errors, or rather semi-errors, represent a state of imperfect transmission, though as- 20 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? suredly bearing but a small proportion to the bulk of the case. But more important results are obtained from experiments made by the comparative method with subjects in a state of waking or of hypno- tism. Richet, after having assured himself that the probability of drawing any particular given card from the 52 playing-cards in a pack is 428 out of a total of 1833 trials, made the same ex- periments with cards held in the hand of a friend, the selection of each card to be that which the friend fixed on in his mind. He obtained the figure 510, — a gain of 52 over the probable figure. In this case the degree of probability did not exceed Ye- Experimenting with 218 photographs and like- nesses, while the probable figure would have been 42, he obtained 67. In a third series the number of the cards (to be exact) was fj. In this series, for eight times in succession, the card turned up marked pre- cisely the same, while the probability of obtain- ing eight identical cards in succession is j|> which is equivalent to 7.i64.968.643.46a l- Taking up suggestion, the members of the London Society for Psychical Research obtained 9 successes out of 14 experiments at the first trial, and 5 successes out of 5 at the second. That is to say, while in the first experiment the figure of probability was 0.25, the true figure was 9. HYPNOTIC PHENOMENA 21 In other similar experiments by Stewart yts was obtained.^ If the case had been that of playing-cards, the number of the cards indicated would have had to be 22 and not 45. Operat- ing upon individuals subject to hysteria, but not hypnotized, Ochorowitz obtained 13 successes out of 31, the task being in these cases to divine a letter, a number, a name (such as Maria), or a taste. By the employment of suggestion with hypno- tized persons he afterwards got 15 successes out of 20, whereas, according to the estimate of the probabilities, he would not have been able to get more than i success in 24.* From all this Richet would make the follow- ing deductions: First. The thought of an individual is trans- mitted, without the aid of outward tokens, to an individual near him. Second. This mental transmission of the thought affects the second of the individuals with varying degrees of intensity. These transmissions of thought become still more extraordinary when they are perceived to take place at a distance, and at distances some- times enormous. Furthermore, cases of this kind would be seen to be still more frequent if our scepticism did not hinder us from collecting and recording them with scientific accuracy. 1 Thought Reading, 1883. " La Suggestion, 1890. 22 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? Thus a few years ago (in 1887) the report ran that a little Novarese girl had had a mental perception of the illness of her mother, who was at Settimo-Torinese. A few days later De Vesme, by direction of the Italian Psycho- logical Society, verified the fact that at half -past twelve o'clock on the 17th of February, 1887, Anna Voretto, while busied about her affairs, was suddenly taken ill and died on the next day. At nine o'clock p. m. of the 17th the sister of the woman received a telegram telling her to come with the child (Stella), daughter of the dying woman. Now seven witnesses depose to the fact that the child had showed herself highly agitated ever since one o'clock of the 17th, asking to go to her mother because she was ill. The next day, on the train for Novara, the child cried out that mamma was dead. Professor De Sanctis not long ago communi- cated to me the following narrative of a similar case of telepathy or presentiment: " During the second half of last September I found myself in Rome without my family, who were in the country. Inasmuch as during the previous year thieves had visited my house, my brother was in the habit of coming to pass the night with me. One evening, — I am uncertain whether the i6th, 17th, or i8th of September, — it being a gala night at the Costanzi Theatre, in HYPNOTIC PHENOMENA 23 honor of the Spanish journalists then present in Rome, my brother told me he was going there. Hence on that evening I returned home alone. I began to read something, but soon perceived that I was filled with apprehension. I shook off the unpleasant thoughts and began to undress, but an inner uneasiness disturbed me. I went to bed trying vigorously to fight down the idea that the Costanzi Theatre was afire and that my brother might be in danger. I extinguished the candle, but the idea of the fire fairly possessed me and so tortured me that I was obliged (a thing con- trary to all my habits) to light the candle again and await my brother's return with open eyes. " I was actually in a state of terror, as a boy might be. About half-past twelve I heard the house-door open, and presently said to my brother, 'Well, did you have a good time?' as if to give the direct lie to my fears. What was my wonder to hear him reply, ' Good time in- deed ! A little more, and we should all have been burned to death ! ' Then he told me of the panic that had taken place when the fire first broke out at the Costanzi, the particulars of which were given next day by the journals. " On comparing the exact time when the affair took place at the Costanzi with the time when I began to be obsessed with the idea of the fire, we found that the two were coincident." Professor Mercandino obtained the following 24 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? account from a female client of his whose sons had undertaken the ascent of Mount Cibrario. She went to bed and slept tranquilly up to the middle of the night. At two she awoke with a start, seeming to see her son Gustave upon the precipitous rocks and to hear him groaning and refusing to follow his brother Cesare, who was giving him a stimulating liqueur to drink and kept vehemently urging him to rise, even calling him a coward. Next day, when they had returned, they affirmed that sure enough at two o'clock in the morning that had occurred which the mother at the same hour had clairvoyantly perceived, and that Cesare in his distress had thought, " If mamma could see us! Oh, if we could only get home again ! " Tschurtschenthaler tells an incident of a boy subject to convulsions and having a hysterogenic point. This boy's two brothers were in America. One day, without having been in any way noti- fied of it, he declared, first, that he saw them on the sea, and afterwards disembarking in Liguria, and he made these asseverations on the very day and at the very hour when the event actually occurred. Dr. Pagliani writes me of having studied the case of a certain Caroline A., a woman of twenty- four years (two years married), a somnambulist and often cataleptic, who, by taking the hand of people and smelling it, would divine their HYPNOTIC PHENOMENA 25 thoughts, even when they did their thinking in a foreign tongue to her unknown. He noticed that the thought was transmitted to a distance by an iron wire, even as far as six metres. I will add to these instances two, procured by me, of the truth of which I can have not the slightest doubt. A lady whom I will designate as Madame V. was at the theatre in Florence at half-past ten on an evening in November, 1882, when sud- denly she uttered a cry and refused to remain any longer at the theatre, saying that she felt that her father was seriously ill. Arrived home, she first found a telegram containing the news that her father was dying at Turin, and then a second telegraphic message to the effect that he had died at half-past ten. Madame V. was sub- ject to hysteria. Mrs. F. J. had in her house a maid whom a soldier (lover or husband, whichever he was) came almost every evening to see, with the per- mission of the mistress. One evening, at the usual hour, this man asked admittance. Mrs. J., seized with fear, caused the doors to be barred and refused him admission, justifying herself later to her husband by saying that the idea entered her head at the time that the man wanted to assassinate her and rob the house. That night a pane of glass was broken, the house en- tered, and certain sums of money taken, though 26 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? of small account. No one was any longer think- ing of the occurrence, when one day the servant- maid unguardedly allowed the truth to leak out among the neighbors, — how that night when the mistress had repulsed her betrothed he had plotted to kill her, seize the keys, open the strong-box, steal a large sum, and flee with her to a foreign land. Now, in these cases, it is in vain to assert, as I used to do at first, that thought, being a phe- nomenon of movement, can be transmitted to either a short or a long distance. For it may be justly opposed to this that the force of vibra- tory motion decreases as the square of the dis- tances, and that therefore, even if transmissions of thought to a short distance may still be ex- plained thus, we cannot understand those between two distant points, which dart through space to affect the mind of the percipient without dis- sipating themselves on the way, and beginning their flight from an instrument like the brain which is not fixed upon an immovable base. But what it behooves us to note in these cases is that the majority of the transmissions were those of hysterics and epileptics. THE PREMONITIONS OF HYSTERICS AND EPILEPTICS And then how explain premonitions, — predic- tions made, not by eminent persons, geniuses, individuals of sound mind in a sound body, but HYPNOTIC PHENOMENA 27 by invalids, or even during our dreams, when ideation is so vague and wandering, and when our psychic personality loses its sense of individuality ? A certain Castagneri wrote to De Vesme in September, 1886, how on the 8th of that month a servant-girl named Bianchi-Capelli had dreamed that her mother, a fruit-vender at Cesena, had been cheated out of three hundred lire and that her brother was ill. She was profoundly dis- turbed, and nothing availed to give her peace. On the nth she received letters setting forth that on the very day after the night of her dream the two identical events took place, as De Vesme was able to authenticate by testimony. I had in my care, for treatment, the famous Dr. C, one of the most distinguished of our young savans, and at the same time one of the most neurotic, in whom since puberty hysteria had been present in its true form, with not a few marks of degeneracy and grave hereditary defects. For some years he had noticed that he possessed powers of premonition, and it was his consciousness of this that one day hindered him from taking a single step to meet a friend who had telegraphed that he was coming. The doctor had a sure feeling that he would not come. He fre- quently announced to his mother the arrival of a letter, or a person whom he had not seen and whom he minutely described. 28 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? But the most important fact for us, because the best authenticated, is that on the 4th of February, 1894, he predicted the burning of the Como Exposition (which actually took place on the 6th of July) with such firm assurance as to induce members of his family who had had other proofs of the accuracy of his predictions to sell all the shares of the Milan Fire Insurance Com- pany for the sum of 149,000 lire ($29,800). It is important to note that, as the time of the fire drew near, he felt the certainty of it less, — in the conscious state, — although he automatically repeated the prediction, as those about him re- member, especially on the morning of the day when the fire took place, thus verifying in this case (at least for the conscious state) what Dante records {Inferno, Canto X) of the pro- phetic powers of the shades, with special refer- ence to Farinata, who predicted his exile, while other spirits in his circle of Hades showed them- selves entirely ignorant of every present event. " I made the prediction offhand, on the spur of the moment," he himself wrote me, " and cannot conceive how I could have attained so intense a conviction, no consideration of a technical kind having any influence on my prophecy. At that time I could not have seen anything more than the enclosing fence of the exposition, the build- ing of the main edifice not having progressed very far. HYPNOTIC PHENOMENA 29 " I am unable to say whether previous to that day there was any vague presentiment lurking in me. Certainly I did not have a clear and definite idea before I observed the sign of the fire insurance company. " I remember very well that at that moment I had no hallucination, either visual, caloric, or the like. So far as I was concerned, the fatal necessity of that disaster had acquired the cer- tainty of a thunderbolt: it was not a thing to be discussed, but seemed to be an intuition of the truth, so to speak. " It was the surprise awakened in me by this inexplicable state of mind that persuaded me to act in conformity with the presentiment; and so much the more readily because, in spite of my scepticism about Spiritualism, I have had at other times to note the truth of my presentiments. " I will add that the shares of the Milanese company formed an asset of the highest credit in the market, and that the sale of them was very easy, because such investment of money was then much more remunerative than that in funds or annuities. "After the shares had been sold, I gave no more thought to the matter, and in the month before the fire the idea had apparently dropped out of my mind altogether. " But the person who attended me asserts, and is ready to testify to it, that when I was dis- 30 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? traught I would frequently repeat in the dialect of Como, ' All must burn,' and that on the very morning of the fire I uttered these words sev- eral times." The doctor was born of parents who were first cousins and neurotics. He had an epileptic sister. His cranium very large, of 1161 centi- metres capacity; face asymmetrical ; hair grown white at twelve years, and later becoming black ; ears mobile; field of vision narrowed for the red and the blue, with attacks of vertigo. He had the strange power of dilating at will the pupil of the eye. Since the age of nineteen he had had epileptic-hysterical fits, accompanied by hallucinations. The Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, March, 1897, contain an account of a most extraordinary case of premonition. It con- cerns a lady who was summering with her ten- year-old daughter at Trinity. One day when the little girl was out of doors playing in a favorite spot by the sea and near the railway, the mother heard an internal voice which urged her to send and fetch the child or something frightful would happen to it. She hastily called the nurse and bade her run quickly and bring her. She soon had her again safe and sound. A half-hour afterwards a train was derailed and smashed to pieces right where the little girl had been ac- customed to play and where she certainly would HYPNOTIC PHENOMENA 31 have been if she had not been sent for. Three of the four trainmen were killed. These phenomena of premonition and predic- tion are of such frequent occurrence that many more might be selected out of contemporary nar- ratives, — such, for instance, as De Witt's Italian Brigandage, from which the following narrative is cited: On the morning ■ of November 4 Lieutenant Perrino rose at five o'clock and said to the mis- tress of the house, who was preparing his break- fast, that he had no wish to eat on account of an ugly dream he had had in the night. Perrino was a man approaching thirty years, his com- plexion dusky-carnation, slow in his movements, rather fond of his ease and comforts, and habit- ually melancholy. On the evening of the 3d of November he was in a cheerful frame of mind, and there was nothing about him to indicate the misfortune impending over him. On going to bed, his head had scarcely touched the pillow when he was fast asleep; but in his dream he seemed to himself to have been bound to a tree, with his orderly, and the two to have been shot by brigands. His hosts and Captain Rota laughed heartily at his story. The next day, with half a com- pany of men and two carabineers, he set out for 32 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? the farm hamlet of Melanico, — a quarter where brigands were usually to be looked for, — to make the usual daily reconnoitre. These forty- two soldiers and their officers ought to have had with them a company of the national guard ; but Captain De Matteis, with a hundred and fifty national guards, having learned that the environs of the forest of Bosco were swarming with fero- cious ruffians, made a halt a mile from the vil- lage, and begged the captain of the other troop to do the same. Rota would pay no attention to him, and went with his scanty troop to confront a hostile force numerically ten times stronger than his own. Arrived at a certain point, he spied on a prom- ontory four horsemen who were the pickets of the united bands of brigands encamped in no trifling numbers behind the promontory. In order to reach the summit of this, the captain directed his platoon of soldiers to traverse a ploughed field, which on account of the rain of the day previous was muddy and ill adapted for walking. He and the nimblest men of his com- pany had run over a good part of that field. Lieutenant Perrino, on the other hand, and the feeblest walkers had got stuck in the mud up to their knees and were much farther behind than the troop that had followed the horse of Captain Rota. Just then Perrino had halted on a little tract of solid ground in the middle of the HYPNOTIC PHENOMENA 33 field where three or four oak-trees spread' their branches. All the ploughed ground was enclosed between hillocks and meadows held fallow for pasturage, and from these places, which were higher than the others, the eye could easily range over the broad bottom-land where was the troop of soldiers. All of a sudden, dashing out from the high ground on the sides, ten half-squadrons of mounted brigands, each composed of about forty men, almost simultaneously opened fire on the scattered troop, riding up to discharge their guns and then making off out of sight to have time to reload. After a long and useless resist- ance the troopers were one after another sur- rounded, shot by sharpshooters, captured, abused or tortured, and killed. The first group to fall into the hands of the brigands was that of Lieutenant Perrino. He and his orderly, inasmuch as they were captured alive and unhurt, were tied together, bound to an oak-tree, and both shot at the same time. The dream had come true.^ The dream that led Dante's son Jacopo to find the thirteen lost cantos of the Paradiso is a matter of history. Dante AHghieri died during the night of Sep- tember 13-14, 1321. His sons Jacopo and Piero at once set about the task of collecting the differ- ent parts of the great poem, which were still scat- 1 TTie History of Brigandage, by A. De Witt, Florence, 1884, p. 317. 3 34 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? tered here and there. Jacopo especially interested himself in the work. But the enterprise was difficult. Boccaccio in his Life of Dante relates that the two sons repeat- edly searched in vain every nook and cranny of the house and all of his manuscripts, the search extending over months. They were quite morti- fied " that God had not lent the great poet to the world long enough at least for him to be able to compose the small remaining part of his work." And " they had been induced by the persuading powers of certain of their friends to endeavor, in so far as in them lay (they were both rhymers) to supply the missing portion in order that it should not remain imperfect." But in the mean- time Jacopo had a most wonderful vision. He " saw his father come to him, clothed in the whitest garments and his face resplendent with an extraordinary light." Jacopo seized the op- portunity to ask the shade of his father several questions, and among others this, " Whether he had completed his work before passing into the true life, and, if he had done so, what had become of that part of it which was missing and which they none of them had been able to find. To this it seemed to him that the second time he heard the reply, ' Yes, I finished it ' ; and then the spec- tral form took him by the hand and led him into that chamber where he (Dante) had been accus- tomed to sleep when he lived in this life, and. HYPNOTIC PHENOMENA 35 touching a certain place in one of the walls, said, ' What you have sought for so much is here.' At these words both Dante and sleep fled from Jacopo at once." Jacopo Alighieri, agitated both by joy and by fear at the same time, rose, although it was mid- dark of the night, and, having traversed in haste the deserted streets of Ravenna, came to the house of Pier Giardini, a notary who had lived on terms of great intimacy with the elder Dante, and re- lated to him what he had seen. They resolved to investigate at once. " For which purpose, al- though it was still far in the night, they set of¥ together, and went to the designated place, and there they found a blind, or curtain, of matting affixed to the wall. Upon gently raising this, they saw a little window never before seen by any of them, nor did any one know it was there. In it they found several manuscripts, all mouldy from the dampness of the walls, so much so that if they had remained there much longer they would have been spoiled. Having tenderly brushed away the mould and read them, they saw they were the thirteen cantos so long sought by them." To this instance we are able to add two recent dreams, one a clairvoyant vision and the other a dream of premonition, both of which were authenticated by the courts of justice and by the town treasurer. 36 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? The first concerns a Miss Loganson, a girl nineteen years old, living in Chicago, who saw in a dream the scene of the assassination of her brother Oscar, a farmer in the town of Marengo, about fifty miles northwest of Chicago. For many days she kept accusing a farmer, his neigh- bor. At first no one paid any attention to her; but at length she was permitted to send a tele- gram, the reply to which was, " Oscar has dis- appeared." Thereupon the girl started for Oscar!s farm, accompanied by another brother and by the police. She led them directly to the house of a person named Bedford. It was locked, and the police had to force the door. Traces of blood were fotmd in the kitchen. Miss Logan- son, however, did not stop there, but went at once toward the hen-house, the yard of which was paved. " My brother is buried there," she said. The police called her attention to ikieffact that the pavement had not been disturbed since the hen-house had been built. But, owing to the in- sistence of the girl and her terrible agitation, consent was given to dig. Under the pavement they first found the brother's overcoat, and dig- ging deeper came upon his corpse nearly five feet down. A description of Bedford was immedi- ately telegraphed in every direction, and he was arrested' at Ellis, Nebraska. Miss Loganson could never give any explana- tion of her discovery of the crime. She simply HYPNOTIC PHENOMENA 37 said that for several days continuously the spirit of her brother had haunted her and agitated her. The other dream I have mentioned has to do with Rosa Tirone, a servant girl, an hysteric thirty-five years old, who had formerly been in love with a young man of her village but had not been able to marry him owing to the precarious condition of his health. The young man died at the age of twenty-five. One night in November, 1908, Rosa dreamed that her quondam lover and fellow-townsman said to her, " I don't want to see you working as a servant-girl any longer; play these four num- bers : 4, 53, 25, 30 " ; and he repeated them, in order to impress them on her mind. Then he added, " I 'm so thirsty ; draw a bucket of water from the well and give me a drink." In fact there was a well close by, and she drew up water and quenched; his thirst. The next day Rosa Tirone ventured a consid- erable sum on the four numbers. They were all winning numbers in the drawing of the following Sunday. The only distinctive feature of this woman, who had already received four sentences for swin- dlings and thefts, is that she exhibits a purely masculine type of character as well as the ten- dency to fantastic mendacity that is a trait of those afflicted with hysteria. She would brag of owning villas, lands, money, and also discussed 38 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? her investments as if she had a bona Me prop- erty. Before the fortunate dream came to her she had had a premonition of her good fortune, for the same identical lover had said to her in a dream that she would become rich. There is enough in all these observations to enable us to conclude that there exists an im- mense series of psychical phenomena that com- pletely elude the laws of psycho-physiology, and that have solely this feature in common and this certainty, — that they take place more readily in individuals subject to hysteria, or who are neuro- pathic, or who are in the hypnotic or dreaming condition, just at the moment, in fact, when the normal ideation is more or less completely in- active, and in its stead the action of the uncon- scious dominates, which is more difficult to sub- ject to scientific examination of any kind. In short, in the foregoing pages cases are cited and verified in which there are manifestations (even exaggerated) of a ftmction whose organ is as completely inactive as if it were lacking. CHAPTER II Experiments with Eusapia After having convinced myself of this, the chief objection had disappeared which I had to occupy- ing myself with spiritistic phenomena, as phe- nomena that could not really exist because con- trary to physiological laws; and, although the thing was still repugnant to me, I ended by ac- cepting, in March, 1891, an invitation to be pres- ent at a spiritualistic experiment in full daylight in a Naples hotel and tete-a-tete with Eusapia Paladino. And when I then and there saw ex- tremely heavy objects transferred through the air without contact, from that time on I con- sented to make the phenomena the subject of investigation. Eusapia Paladino was a poor orphan girl, born at Murge in 1854, and abandoned by the roadside, so to speak. As a young girl she was received out of charity as nurse-maid in k family of the upper bourgeoisie. From the time when she was a little girl she had manifestations, either mediumistic or hallu- cinatory, whichever they were, without being^at all able to explain them to herself, — such as hear- 40 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? ing raps on pieces of furniture on which she was leaning, having her clothes or the bed-covers stripped from her in the night, and seeing ghosts or apparitions. In 1863 Damiani, — who at a seance in London had already heard a medium- istic communication from " John " to the effect that there was a medium in Naples, John affirm- ing her to be his daughter, — Damiani, I repeat, was present at a spiritualistic seance in the house of the family in which Eusapia was living. Dur- ing this seance her participation in the proceed- ings was attended by the most extraordinary phenomena of raps, movement of objects, etc. From that time on Damiani and Chiaja got a true mediumistic eduction through her; and the poor nurse-girl, finding in this a means of gain and a method of introducing variety into her miserable occupation, went on from time to time attending seances, until the business of medium- ship became her sole occupation. The description of all the experiments made in Europe with Eusapia Paladino would fill a huge volume. We shall simply content ourselves with describing in full the seventeen seances held in Milan in 1892, with myself and with Aksakoff, Richet, Giorgio Finzi, Ermacora, Broflferio, Gerosa, Schiaparelli, and Du Prel, — seances in which the most marked precautions were taken, such as searching the medium, changing her garments, binding her and holding her hands EXPERIMENTS WITH EUSAPIA 41 and feet, and adjusting the electric light on the table so as to be able to turn it oif and on at will. EXPERIMENTS WITH EUSAPIA PALADINO (MILAN, 1892) Phenomena observed in the Light L Mechanical Motions not Explicable by the mere Direct Contact of Hands I. Lateral Levitation of the Table under the Hands of the Medium seated at one of the Shorter Sides thereof. We employed for this experiment a fir table made expressly for the purpose. Among the different movements of the table employed to indicate replies it was impos- sible not to note the raps frequently given by its two sides, which were lifted simultaneously under the hands of the medium without any preceding lateral oscillation. The blows were given with force and rapidity and generally in succession, as if the table were fastened to the hands of the medium. These movements were the more re- markable in that the medium was always seated at one end of the table, and because we never once let go of her hands and feet. Inasmuch as this phenomenon appears very frequently and is produced with the greatest ease, in order that We might observe it better we left the medium alone at the table with her two hands completeljj 42 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? above it and her sleeves turned up as far as the elbows. We remained standing about the table, and the spaces above and below it were well lighted. Under such conditions the table rose at an angle of from 30 to 40 degrees and remained thus for some minutes, while the medium was holding her legs stretched out and striking her feet one against the other. When we then pressed with one hand upon the lifted side of the table, we experienced a marked elastic resistance. 2. Measure of the Force applied to the Lateral Levitation of the Table. For this experiment the table was suspended by one of its ends to a dynamometer attached to a cord. The cord was tied to a small beam resting on two wardrobes. Under such circumstances the end of the table was lifted 15 centimetres and the dynamometer indicated 2,Z kilograms. The medium sat at the same short end of the table with her hands com- pletely above it to the right and left of the point where the dynamometer was attached. Our hands formed a chain upon the table, without pressure, and in any case they would not have been able to do more than increase the pressure applied to it. The desire was expressed that the pressure should diminish instead of increase, and soon the table began to rise on the side of the dynamometer. M. Gerosa, who was following these indications, announced the diminution as Fig. 23. Motion of a Table not Due to the Direct Contact OF Hands. EXPERIMENTS WITH EUSAPIA 43 expressed by the successive figures 3, 2, i, o kilograms. In the end the levitation was so great that the dynamometer rested horizontally on the table. Then we changed the conditions, putting our hands under the table. The medium espe- cially put hers, not under the edge where it might have touched the vertical cornice and exerted a push downward, but under the very cornice that joined the legs together, and touched this, not with the palm, but with the back of the hands. Thus all the hands could only have diminished the traction upon the dynamometer. When the wish was expressed that this traction might again increase, M. Gerosa presently announced that the figures had increased from 3.5 up to 5.6 kilograms. During all these experiments each foot of the medium remained beneath the nearest foot of her neighbor to the right and the left. 3. Complete Levitation of the Table. It was natural to conclude that if the table, in apparent contradiction with the law of gravitation, was able to rise on one side, it would be able to rise com- pletely. In fact, that is what happened, and these levitations are among those of most frequent oc- currence in experiments with Eusapia. They were usually produced under the following con- ditions : The persons seated around the table place their hands on it and form the chain there. Each hand of the medium is held by the adjacent hand 44 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? of the neighbor on each side; each of her feet is under the foot of her neighbor ; these further- more press against her knees with theirs. As usual, she is seated at one of the short sides (end) of the table, — the position least favorable for mechanical levitation. After a few minutes the table makes a lateral movement, rises now to the right and now to the left, and finally is lifted wholly off its four feet into the air, horizontally, as if afloat in a liquid, and ordinarily to a height of from I o to 20 centimetres (sometimes, excep- tionally, as high as 60 or 70), then falls back on all four feet at once. Sometimes it stays in the air for several seconds, and even makes fluctu- ating motions there, during which the position of the feet under it can be thoroughly inspected. During the levitation the right hand of the me- dium frequently leaves the table with that of her neighbor and remains suspended above it. Throughout the experiment the face of the me- dium is convulsed, her hands contract, she groans and seems to be suffering. In order better to observe the matter in hand we gradually retired the experimenters from the table, having noticed that the chain of several persons was not at all necessary, either in this or in other phenomena. In the end we left only a single person besides the medium, and placed on her left. This person rested her feet on the two feet of Eusapia, and one of her hands on Fig. 24. From a Photograph of Complete Levitation of the Table by Eusapia. EXPERIMENTS WITH EUSAPIA 45 the latter's knees. With her other hand she held the left hand of the medium, whose right lay on the table in full view of all, or was even lifted into the air during the levitation. Inasmuch as the table remained in the air for several seconds, it was possible to secure several photographs of the performance. A little before the levitation it was observed that the folds of the skirt of Eusapia were blown out on the left side so far as to touch the neigh- boring leg of the table. When one of us en- deavored to hinder this contact, the table was unable to rise as before, and was only enabled so to do when the observer purposely allowed the contact to occur. It will be noticed that the hand of the medium was at the same time placed on the upper surface of the table on the same side, so that the leg of the table there was under her influence, as much in the lower portion by means of the skirt as in the superior portion through the avenue of the hand. No verification was made as to the degree of pressure exerted upon the table at that moment by the hand of the medium, nor were we able to find out, owing to the brevity of the levitation, what particular part was in contact with the garment, which seemed to move wholly in a lateral direction and to sup- port the weight of the table. In order to avoid this contact it was proposed to have the levitation take place while the me- 46 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? dium and her coadjutors stood on their feet, but it did not succeed. It was also proposed to place the medium at one of the longer sides of the table. But she opposed this, saying that it was impossible. So we are obliged to declare that we did not succeed in obtaining a complete levi- tation of the table with all four of its legs abso- lutely free from any contact whatever, and there is reason to fear that a similar difficulty would have been met in the levitation of the two legs that stood on the side next the medium. 4. Variations of Pressure exerted by the En- tire Body of the Medium seated upon a Balance. This experiment was very interesting, but very difficult to perform; for it will readily be un- derstood that every movement of the medium, whether voluntary or not, on the platform of the balance, could produce oscillations of the platform and hence of the lever, or beam. In order that the experiment might be conclusive, it was necessary that the beam of the balance, once it had taken a new position, should remain there for a few seconds to permit the measurement of the weight by means of the shifting of the weight on the beam. In the hope that this would work all right the attempt was made. The medium was seated in a chair on the balance, and the total weight was found to be 62 kilograms. After a few os- cillations there was a marked descent of the beam, lasting several seconds, and this permitted M. EXPERIMENTS WITH EUSAPIA 47 Gerosa, who stood near the beam, to measure the weight immediately. It indicated a diminution of pressure equivalent to 10 kilograms. A wish having been expressed that the opposite result might be obtained, the extremity of the beam quickly rose, indicating this time a rise of 10 kilograms. This experiment was repeated several times, and in five different seances. Once it gave no results, but the last time a registering apparatus enabled us to get two curves of the phenomenon. We tried to produce similar deflections ourselves, and succeeded only when many of us stood on our feet on the platform of the balance and rested our weight now on one of its sides and now on another, near the edge, with very vigorous move- ments, which, however, we never observed in the medium, and which, indeed, were impossible in her position on the chair. Nevertheless, recog- nizing that the experiment could not be regarded as absolutely satisfactory, we rounded it out with one that will be described in Chapter III of this book. In this experiment of the balance, also, it was noticed by some of us that success seemed to de- pend on contact of the garments of the medium with the floor upon which the balance was directly placed. The truth of this was established by a specia;l experiment on the 9th of October, The medium having been seated on the balance, that 48 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? one of our number who had taken upon himself to watch her feet soon saw the lower folds of her dress swelling out and projecting in such a way as to hang down from the platform of the balance. As long as the attempt was made to hinder this movement of the dress (which was certainly not produced by the feet of the medium), the levita- tion did not take place. But as soon as the lower extremity of the dress was allowed to touch the floor, repeated and very evident levitations took place, which were designated in very fine curves on the disc that registered the variations of weight. 5. The Apparition of Hands on a Background slightly Luminous. We placed upon the table a large cardboard smeared with phosphorescent material (sulphide of calcium) and placed other pieces of the same cardboard in other parts of the room. In this way we very clearly saw the dark silhouette of a hand projected on the card- board of the table, and upon the background formed by the other pieces we saw the black outline of the hand pass and repass around us. On the evening of September 21 one of us sev- eral times saw the apparent shadow, not of one, but of two hands, outlined against the feeble ligh't of a window closed merely by panes of glass (outside it was night, but not completely dark). These hands were seen to be in rapid motion, EXPERIMENTS WITH EUSAPIA 49 but not so much so as ito hinder our seeing their outlines. They were completely opaque. These apparitions (of hands) cannot be explained as cunning tricks of the medium, who could not pos- sibly free more than one of her hands from con- trol. The same conclusion must be drawn as to the clapping of two hands, the one against the other, which was heard several times during our experiments. 6. The Levitation of the Medium to the Top of the Table. Among the most important and significant of the occurrences we put this levita- tion. It took place twice, — that is to say, on the 28th of September and the 3d of October. The medium, who was seated near one end of the table, was lifted up in her chair bodily, amid groans and lamentations on her part, and placed (still seated) on the table, then returned to the same position as before, with her hands contin- ually held, her movements being accompanied by the persons next her. On the evening of the 28th of September, while her hands were being held by MM. Richet and Lombroso, she complained of hands which were grasping her under the arms; then, while in trance, with the changed voice characteristic of this state, she said, " Now I lift my medium up on the table." After two or three seconds the chair with Eusapia in it was not violently dashed, but lifted without hitting anything, on to the top 50 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? of the table, and M. Richet and I are sure that we did not even assist the levitation by our own force. After some talk in the trance state the medium announced her descent, and (M. Finzi having been substituted for me) was deposited on the floor with the same security and pre- cision, while MM. Richet and Finzi followed the movements of her hands and body without at all assisting them, and kept asking each other questions about the position of the hands. Moreover, during the descent both gentlemen repeatedly felt a hand touch them on the head. On the evening of October 3 the thing was repeated in quite similar circumstances, MM. Du Prel and Finzi being one on each side of Eusapia. 7. Touchings. Some of these are worthy of being chronicled with some detail on account of certain circumstances capable of yielding inter- esting bits of information as to their probable origin; and first of all should be noticed those touchings felt by persons beyond the reach of the hands of the medium. Thus, on the evening of October 6, M. Gerosa, who was at a distance from the medium of three places (about four feet, the medium being at one short end of the table and M. Gerosa at one of the adjacent corners of the opposite end), having lifted his hand to be touched, several times felt a hand strike his to lower it; and he, persisting, was struck with EXPERIMENTS WITH EUSAPIA 51 a trumpet, which a little before had been sounded here and there in the air. In the second place should be noted touchings that constitute delicate operations impossible to be performed in the dark with that precision which was observed in them by us. Twice (September 16 and 21) Signor Schia- parelli's spectacles were removed and placed on the table before another person. These specta- cles are fastened to the ears by means of two elastic spiral springs, and it will be readily un- derstood that a certain amount of attention is requisite in order to remove them, even in broad daylight. Yet they were removed in complete darkness with such delicacy and deftness that their owner had to touch his temples with his hand in order to assure himself that they were no longer in place. In all of the extremely numerous manoeuvres executed by mysterious hands there was never rioted any blunder or collision such as is ordi- narily inevitable when one is operating in the dark; and the darkness was in most of our ex- periments, with one or two exceptions already indicated, as complete as it could possibly be. It may be added in this connection that bodies quite heavy and bulky, such as chairs and ves- sels full of clay, were placed upon the table with- out encountering any one of the numerous hands resting upon it, — a matter which was especially 52 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? difficult in the case of chairs that would cover a large part of the table's surface owing to their size. A chair was once even turned down on the table and placed longitudinally without annoy- ance to any one, although it occupied nearly the whole top of the table. 8. Contacts with a Human Face. One of us, having expressed a desire to be kissed, felt the contact of two lips. This happened twice, Sep- tember 21 and October i. On three separate oc- casions it happened to one of those who were present to touch a human face with hair and beard, and the touch of the skin was undeniably that of a living man's face. The hair was much coarser and ranker in growth than the medium's, but the beard seemed very soft and fine. 9. Sound of a Trumpet. On the evening of October 3, a trumpet having been placed behind the medium and behind the curtain, all at once we heard it sound several notes. Those who were- near Eusapia were in a situation to assure themselves with the greatest certainty that the sound did not come from her direction. 10. Other Instances of "Apports." One of us, at the beginning of the seance, had laid his over- coat on a chair beyond the reach of the medium. At the close it was seen that several different objects had been brought and laid on a phos- phorescent cardboard that was on the'-table. The owner of these articles recognized them at once EXPERIMENTS WITH EUSAPIA 53 as having been in an inside pocket of his over- coat. Hereupon the medium began to lament and make signs of displeasure, complaining of something that had been put about her neck and was binding her tight. We produced light and found that the overcoat was not in the place where it had been originally laid, and then, giving our attention to the medium, discovered that she had on the overcoat in question, her arms being slipped into it, one in each sleeve. During the sitting her hands and feet had been always controlled in the usual way by the two who sat next her. II. Phenomena hitherto observed in the Dark now at length OBTAINED IN THE LiGHT, WITH THE MEDIUM IN SiGHT In order to attain complete conviction, it re- mained for us to attempt to secure important phe- nomena in the light. But, as darkness is very favorable to their production, we proceeded, in the sitting of October 6, as follows: In order that one part of the room might be left in dark- ness, it was separated from the rest by a curtain (divided in the middle), and a chair was placed for the medium before the aperture in the cur- tain. Her back was in the dark part, while her arms, hands, face, and feet were in the illumi- nated portion. Behind the curtain were placed a little chair and a small bell, about a foot and a half from Eusapia, and upon another more dis- tant chair was placed a vessel full of moist clay. 54 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? In the illuminated part of the room we formed a circle around the table, which was placed before the medium. The room was lighted by a lantern with red glass sides. Presently the phenomena began. We saw the inflated curtain blowing out toward us. Those who sat near the medium, on opposing their hands to the curtain, felt resistance. The chair of one of them was vigorously pulled, then five stout blows were struck on it, which signified "less light." We thereupon softened the light of the red lantern with a shade; but a little afterward we were able to remove the shade, and instead the lantern was set on our table in front of the medium. The edges (lembi) of the curtain where it was divided were fastened to the cor- ners of the table, and, at the request of Eusapia, the upper parts were also folded back above her head and fastened with pins. Then above the head of the medium something began to appear and disappear. M. Aksakoff rose, put his hand in the aperture of the curtain above the head of the medium, and announced that fingers had touched him several times ; next, his hand was grasped through the curtain ; finally, he felt something thrust into his hand. It was the little chair ; he held it firmly ; then the chair was snatched away from him and fell to the floor. All present put their hands through the curtain and felt the contact of hands. In the dark back- EXPERIMENTS WITH EUSAPIA 55 ground of the aperture itself, above the head of the medium, the usual firefly-like bluish gleams appeared several times. M. Schiaparelli was forcibly struck through the curtain both on the back and side. His head was covered by the curtain and drawn into the dark part, while he with his left hand kept holding all the time the right of the medium, and with his right the left hand of M. Finzi. In this position he felt him- self touched by the warm bare fingers of a hand, saw the light-gleams describing curves in the air and lighting up a little the hand and the body which was carrying them. Then he took his seat again ; whereupon a hand began to appear in the aperture without being withdrawn so suddenly and in a more distinct way. M. Du Prel, with- out letting go of the hand of the medium, put his head into the aperture above her head and received some hard blows from several quarters and by more than one finger. The hand still showed itself between the two heads. Du Prel resumed his place, and M. Aksakoff held a pencil up to the opening. It was grasped by the hand and did not fall to the floor. In a little while it was flung through the aperture onto the table. Once a closed fist appeared on the head of the medium. It opened slowly and showed the hand open, with the fingers spread apart. It is impossible to state the number of times S6 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? that this hand appeared and was touched by us. Suffice it to say that no doubt was any longer possible. It was actually a living human hand that we saw and touched, while at the same time the entire bust and the arms of the medium re- mained in sight and her hands were continuously held by her neighbors on each side. When the sitting was over, Du Prel passed first into the darkened part of the room and called out to us that there was an imprint in the clay. In fact, we ascertained that this had been dis- figured by the deep print of five fingers, which explains the fact that toward the end of the seance a piece of clay had been thrown upon the table through the aperture in the curtain. The imprint of the hand was a permanent proof that we had not been under an hallucination. These things were repeated several times in the same way or under a form a little different on the evenings of the 9th, 13th, 15th, 17th, and 18th of October. Although the position of the mysterious hand would not permit us to assume that it belonged to the medium, nevertheless, for greater security, on the evening of the 15th an elastic rubber band was applied to her left hand and wound around each finger separately, and thus allowed one to distinguish at any moment which of the two hands each neighboring sitter had in custody. The apparitions took place just the same, as they also did on the evening of the EXPERIMENTS WITH EUSAPIA 57 17th, and finally on the i8th, although with less intensity, under the rigorous control (solemnly attested by them) of MM. Richet and Schia- parelli, each of whom gave special attention to this part of the investigation. One evening, in full light, Schiaparelli brought a block of new writing-paper and asked Eusapia to write her name. She grasped his finger and moved it over the paper as if it were a pen. She then said, " I have written." But we could find no trace of writing, and she showed us that the writing was there, but in the inside of the tablet, or block of pages. In a second trial the signa- ture was visible on the stick that held up the window curtain at a height of more than two metres at least, and nearly four from the table. In a last trial the name was found to be badly written on the next to the last page of the tablet of paper, and yet the leaves had not been turned over nor the tablet lifted up. And now let us glean the most interesting cases from the memoirs of the most eminent experimenters. At Naples, in 1895, with my eminent associates Bianchi, Tamburini, Vizioli, and Ascensi, I again tried these experiments in a room in our inn chosen expressly for the purpose. And here, in full light, we saw a great curtain which sepa- rated our room from an alcove adjoining (and 58 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? which was more than three feet distant from the medium) suddenly move out toward me, en- velop me, and wrap me close. Nor was I able to free myself from it except with great diffi- culty, A dish of flour had been put in the little alcove room, at a distance of more than four and a half feet from the medium, who, in her trance, had thought, or at any rate spoken, of sprink- ling some of the flour in our faces. When light was made, it was found that the dish was bottom side up with the flour under it. This was dry, to be sure, but coagulated like gelatine. This cincumstance seems to me doubly irreconcilable, — first, with the laws of chemistry, and, second, with the power of movement of the medium, who had not only been bound as to her feet, but had her hands held tight by our hands. When the lights had been turned on, and we were all ready to go, a great wardrobe that stood in the alcove room, about six and a half feet away from us, was seen advancing slowly toward us. It seemed like a huge pachyderm that was proceeding in leisurely fashion to attack us, and looked as if pushed forward by some one. In other successive experiments made in full light with Professor Vizioli and with De Amicis, having asked Eusapia (whose feet and hands were tightly bound and held by us) to have her " John " move a little bell that had been placed on the floor about a foot and a half from her, we EXPERIMENTS WITH EUSAPIA 59 more than once saw her skirts extend themselves to a point, as if forming a third foot or Hke a swelled up arm. When I grasped this arm, it presented a slight resistance to me, as if it were a bladder filled with gas. And this immaterial arm (shall we call it?) finally, in full light, under our very eyes, all of a sudden seized the bell and rang it ! I shall now present some of the experiments tried at Milan and Genoa before the Society for Psychical Studies by Morselli (i 906-1 907), Mar- zovati, and myself, and described by Barzini in his Mondo dei Misteri (1907). The medium (Eusapia) frequently performed experiments suggested by the caprice of those present (see Barzini). One evening we asked her to produce on our table a trumpet then on a chair in the corner of the inner cabinet; and, while we were looking at Eusapia sitting there motionless, we heard the little trumpet fall to the floor, and then for several minutes we heard it moving lightly along, as if a hand were graz- ing it without being able to grasp it. One of the experimenters held out the interrupters (or cut-ofifs) of the electric light intrusted to him toward the cabinet, about six feet from Eusapia, and said, " Take them ! " They were at once taken out of his hand, and several metres of the cord to which the cut-offs were attached slipped through his fingers. He pulled the cord to him 6o AFTER DEATH — WHAT? forcibly and felt an elastic but strong resistance. After a brief and gentle pull he exclaimed, " Turn on the light ! " and one of the lamps was lighted. These events sometimes occur so rapidly as to take one by surprise and leave in one's mind a very legitimate doubt as to their nature ; but very frequently they are slow and labored, and reveal an intense and concentrated energy. During the seance Professor Morselli felt his right arm grasped by a huge hand, the position of the fingers of which he could accurately dis- tinguish. At the same time Eusapia cried out, " See ! " and the green lamp was lighted and again extinguished. Now, the cut-off of this green lamp, attached to a long cord that hung from the ceiling, was all the while in the pocket of Professor Morselli, who had not perceived the entrance of a hand there. We all observed that the lamp was lighted and extinguished without the click of the cut-off being heard. While we were talking, as if to confirm our impression the lamp set to work lighting itself and extinguishing itself in the same silent manner as before. We ought not to forget one thing: the light- ing and extinguishing of the lamp corresponded to a slight movement of the index finger of Eusa- pia in the hollow of my hand. This synchrony between the phenomena and the movements of the medium occurred almost always in our ex- EXPERIMENTS WITH EUSAPIA 61 periments, and it is noteworthy that in these cases the active force of the medium proceeds from the side opposite to that on which the phenomenon is verified as having taken place. For instance, if the right fist of Eusapia is contracted, the per- son on her left will probably feel the touch of a hand, and is often able to recognize that it is a right hand. There is here a most singular criss- cross, an inversion which it may be important to authenticate, in default of anything better. A big table weighing about 24 J^ pounds, situ- ated in the empty recess in front of the window, and upon which some one had laid boxes of phptographic glass plates and a metronome be- longing to Professor Morselli, moved forward to us, then retired. The metronome got into action and began its regular tic-tac. After a while the apparatus is closed, then resumes its action, then is closed again. Now, to set a metronome in operation and stop it is not a difficult nor a long piece of work, but it is minute, and, above all, is not an operation that metronomes are in the habit of doing of themselves. Frequently the objects that arrive on the table of the medium are accompanied by the black cur- tain in such a way that it is exactly as if they were brought by persons hidden in the cabinet and who put the curtain between the objects and their hands. In another seance we saw the dy- namometer, which was almost in contact with 62 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? the edge of the curtain, come up on the table, move about, and disappear behind the curtain. We do not hear the Hght noise that would have been made in laying it up somewhere, and we remark among ourselves that one could think it were being held by some person. Whereupon, lo and behold ! out of the cabinet, above the head of the medium, there steals forth a hand, holding the dynamometer as if it were showing it to us. Then the hand disappears, and after some min- utes the dynamometer reappears on the table. The pointer marks a pressure of no kilograms. It is the pressure that would be exerted by a very robust man. There can be no doubt but that the thought of the participants in a seance exercises a certain influence upon phenomena. It seems as if our discussions were listened to in order to get from them a suggestion for the execution of the vari- ous performances. We have only to speak of' the levitation of the table, and the table rises. If we rap rhythmically on its upper surface, the raps are exactly reproduced, and often in the same spot apparently. We begin to speak of the luminous appearances which have sometimes been exhibited in Eusapia's sittings, and which we have not yet seen in this sitting, when, suddenly, behold ! a light appears on the knees of the me- dium, disappears, and then again shows itself, this time on her head, descends along her left EXPERIMENTS WITH EUSAPIA 63 side, becomes more intense, and finally disappears when it reaches the hip. In continuation, Professor Morselli gives no- tice that he has discovered some person behind the curtain, feels its body resting against him, and we see its arms enveloped in the curtain. Unexpectedly, Barzini pokes his head into the opening of the curtain in order to look into the cabinet. It is empty. The curtain is swelled out and its voluminous folds are empty. That which on one side seems to be the form of a human body in relief, on the other appears as a carita in the stuff, — a moulage, or mould. One recalls the " homo invisibile " of Wells. Barzini touches with his right hand, which is free, the swelling of the curtain on the outside face, and positively encounters under the stuff the resistance of a living head. He identifies the forehead, feeling the cheeks and the nose with the palm of his hand; and, when he touches the lips, the mouth of the thing opens and seizes his hand under the thumb. He feels distinctly the pressure of a sound set of teeth. The carillon (or music-box), intended to make a little diversion, comes upon the table as if it had fallen from above, and, resting there entirely isolated, plays for several seconds, while we look curiously on. In shape- it 4s like a small coffee- grinder. Being so simple and so slightly musical, this instrument requires, in order to be played. 64 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? the co-operation of the two hands, — one to hold it firm, and the other to turn the crank. Its glu- glu has scarcely ceased when we hear the mando- lin sliding along over the floor. M. Bozzano sees it come out from the cabinet and stop behind Pro- fessor Morselli, where it strums two or three times. Thence it climbs up on the table, turns upside down, and ends by depositing itself in the arms of Barzini like a baby! As we placed our bands on the strings, we felt them vibrating under the touch of the unknown force, and thus also acquired the proof of touch as to the reality of the phenomena. We observe that the movement of the mando- lin, as of all the objects transported, has a kind oi orientation. In other words, the objects never move in a circle: they are subject to transfer- ence, but not to revolution. They move precisely as if they were held by a hand, — advance and retreat, move to the right or to the left, but keep- ing one and the same relative position. The mandolin always has the handle turned toward the medium. The chairs which take their :urious walks and climb up on the table always look as if they were being dragged along by the back. Professor Morselli brought with him a little cord about sixteen inches long, and at a jiven moment put it on the table. It disappeared ind then returned, wiggling and squirming like \ dog's tail. When he expressed the wish to EXPERIMENTS WITH EUSAPIA 65 have knots tied in it, immediately it disappeared into the cabinet and soon after returned knotted in three places. These knots were equal, large, well made, symmetrical, and equidistant. In a fifth sitting, in which Morselli had care- fully tied Eusapia to a cot-bed, he was obliged to testify, after every instance of apparition, that she had been untied or tied in a different manner. Spectral Appearances and Materializations During the first five or six years of her public career as a medium Eusapia devoted herself more to phenomena of movement — to self-moving ob- jects of furniture and to apports — than to spec- tral appearances. After the first years spectral hands began to be seen (sometimes joined to arms of various size), and, more rarely, feet. In the last few years these phantasms of arms and hands appear more frequently in the middle and at the end of the seance. Sometimes they accompanied translocation of chairs and mando- lins, etc. Sometimes they appeared solely for the purpose of showing themselves — frequently being pale, diaphanous, of a pearly tint. Bottazzi (Nelle Regioni inesplorate della Bio- logia, 1907) multiplied observations of this kind. For instance, he saw a black fist come clear out in front of the left-hand curtain and approach a lady, who felt herself touched on the back of s 66 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? the neck and on the knees. On another oceasioi a natural hand, the warmth and solid nature o which were felt, was placed on his arm, and thei re-entered the body of Madame Paladino, as i it were a case of phantasmal prolongation. In deed, Galeotto once distinctly saw emerge fron the left side of Eusapia two identically simila arms, — one (the true one) held by the control ler, and another spectral (or "fluidic"), tha detached itself from her shoulder, touched thi hand of the controller, and then returned t( merge itself in the body of Eusapia. These " fluidic " arms are the ones with whicl the mediums move objects from eight to twelvi inches farther than the extremity of their owi proper limbs; furthermore, the thrusts given b] them frequently produce pain just as if they wer( the true arms. Sometimes, in good seances, these phanton limbs are somewhat prolonged, but not farthej than four and a half feet from the table. At the end of Eusapia's seances, especially th( more successful ones, trlie spectral appearance: occurred, though much more rarely. Among th( more important of these, inasmuch as it was seei by many and was repeated, I note net only th( apparition of the deceased son of Vassallo,^ bu also the one first confessed to me personally b] MorselH (however put in doubt afterwards) o: 1 See Vassallo, Nel Mondo degli Itwisibili, igo2. EXPERIMENTS WITH EUSAPIA 67 his mother, who kissed him, dried his eyes, said certain words to him, then again appeared to him, caressed him, and, to prove her personal identity, Hfted his hand and placed it on the right eyebrow of the medium (" It is not there," said MorseUi), and then placed it on her own forehead, on which, near the eyebrow, was a little blemish. MorseUi was seated at the right of Eusapia^ while on the other side was Porro (see the figure). EUSAPIA. MOSSELLI. j MlSELLI. I Vassallo. MOKANI. POERO. SiGNORA MORANI. I Doctor Vengi. Fig. 25. Diagram of Table and Sitters. I myself had the opportunity of examining a similar apparition in Genoa in 1903. The me- dium (Eusapia) was in^a state of semi-intoxica- tion, so that I should have thought that nothing would be forthcoming for us. On being asked by me, before the seance opened, if she would cause a glass inkstand to move in full light, she replied, in that vulgar speech of hers, " And what makes you obstinately stuck on such trifles as that? I can do much more: I can cause you to 68 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? see your mother. You ought to be thinking of that." Prompted by that promise, after half an hour of the seance had passed by, I was seized with a very Hvely desire to see her promise kept. The table at once assented to my thought by means of its usual sign-movements up and down; and soon after (we were then in the semi-obscurity of a red light) I saw detach itself from the curtain a rather short figure like that of my mother,^ veiled, which made the complete circuit of the table until it came to me, and whispered to me words heard by many, but not by me, who am some- what hard of hearing. I was almost beside my- self with emotion and begged, her to repeat her words. She did so, saying, "Cesar, Ho mio!" (I admit at once that this was not her habitual expression, which was, when she met me, " mio Hoi"; but the mistakes in expression made by the apparitions of the deceased are well known, and how they borrow from the language of the psychic and of the experimenters), and, removing the veil from her face for a moment, she gave me a kiss. After that day the shade of my mother (alas! only too truly a shadow) reappeared at least twenty times during Eusapia's seances while the 1 At that moment Eusapia was certainly held by the hand by two per- sons, and her height is at least four inches greater than that of my poor mother, of whose appearance she had not the faintest idea. EXPERIMENTS WITH EUSAPIA 69 medium was in trance; but her form was en- veloped in the curtain of the psychic's cabinet, her head barely appearing while she would say, " My son, my treasure," kissing my head and my lips with her lips, which seemed to me dry and ligneous like her tongue. One of the most typical and strange instances ^ is that which happened to Massaro, of Palermo, in the seance of November 26, 1906, at Milan. Some time previously, having evoked at a turn- ing-table the spirit of the son recently deceased, he had received from him the promise of a ma- terialization at Milan. Having got a hint of the seances of Eusapia, he decided to be present. At the sitting of the 26th, Morselli having taken a place in the chain, Madame Paladino remarked quite suddenly that she perceived a young man who came from a distance, and, after being questioned, specified " from Palermo " ; and afterwards said, " Portrait made in the sun." Whereupon Massaro remembered that he had in his letter-case a photograph of his son taken out of doors (in the country). At the same time he was aware of being sharply tapped on the breast at the very spot where he had that picture of his son, and felt himself kissed twice on the right cheek through the curtain that hung near him; and the kisses were followed by very 1 From the volume entitled / Fenomeni Medianici, by Francesco Facchini Luraghi, Milan, 1902. 70 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? arch caresses, though most delicate withal. Then all of a sudden the significant touches were re- peated, but this time by a hand that insinuated itself with eager movements into the inside pocket of the coat just where the letter-case was. This it opened just at the compartment that held the portrait. During this second appearance caresses and kisses were held back at first; then he felt himself seized around the body, drawn near the curtain, and repeatedly kissed. Finally there was projected on the curtain the apparition of a head bound with a white bandage, — a head which he recognized -as that of his son. A few months before he died, Chiaja presented me with some bas-reliefs obtained (all of them) from Eusapia when in a state of trance by plac- ing clay wrapped in a thin fold of linen on a piece of wood in a box, and this covered with a board securely weighted down by a heavy stone. Upon this the medium placed her hand, and after she had entered into the trance state cried out, " It is done ! " The box was opened and there was found the hollow print either of the hand or the face of a being whose facial ex- pression was mingled of life and death. I was not present at these sittings. But the testimony of Chiaja (a man of honorable memory) and that of an illustrious Neapolitan sculptor who took the reliefs from the moulds or imprints (Figs. 26 to 29) is my firm guaranty as to the transaction; as Fig. 26. MEDiUiiisTic Sculptures — ^that to the Left by John King (EUSAPLA.), AXD TH.A.T TO THE RiGHT BY KlCOLO R., I905. EXPERIMENTS WITH EUSAPIA 7 1 is also the opinion of Bistolfi, according to whom, in order to obtain in a few minutes those touches which, seen near at hand, are meaningless, but which from a distance assume a terrible and posi- tively death-life expression, repeated trials would be necessary, and we should have to grant to the medium an extraordinary artistic ability, whereas she is without the very first elements of the art. Let us add that, since the clay is covered with a thin veil, the warp and woof of which can still be made out in the imprint, even a veteran artist could not succeed by mere pressure, and, as Boz- zano notes, the hand would have to leave, not an imprint proper, but a vague channelling. The bona Me nature of these occurrences is also proved to me from their having been re- peated under the eyes of Bozzano at meetings of the Circolo Scientifico Minerva of Genoa, in 1901-1902, and in France under the control of Flammarion at Monfort I'Amaiiry, who repro- duces a remarkable death-like mask, the very image of Eusapia.^ The same phenomena have been produced under my own eyes in Milan and Turin. 1 [See p. 76 of Flammarion's Mysterious Psychic Forces (Small, May- nard & Co., Boston, 1907).] CHAPTER III Experiments with Accurate Scientific Instruments But the great mediumistic problem cannot be solved without the assistance of those accurate instruments by the use of which we are saved from every possible error of judgment. Crookes long ago noted, in the case of Florence Cook, that with appearance of the phantasm she lost almost the half of her weight. The same thing is true of Miss Fairland, who by the formation of a phantasm diminished her weight by sixty pounds, — the full half of her normal weight. Mor- selli noted a diminution of weight in Eusapia, after the trance state, amounting to 2200 grams. Arsonval at Torigio remarked that at the moment of the levitation of the table Eusapia's weight was augmented by the weight of the table. Eusa- pia, like Home, can vary the weight of her body both downward and upward {i. e. in less and in greater degree), first from 62 to 52 kilograms and then rising to 72 kilograms. She can efifect the same result in the case of an object placed upon the balance, although at least the hem of Fig. 27. Plaster Cast of Impression in Clay of Medium's Foot. Fig. 28. Bas-relief of her Face Executed by Eusapia (Chiaja). m_____ ^ ^ --.-■■.:.;.-,. ".;--■ W Z ^^Hl^l ^^^■pH^^^^HHi SHBHB^^^H P^P^^^^^^^^^^M^B^^B o ^^^^HHi^^n^^SHI 3 o o 9hBsSw?BHIII^^^H^^^b3 Sbss^^^^^^^^^^^^^^B^Bh^^^^^H^i "^'^^h^^^^I w gBBBfe-?*^ « ^H^^^^ W^^mBiiBBB "^"^^B ^^^Hb { H^^^^fll ^■hh^h^B^^^^^^^^^^^H z J^-^ ''l^^^^^^l ^^^^ '^-'^'^^^H^^HBHI HHHHIHilHHH^^ky ■^■^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^i^^^H^^M o o 3 rt <; 'fflW U mH M H ^^H H Z ' i ^^H W 3 '^' ^1 S isp. ^ ^^ /j^^sSj^^^^^^^^^^^^H .^ : II 6 6 ^■t<-5^^__^ ^^^H ■ .^ EXPERIMENTS WITH INSTRUMENTS 73 her draperies or her dress must touch the foot of the weighing-machine (bascule). In our experiments with Eusapia we obtained similar results. Having placed two Regnier dy- namometers on the table at a distance of three feet from the medium, — asking her to exert the greatest pressure she could,' — we saw the indi- cator go to 42 kilograms, and this of itself, in full light and during one and the same manipu- lation. But when she is out of the trance state Eusapia has never before been able to reach more than 36. During the performance she as- serted that she saw her " John " pressing in his two hands the instrument which she in her igno- rance called " the thermometer." And she kept writhing her hands, held tight by us, and trying to turn them toward the dynamometer. While this was going on, I observed that the pupil of her eye contracted and her breathing grew deeper even to the point of dyspnoea. In February, 1907, we placed in the mediumistic cabinet a Marey cardiograph (see Fig. 30) at a distance of three feet from the psychic, who had her back turned to it and her hands controlled by two of the experimenters. The cardiograph was connected with a pen running upon a cylin- der smoked with lampblack. The connection was made by a tube traversing the walls of the cabi- net. The writing pen was located 5 1 centimetres from the left lateral wall of the cabinet and about 74 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? a metre and a half from the medium. Every- thing being ready, we .begged " John " to press the button of the cardiograph. After a few minutes we hear the noise of the pen running over the ,cy Under, which being re- A LtXt t > > I LU t_i <_x i.> i M .0 I M I « M I I > ) I »->-UUULA Fig. 31. Caediographic Tracings by "John" {A is the Tiue in * Seconds on the Despeez Register). volved gives us two groups of curves that rapidly decrease (see Fig. 31). One part of the second group is intertwined with the first because we were not able in the darkness to remove the cylinder in time. The first group corresponds to about 23 seconds and the other to about 18 seconds. These tracings indicate either a prone- EXPERIMENTS WITH INSTRUMENTS 75 ness to exhaustion or else weak volitional energy. To comprehend this, see the tracings (Fig. 32) made by one of us for one second pressing uni- formly and rhythmically on the button of the cylindrical cardiograph. The psychic, who in the normal state does not exercise any influence at a distance on the elec- troscope, one evening when she had just been awakened from a profound trance was placed by Fig. 32. Cajldiogeaphic Tkacing by Expeetm.knter. Dr. Imoda with her hands suspended ten centi- metres above the electroscope. For two minutes nothing happened. Then of a sudden began the drooping of the pieces of gold leaf, which after four minutes fell rapidly. This is something that, correlated with the impression made by the me- dium on photographic plates wrapped up in dark paper, confirms the fact of her radio-activity in the trance state, and harmonizes with the fre- ^quent appearance of white fluctuating clouds 76 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? similar to the luminous vapor on the upper sur- face of the table during the seances, — it being a property of the cathode rays to determine the formation of vapor when they pass through air saturated with humidity. And now we come to the experiments of Foa Fig. 33. Apparatus tor Registering Movements of the Meditjm. Rotating Cylinder under Bell-glass. and Herlitzka and Bottazzi (Rivista d' Italia, 1907). Drs. Foa and Herlitzka thus write: In order to register objectively the movements that the medium has the power of producing, we have constructed (see Fig. 33) a rotating cylinder (/) around a vertical axis. The cylin- der completes one entire revolution in six hours. Around the cylinder is wrapped a sheet of white paper covered with a layer of lampblack. Upon this black surface a fixed point moves, removing EXPERIMENTS WITH INSTRUMENTS 77 the lampblack, and through the movement of the cylinder marking on the paper a white horizontal line. If the pointer moves from above down- ward, it designs on the paper a delicate vertical line. The pointer could be put in motion by a small electro-magnet (e), the Desprez register united to an accumulator and a telegraphic key. The rotating cylinder and the Desprez register are placed under a bell-glass, which is set on a stout plank (B). The bell-glass, the lower rim of which is stout and thick, was fixed upon the plank by means of a narrow band passing through three eye-holes formed of little ribbons sealed with sealing-wax to the board. The rim of the bell-glass served as a hold, or stop, for the band. Through three holes made in the thickness of the wooden plank, the conducting wires pro- ceeding from the registering apparatus issued from beneath the bell-glass only to be immedi- ately encased in glass tubes which hindered the wilful or casual contact of the wires with each other and the consequent breaking of the electric circuit. Of the wires, one went to the accu- mulator (d), the other directly to the tele- graphic key, from which next in order a third wire, insulated in a glass tube, went to the other pole of the accumulator. All parts of the wire that could not be insulated by glass, at the bind- ing-wires of the accumulator, were wrapped with 78 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? insulating ribbon and covered with a ribbon band (fettucia) sealed with our seal. Finally, the tele- graphic key itself was enclosed in a cardboard box (c) nailed to the plank, and shut by means of two bands placed crosswise and sealed'. Two little holes in the box gave passage to two glass tubes containing the conducting wires. Accumulator and key were fixed upon the same plank as the cylinder. Thus it was impossible to make a mark upon the cylinder except when the key was pressed down. Besides this registering mechanism, we pre- pared some sheets of lampblacked paper in order later to secure imprints; some photographic plates carefully folded in black paper for the purpose of putting in evidence eventual radia- tions that should penetrate through the opaque media; and, lastly, a dynamometer. We were able to prepare experiments with assured objective results. The medium told us that she could have moved the key of our apparatus without breaking the protecting structure if this had been of cloth in- stead of cardboard. So, for the second sitting, we modified our apparatus, and in order not only to register the movements taking place, but also to measure their intensity, we abandoned elec- tric registration, substituting for it the mano- metric method. For this purpose (see Fig. 34) we connected, EXPERIMENTS WITH INSTR,UMENTS 79 by means of a glass rod, a vessel (a) full of water (and furnished with a tube aperture (b) near the bottom) to a U-shaped manometer (c) containing mercury. The top opening of the vessel was covered by a strong india-rubber cloth (d) tightly bound to the receptacle itself. In this way we had an enclosed space full of liquid, at the farther extremity of which was in- serted the manometer. And since upon the mer- FlG. 34. EXPEKIMENT WITH THE MaNOMETEE (tO UEASUBE MOVEMENTS AND THEIR INTENSITY). cury floated a little rod furnished with a point (e) which made tracings on the rotating cylin- der (/), every pressure was registered and meas- ured in an objective document. Experience had taught us the uselessness of sealing the bell-glass, so we gave that up. But instead we took the cylinder and the manometer out of the medium's cabinet and placed them in a visible and controllable position throughout the seance. In the cabinet we placed only the glass 8o AFTER DEATH — WHAT? receptacle for water, upon the rubber cloth of which the power of the medium was to be tested. This water vessel stood in a wooden box (g) over the top of which a cloth was stretched and nailed. The rubber cloth itself was covered with a layer of lampblack. But even our precaution of covering the ap- paratus with cloth was to be shown up only too well as being of no service whatever, for at a certain moment the cloth was heard to tear. In the presence of a phantom form one of us (F.) held a photographic plate, wrapped in paper, above the head of Eusapia and felt the plate seized by a hand covered with the curtain. M. Foa grasped it with his own hand, but that of the phantasm slipped from his and struck him. The plate is changed, and the invisible hand begins another contest, during which it holds the plate fast for several seconds. At last an unexpected blow given to the plate makes it fall on the little seance table, though without breaking it. In continuation of the game. Dr. AruUani goes up to the Httle table No. i. But it advances briskly against him and pushes him back. The doctor grabs it, and a contest ensues. During the contest the table is heard to crack. The table in question is strong and made of whitewood; height, 80 centimetres; length, 90; width, 55; weight, 7.80 kilograms. Dr. Arullani calls for a pressure of the hand EXPERIMENTS WITH INSTRUMENTS 8 1 from the curtain, and the medium replies with the voice, " I will first break in pieces the table and then shake hands." Hereupon three new complete levitations of the table take place, and eiach time it falls back heavily on the floor, and later goes into the cabinet, all the time smashing itself up, then comes out with violent movement, thrashing around before everybody, and, its joints all apart, is finally broken to pieces, even the separate boards being broken up. Two of the legs, still united by a small strip of wood, hang poised in the air for a moment above us and then descend upon the little seance table. The co-experimenters of Professor Mosso thus sum up the objective phenomena established and authenticated by them : I . The registration of our apparatus took place while the rotating cylinder was outside of the seance cabinet in such a way that no one could approach it without being seen, while at the same time the transmitting apparatus was in a wooden box higher than the elastic cloth, or membrane, and entirely visible. One of us felt, simultane- ously with the taps on the membrane, the pres- sure of the right hand of the medium in his left, during which time also the other hand of Madame Paladino was in that of Professor Foa. The apparatus stood on the left of Dr. Her- litzka, whose left hand held the right hand of the 6 82 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? medium, while her right was held by the one who sat next. 2. The stout table went all to pieces before the eyes of all of us, untouched by any one ; the nails were pulled out and the joints and separate boards smashed. The breaking up took place, as has been said, on one side of the medium and also in front, to the left, in the midst of many of the company, and in a good state of the light. 3. The photographic plate, nailed under the table, passed with swift ipotion to its upper sur- face, while all present were on their feet and forming the chain, and in the best light possible, — all of us, including the medium, being at a distance from the table, which was in open space and distinctly visible on all sides. The objective records of the phenomenon were these: When the seance was over, the photo- graphic plate was found to be on the table in- stead of under it, and two of the nails that had held it up were missing. Before the event oc- curred, Eusapia made the one of us who had nailed the glass plate under the table give her his hand to hold, while her right was at the same time held by two others of us. 4. The photographic plate (wrapped up in black paper) which one of us had held on the head of the medium and which for several seconds had been struggled for by what we called a hand, showed after development the dark negative im- EXPERIMENTS WITH INSTRUMENTS 83 print of four large fingers (Fig. 35). This is evidently a case of radio-activity and not of luminosity, because the impression was made through an opaque medium. Two of the plates gave uncertain results. Our manometer had made on the smoked paper varied markings, the highest of which corre- spond to a pressure of 56 millimetres of mercury. The proportions of the elastic cloth being known, that indicates that upon this cloth there had been exerted a pressure equal to about 10 kilograms. Upon the gutta-percha cloth covered with lamp- black there was found the imprint of the cloth; only it was partly torn. Bottazzi (Nelle Regioni Inesplorate della Bio- logia Umana, 1904), and Galeotti at Naples, un- dertook on a grand scale, in experiments with Eusapia, the application of graphic registration to mediumistic phenomena. From Bottazzi I have gleaned the following accounts : — Conceive a metallic cylinder covered with a sheet of white paper that has been smoked, — a cylinder that turns continuously on its axis with a uniform motion more or less rapid. Just touch- ing the cylinder is the point of a pen, or stylus, which at one end is fixed to a support. The style may rest in a vertical plane in the centre of which is a horizontal axis. When the style moves over that plane, the point describes on the cylinder a 84 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? curved line, the arc of a circle that has for its centre the axis around which the style moves. The style should be held by means of a counter- weight in a fixed horizontal position. Upon the surface of the seance-table let there be a tele- graphic key, and let the button of the key be connected with the style by means of a cotton or silk thread. Then say to the medium, " Press down the button without touching it with your visible hand, but solely by means of your medium- istic force." The medium presses it down. The click of the key is heard, that is to say, the rap of the metallic point of the key upon the metal block underneath. But at the same time, through the operation of the thread, the lowering of the button has drawn down the style, the point of which has traced a line on the smoked paper. The telegraphic key was set in motion several times. It was screwed down on a piece of board, and hence was not misplaced or overturned. We all heard the rapid lively taps of charac- teristic timbre. And as a proof that we were not the victims of collective illusion or hallucina- tion, the tracing revealed to us three groups of registrations and two isolated strokes interca- lated among them. Fortunately, the electro-mag- netic signal operates in a mode quite different from that of our sense organs and is never de- ceived nor can be deceived. Those little vertical lines, that are almost indistinguishable one from ""^^^&^^fi^^;,, . '"■ . .■';^^'^: >^ H "■-^■..: -~ '""''*--r?.. , ■■•; ■ ■ V ■ .; , '%^:/ ; < 6 < O H '71 V ■■"*^?s^;- ' ''''•'''V'2- ■ •' 5 "' '""■'-■-, P S, ' >. ^ O 7. ■-:■^>>/ 1* '''^' O H 2 2 Cm ^^m^ •2 ^^\T r y U-J V,'" f/' 6 ^ ^ iv J M^ ;"« ■ "'"v.-.- 1 1 EXPERIMENTS WITH INSTRUMENTS 85 the other (because, owing to the low velocity of the cylinder, they succeed each other at too short intervals, less than the fifth of a second), corre- spond to an up and down movement of the key. Looking sharply at the original tracings with a magnifying lens, one discovers that the marks when they are thick are registered with a fre- quency of about 2^ for every | of a second, that is to say, about 13 to a second. Here is another method of manometric regis- tration : You are to suppose fastened upon the top of a stool a Marey receiving t)mipanum, upon the central button of which, glued to the middle of the sheet of caoutchouc (more resistant than the sheets ordinarily used in physiological re- searches), had been fastened with strong glue a disk of wood for the purpose of increasing the superficies upon which the pressure of the in- visible hand of the medium was to be exerted. The tympanum was connected by means of a tube with a Frangois Frank mercury manometer, which, in a branch of the U-shaped tube, has a float furnished with a style that writes on the usual lampblacked cylinder. Every pressure ex- erted on the little wooden disk glued on to the elastic membrane is transformed (by transfer- ence of force) into a lifting of the float and of the style of the manometer, and every depres- sion into a lowering thereof. 86 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? Now, if the tracing be observed, groups of ascending and descending white lines will be found, some higher, some lower. Naturally, to the higher lines correspond strong pressures, to the medium ones pressures of medium intensity, and to the lowest ones weak touches of the disk. The pressures given, especially the strongest, cannot produce the highest lines except when they are exerted on the membrane of the tympa- num, which, as has been said, is fastened upon the stool. As respects displacements of this stool, or as respects the taps rapped on it, or the movements imparted to the caoutchouc tube connecting the tympanum and the manometer, or even as regards the bruises or batterings of it, the former do not have any effect at all, and the latter are trans- lated into little vertical lines on the manometric tracing. An invisible hand or foot would have to strike or step on the little disk, would have to press on the membrane of the receiving tym- panum and that with force, since to obtain the highest lines it is necessary to depress the disk to the utmost limit. In other seances Bottazzi (see his Nelle Re- gioni Inesplorate, etc.) places on the table of the medium a letter weigher (balance scales) and the lampblacked cylinder, and adjusts the style against the paper. Madame Paladino is EXPERIMENTS WITH INSTRUMENTS 87 asked to lower the little tray of the balance without touching it. The cylinder is put in mo- tion, and the point traces on it a horizontal line during several successive turns. Some seconds pass, when, lo! the left-hand curtain is seen to advance resolutely toward the table (as if pushed by a hand hidden behind it, whose fingers are plainly seen in relief), take hold of the tray Fig. 36. Line Traced by a SuPEEKTJMEEAitY Phantasmal Hand. of the balance, forcibly depress it, then draw back and disappear. We stop the cylinder (says Bottazzi), and all testify to the fact that the point has traced (badly, to be sure, because the invisible hand made the balance oscillate) a vertical line upon the smoked paper. Eusapia's hands were in our custody (see Fig. 36). The next day (continues Bottazzi) I wanted to see how much the index of the letter balance registered when the little tray was depressed as far as in the experiment of the day before, and found that the pressure exerted on the tray must have been equivalent to 370 grams. 88 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? On the table of the medium, in these Bottazzi experiments, were the following objects: a cage of iron wire with a key (tasto) inside of it; two Erlenmayer goblets containing the two known solutions of ferrocyanide of potassium and chlo- ride of iron ; one or two spring-keys ; and a little Gaiffe electro-magnetic mechanism suitable for use as an electric cut-off, or interrupter. The other spring-key (the mate of that just spoken of) was outside of the cabinet on a chair. A/arJfs CM- fime/i ^^^^' ^ 7fm9ji f /racing or /Ae f/me.J ' • tnacAinm of G^i//e> ■sm - itee/ad wit/t tHe infefier Jtty { in tAt eabiitit.) — TCTfl VTV ipm — urn" 5 I o coHHecf9i/ iti/A fAe atemal A^' 3 iron-wi>9 eaga-;, S Fig. 37. — Synchronous Registrations or Marks (Naples Physio- logical Laboratory, May 15, 1907). In the seance we are about to describe, the two keys operate marvellously well. Eusapia had at length learned to follow synchronous movements to "perfection. Scarcely had the invisible hand begun to cause taps on the interior key to be heard when Bottazzi put the other key on the table and invited Eusa- pia to strike them both at the same time. The result of the experiment is visible in the two figures herewith presented, in which there are reproduced not only those which will be presently mentioned, but also the marks traced by the EXPERIMENTS WITH INSTRUMENTS 89 points of the two Desprez registers (the two upper lines), not counting the curve of time (tempo) connected with the two spring-keys. The tracings show different groupings of syn- chronous taps. The number of the taps is not always the same in the two corresponding groups. But that comes from the circumstance that in each group the taps begin first on the interior key or first on the exterior one, and then the taps of the other key take place. But the syn- chronism is always perfect. The taps present a different record on the tracing and different from that perceived by our ears. As to this, the first thing to be considered is that the medium- istic raps are rapid and shorter, while those made by the visible hand of Eusapia are more gentle and hence more prolonged. The second point respects the force with which they were made, the criterion being the intensity of the sensations they provoke in us. Now the ones exterior to the curtain were quite weak, hardly audible; the interior ones were very strong, and appeared', not simply taps, but blows of a fist bestowed on the button of the key, delivered leisurely, not forcibly driven into the two surfaces of the table. The results obtained may be summed up thus : The heavy table in the cabinet was shaken violently many times, with visible effort on the part of the medium, who made use of her arms and legs in such efforts. It was also from time go AFTER DEATH — WHAT? to time drawn forth by bounds and leaps from the cabinet by the anterior left-hand corner, cor- responding to the right side of Madame Pala- dino, and lifted up in such a way that after the sitting it was found twisted around, from front to rear and from left to right, about ten degrees measured on the level of the floor. Very natu- rally all the objects on it were, for this reason, either displaced or overturned (some one way, some another). Only the cylinder and the balance had pre- served their original position. From the trac- ings we found on the smoked paper it follows that the cylinder had rotated from right to left, that is, in the direction opposite to the hands of a watch, and that the pointer of the letter weigher had traced very irregular marks, cor- responding to the raps of the metallic clock upon the support of the letter -iDalance, — sounds that we heard during the movements of the table. RESUME OF THE EUSAPIA PHENOMENA CLASS I The Eusapia experiments have been well summed up by Professor Morselli. The first class includes mechanical phenomena, with the production of movements in the case of objects still in contact with the psychic. These Eusapia readily eflfects, in the dark or in the light indif- EXPERIMENTS WITH INSTRUMENTS 91 f erently, — always, be it understood, under full " control." 1. Meaningless oscillations and movements of the table. 2. Movements and rappings of the table that have meaning. These also are very frequent, and those that tally the conventional language em- ployed by Eusapia — two taps " no," three taps " yes," etc. — regulate for the most part the method of procedure of the seances. In truth, the typtology of Eusapia, considered as a whole, is a little different from the marvellous commu- nications of a personal nature or of a philosoph- ico-social order given by other mediums. By way of compensation the Eusapian table has a very rich diction that may be called " mimic " and which resembles that of a child. 3. Complete levitation of the table to a height sometimes of 78 inches. 4. Movements of different objects very lightly touched by the hands or body of the medium, which cannot be reconciled with the extremely weak pressure exerted by her. 5. Movements, undulations, inflations of the curtains of the seance cabinet, without the pos- sibility of their taking place by means of the severely controlled hands or feet of Eusapia. 6. Movements and inflations of the garments of the medium. gz AFTER DEATH — WHAT? CLASS II The second class is only the rounding out and finishing of the first class; that is to say, the mechanical efifects are produced without contact with the person of the medium, at a distance which may vary from a few centimetres to sev- eral metres. They are the most disputed of all, because they can with difficulty be comprehended by the ordinary laws of physics, which teach that a mechanical force ought to act directly upon the resistance opposed to it by material bodies. And yet this mediumistic telekinesis [movement at a distance] is the most frequent thing to be seen at the seances of Eusapia Paladino. Let us cite in a summary way the chief phenomena of this class. 7. Oscillations and movements of the medium- istic table without contact. 8. Independent levitations of the table. We have been present at dances of the table a solo [without a partner] in full gas light when the medium was shut into the cabinet and tied there. 9. Undulations, inflations, and flinging of the curtains of the cabinet. These take place even when the medium is distant; for example, when she is lying down and firmly tied within the cabi- net. It seems as if invisible personages must be lifting the hangings with their hands, — EXPERIMENTS WITH INSTRUMENTS 93 drawing them back to open them, forcibly pull- ing them to close them, etc. 10. Movements impressed on material bodies by hands voluntarily turned toward them, but at a distance. This phenomenon takes place ordi- narily in full light and at the end of sittings. It is the true externalization of motivity ex- plained by De Rochas. 11. Spontaneous movements and the displace- ment of different objects at various distances, even at a distance of two and three metres from the medium. 12. Transference of distant objects to the top of the table. Very frequently, however, such ob- jects preserve certain relations to the dark cur- tains, which, in the phenomenology of Eusapia, have a most important function to perform,— as if they served as a defence for invisible limbs. 13. Displacement of the chairs of the ob- servers. Frequently we feel our chairs taken from under us, etc. 14. Functional movements of mechanical in- struments at a distance. For example, the start- ing into operation of musical instruments (man- dolin, guitar, pianoforte, trumpet) or of other small mechanisms (music-boxes, metronome, dy- namometer, etc.), all at a distance from Eusapia. 94 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? CLASS III The third class of mechanical phenomena con- cerns the alteration Of the gravity of bodies, which are the least sure cases, although illus- trious observers guarantee us that they are authentic. 15. Spontaneous changes of weight in a bal- ance. We have witnessed oscillations of the arm of a steelyard when it could not be seen that Eusapia pressed it. But the phenomenon ap- peared dubious. 16. Changes in the weight of the body of the medium of from five to ten kilograms. 17. Levitation in air of the person of the medium. Professor Morselli had the impression that any of these levitations was genuine at its beginning, but was unconsciously assisted by the two con- trollers at the finish. A curious class of cases, up to this time little studied, is that of the thermo-radiant results of mediumistic phenomena. It consists of few, but interesting, phenomena. 18. Wind out of the dark cabinet is a very frequent thing and is felt at almost every se- ance. It is a true spouting fountain of air, com- ing from within the cabinet and behind the medium. 19. Intense cold. It is observed, for the most SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTS 95 part, by the two controllers, and is the prelude to many manifestations. 20. Radiations from the head and the body of the medium. When the hand is placed near the head of Eusapia, particularly that part of it where there is an osseous opening, or sunken place, due to a fall in early life, there is felt a very perceptible "puff" or draft, now tepid and now chilly. It is impossible to say just how great significance such phenomena have had in the hypotheses made to account for the new nervous forces. The class of acoustic phenomena is in part comprised in the three preceding, since very fre- quently movements at a distance are rendered possible by means of noise, — the sound, etc., of musical instruments in operation. But there are some other special cases of this class, as, for example, — 21. Raps, blows, and other noises on the table. 22. Raps and blows at a distance from the medium. 23. Sounds of musical instruments. These are not really musical sounds, nor harmonious chords, and much less melodious airs. At the most, they are rhythmic time-beats. 24. Noises of hands, of feet. 25. Vocal human sounds. Professor Morselli next passes to a class of 96 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? manifestations not less impressive; namely, to that which, according to the Spiritualists, must reveal the action of occult " intelligences," with lasting results upon inert material. Eusapia, through her lack of culture, is rather weak in this kind of phenomena. 26. Mysterious marks made at a distance. These consist of spots and tracings found on the table and the cuffs of the experimenters, and seem to be made by a pencil. 27. Direct writing. This would seem to be writing made directly by the " spirits," without any evident operation of a hand, — sometimes, however, with visible graphic materials (pencil, graphite) and sometimes without. 28. Imprints on plastic material. ( See photo- graphs, ante.) 29. Apports. CLASS IV This deals with materializations, that is, with ex novo creations, more or less organized, and possessing our human physical characteristics embodied in a material substance; which means beings opposing resistance to touch and to the muscular sense (tangible beings) and beings sometimes endowed with self-light (luminous existences), but more frequently capable solely of arresting the exterior rays of light (render- ing themselves visible). SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTS 97 The first sub-class is that of solid materializa- tions, which Professor Morselli calls " stereosts " and "plasmasts" (stereosi and plasmazioni) . 30. Touchings, handlings, and pressures of invisible hands. These are very common phe- nomena in the seances, occurring either in the darkness or in weak light or by red light. And they are genuine human hands that touch, press, grasp, draw, lightly strike, knock against us, pull one's beard or hair, remove eyeglasses, and be- stow cuffs or slaps. 31. Organizations having a solid form and the characteristics of limbs of the human body. They are ordinarily hands, arms, and even heads, that are felt through the dark curtain and that seem pieces or fragments of a creature that is being formed. Sometimes they give the impression (tangible) of being an entire person. Pressures or grasps of a hand through the curtain are usually but momentary, the hand and arm draw- ing back in haste; but sometimes they remain a good while and allow of handling, especially the faces. The unseen mouth also gives kisses, bites, and the like, — hindered, however, almost always by the stuff of the curtain. 31 (o). Organs identical with human hands, distinguishable to the touch as nude. On cer- tain occasions the touches of true hands of flesh and bone are felt, having the characteristics of the limbs of a living creature. The skin of the 7 98 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? hands, their warmth, the superficies of the palm, the mobile fingers, are all perceived. If they are grasped, you get the impression of hands that are dissolving under your touch, that slip away as if they were composed of a semi-fluid substance. 32. CompHcated actions of materialized forms (tangible-invisible). Those hands, those arms, those heads or half-persons, albeit remaining im- perceptible to the sight even of those who look within the cabinet (behind the curtains by which they are covered), yet advance towards the ob- servers, touch them, and handle them, draw them close and grasp them, or push them away, caress them, attract and kiss them, with all the mo- tions of real and living creatures. Further, they perform actions still more complex, whether in the penumbral light of the cabinet or in front of it (through the intermediary of the dark cur- tains, which are swelled out and projected at need over the surface of the sitters' table, or in the direction of those near it, even of persons outside of the chain), or whether in full freedom of movement, and fairly in the midst of the com- pany, to such an extent that certain members of said company feel themselves approached, em- braced, and kissed. SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTS 99 CLASS V This consists of luminous phenomena, — ele- mentary, self-illuminating (the telephany of the psychicists), or visible by the electric light, but always inorganic essences. 33. Appearance of luminous points. These are the celebrated " little flames " of the Spirit- ualists. Eusapia produces them now and then, but not with the intensity of other mediums. They are undefinable gleams, for the most part with contours vague and blurred, sometimes like very bright globules, — after the style of the so-called " Batavian drops," but upside down. Again, they resemble true " tongues of fire," as they are seen figured upon the heads of the Apostles. They are evidently sometimes mul- tiple and seem to chase one another. It is im- possible for one who has seen them even for a single time to compare them (I will not say as- similate them) to artificial phosphorescences. 34. Appearance of clouds or dim white mists. These do not seem to be endowed with their own proper light, since they can be observed only by the weak illumination this side of the curtains or within the cabinet. Sometimes they surrovmd Eusapia's head or rise above her body when she is lying stretched out within her cabinet, and do not depend on action at a distance. 100 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? 35. Radio-active action on photographic plates folded up in dark papers, and on electroscopes which are discharged from a distance. 36. Formaition of obscure prolongations of the body of the medium. They are the super- numerary limbs which all those who have ex- perimented with Eusapia have caught glimpses of and described. Only half visible or seen in weakest light and when Eusapia's anatomical or true hands are in sight and well controlled, these neoplastic appendages of the body perform many of the phenomena more fully described elsewhere in this volume, — touches, handlings of individ- uals, shakings of chairs, etc. 2i7. The issuing forth from the dark cabinet of shapes having a resemblance to arms and hands. 38. Apparitions of hands. They are among the most common and the oldest of spiritistic manifestations. The hands that appear have out- lines for the most part indecisive or evanescent, of a whitish color, nearly diaphanous, and with elongated fingers. 39. Apparition of forms obscure and of character indeterminate or not very evident. They are the incomplete materializations. Now, in the vague clare-obscure of the room, dark globes are seen emerging and disappearing (heads?) and indefinable penumbral appendages (arms, fists?). Now appear shadowy shapes with curved profile {proUlo adunco) which are SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTS loi conjectured to be bearded ("John King"), And, again, on the luminous background appear dim black spectral silhouettes which seem as if trans- parent, and got up in a most strange manner, and making fantastic gesticulations. 40. Apparition of forms having the human appearance, or character. These are the " complete materializations," and form the apex of achievement so far attained by Eusapia. (Other mediums, among which are Cook and Madame D'Esperance, give much more marvellous instances.) With Eusapia they are faces accurately delineated, heads and figures and half-busts of personages who are identified and named, the medium availing herself of notions obtained from the traditional history of Spirit- ualism. In this case one must admit that Eusapia acts upon certain invisible defunct beings in such a way as to make them conduct themselves as living beings, — a fact demonstrated not merely by the playing of certain instruments and the sounds of voices, but by graphic registrations and reproductions of movements much more complex, and with instruments which she can- not influence with her individual will. Further- more, Eusapia can bring before our eyes the images of deceased persons of whom she had no knowledge before the seance. 102 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? TRICKS Many are the crafty tricks she plays, both in the state of trance (unconsciously) and out of it, — for example, freeing one of her two hands, held by the controllers, for the sake of moving objects near her; making touches; slowly lift- ing the legs of the table by means of one of her knees and one of her feet; and feigning to ad- just her hair and then slyly pulling out one hair and putting it over the little balance tray of a letter weigher in order to lower it. She was seen by Faifofer, before her seances, furtively gathering flowers in a garden, that she might feign them to be " apports " by availing herself of the shrouding dark of the room. It would seem, also, that she had learned from certain prestidigitateurs some special tricks ; for example, that of simulating human faces by movements of the two hands wrapped with a handker- chief so as to look like a turban. And yet her deepest grief is when she is accused of trickery during the seances, — accused unjustly, too, sometimes, it must be confessed, because we are now sure that phantasmal limbs are super- imposed (or added to) her own and act as their substitute, while all the time they were believed to be her own limbs detected in the act of cozen- ing for their owner's behoof. CHAPTER IV The Power and Action of Mediums (EusAPiA Paladino clinically studied) Let us see now if the explanation of all these marvellous phenomena can be found in the or- ganism of the psychics, studying one of them (Eusapia) clinically and physiologically. In external characteristics nothing abnormal appears, at first sight, except a lock of white hair surrounding a depression of the left parietal wall, — a depression caused, as was told me once, by a blow given her with a stewpan by her step- mother, or, according to another version, by a fall from a window at the age of two years. Her weight is 60 kilograms, and the weight does not vary after the seances. She has steno- crotaphia (that is to say, the forehead is narrow across the bizygomatic diameter, being greater than the frontal, 127 to 113); is dolicocephalic, 73, which is, however, an ethnic feature; cir- cumference of the head small, 530; asymmetry not only of the cranium, but of the face, on ac- count of the greater development of the right portion. The left eye presents the phenomenon of Claude Bernard Horner, as in epileptics; the 104 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? « u o ^ H O 3 ij H ^ 1 a s & 1 m V I M — '43 i o & i S .1 :ht. proper lig hie action graphic ac s '^ J ji w) ^ Cli O g H 5g ■s o o "8 le. ueli OWI ogra mat s s u a "K. i3 1 l.i •S 2 g 1 transferences. noises. lights. irtially tangib sible by opaq " " their " " photi " " pneu M S 2 a.> iJ W a CO 1 g o D ■g ■g •g 3 3 3 3 .2 H § B a S I3 ^ . . ^*^ ««rt J Ml Q o o - o .> 3 w c3 * 3 * ^ ^ c tt - i 3 i 3 3 s 2 B •e •g s > •3 •« ■« 3 s g t { 5* -3 d. 1: 3 3 3 3 ■§3333 o i'S a _ ■3 - 1 3 J •s - •5. . . . o o i t 1 a, 'i ■•s i 1 ■g' - ' ' u 1 1 bO .ri S 3- 1 tis 1 £ 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 u *3 "o 1 Oh CO ^ 1 R] 1 1 J i 1 '""' o m u V 5 -3 JB is JS a i ■s * - ^ - ■="8 u »■ ■s-s ^ .a -s ■ tj S .a 3 a, 1^ i a V r-sj .H •3 a. a •a u i " .2 M c.ti CO " a 'I" Si .2 o Ti « a I " .a a •a ■£ •3 11 -Eb J 3 i > <33 t 1 3 3 3 la !a ■s io6 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? pupils corectopic above and below; interiorly, they react poorly to the light, but, on the other hand, react well to adjustment. The arterial pressure, measured by the sphygmomanometer of Riva-Rocci, has given the following results : first trial, on the right 200, on the left 230; second trial, on the right 200, on the left 239. That is to say, she shows an asymmetry in arterial pres- sure that is common in epileptics, and, like these, exhibits marked tactual left-handedness, the es- thesiometer revealing great obtusity in the ends of the right fingers (5 millimetres) and less in those of the left (2.5). Her general sensitive- ness, studied with the sledge of Rhumkorflf, pre- sents, on the other hand, right-handedness, regis- tering her electric sensitiveness as 73 millimetres on the right and 35 on the left, and the pain- causing sensitiveness {la dolorifica) as 60 on the right and 30 on the left, revealing itself as being in every way more delicate than in normal cases, in which the general sensibility, tested in the same way, marked 45 millimetres, and the dolo- rific 20. The barometric sensitiveness is unequal, thereby making confession that the same weight, when tested by the left, is heavier than when tested by the right; it shows differences of weight of 5 grams. The osseous sensibility is, at the diapason, 5 on the right, 8 on the left; is lacking in the forehead; with the little dy- namometer of Regnier-Mathieu it marks 11 POWER AND ACTION OF MEDIUMS 107 kilograms on the right and 12 on the left; when she was approaching the trance state, it marked 15 on both hands. With her right hand and arm extended she supports a weight of 500 grams for a minute and two seconds; with the left for two minutes. She has the hyperaesthesic zone, especially in the ovary. She has the bole in the oesophagus that women with hysteria have, and general weakness, or paresis, in the limbs of the left side.^ Her field of vision, studied by Dr. Sgobbo, seems ample and normal. The reflex actions of the tendons are duller on the right, or, rather, they are not excited there except when accom- panied by the Jendrassik phenomenon. On the left they are nil. Nothing is observed with the apparatus of Arsonval and the Rontgen rays. Once during full light, while she was in the normal state, she had her right hand held for her for four minutes over a photographic plate wrapped up in three folds of dark paper. This sufficed to cause her to enter into the trance state and to impart to the hand a feeling of electric tremor. When the plate was developed, at the place where her index finger had lain was found a formless stripe of the length of the finger. This fact, which is to be correlated with her mediumistic radio-activity, may be classified with another anomaly of hers observed by Flamma- ' Arullani, On the MediumsMp of Eusapia Paladino, etc., 1907. io8 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? rion/ and which consists in a diaphaneity on the periphery or contours of the fingers, forming as it were a second vague contour. " When I have this sign, I can do wonderful things," she asserts. Urine yellow (examined at Turin, 1901), in quantity of 2000 grams, with a specific gravity of 10.23, shows sugar 40 per cent, phosphates 1.20 per cent, chloride 3.598; light traces of albumen. After a seance the albumen was much augmented (0.5 per cent), and the sugar dimin- ished (20 per cent). From analyses made later by Bottazzi it appears that the density of the urine after a seance is augmented, — 1023 in- stead of 1022; increase of albumen, 2 per cent in place of 1.25; azote, 11.28 per cent in place of 9-53; the electric conductibility increased to 177.10 instead of 150.10; the congelation point increased to 1.560 instead of 1.260. Hypnotic phenomena, which are so closely con- nected with spiritistic phenomena as even to be confounded with them, are frequently exhibited by Eusapia, although she pays no attention to metals or magnets. AruUani {op. cit.), by merely grazing her forehead with his hand ["making passes "], can hypnotize her and cause her pres- ently to fall into the cataleptic state. Morselli, on the other hand, notes that it is * Seehis Mysterious Psychic Forces, p. ig&. Boston; Small, Maynard & Co., 1907. POWER AND ACTION OF MEDIUMS 109 easier for her to be magnetized than hypnotized, so that by methodical passes of his hand over her head he can free her from headache (cepha- Icea), and quiet her agitations of mind, and by upward magnetic passes provoke in her a state of semi-catalepsy, just as by passes in the re- verse direction he can remove distortions of her muscles and paresis. Twice only, however, did she have premoni- tions, and they were not at all clear, and she ex- plains them with that fantastic pseudology of hers in such a varied way that they can with difficulty be discriminated. The first time was apropos of the theft of jewels of which she was the victim. She was notified of it, she says, in two successive dreams in the nights immediately preceding the deed. But it appears from her own account that the theft took place in a way en- tirely different from her dreams, so that, in order to get light on them and discover the criminal, she was obliged to abase herself before a rival of hers, — a certain somnambulist named Del Piano, who pointed out the guilty one as being her concierge, — an opinion which seems to have been the true one, since it was shared by the police.^ Another time — the night preceding her dis- qualification, or exposure, at Cambridge (and this was the most serious misfortune of her life) ' Ing. Grauss, Annates des Sciences Psychiques, 1907. no AFTER DEATH — WHAT? — " John " appeared to her and sadly shook his head. It seems that this phantom intervened again in Paris, when Eusapia was ill and had been intrusted to a nurse who neglected her and went to sleep instead of watching with her, and had administered to her sounding cuffs and pinches, so that Eusapia grew terrified and fled. The same gentleman, M. Grauss (civil engi- neer), relates that, having been reproved by the commissary of police because, owing to her re- proaching her doorkeeper with the theft, she had rendered useless all search in his house, she was so taken aback that she swooned away. The table thereupon began to be agitated and to ex- press typtologically the thought of John: " Save my daughter, for she is going mad! Save her by suggestion ! " And the engineer having re- plied that John was stronger than he, lo ! an old man, meagre, with a long beard, appeared in broad daylight, and without saying a word placed his palm on M. Grauss's head and then on that of Eusapia, leaving him in a profound state of exhaustion. Eusapia woke up and soon forgot all her griefs. As respects the lottery, — something in which nearly all the village population of the province of Naples are sinners, — she had no success what- ever in premonitions, but in compensation pos- sessed a singular telepathic power. Twice, when persons were presented to her as her admirers. POWER AND ACTION OF MEDIUMS in while in reality they were her secret enemies, she repulsed them with brutal insolence without even looking in their faces. Her culture is that of a villager of the lower order. She frequently fails in good sense and in common sense, but has a subtlety and intuition of the intellect in sharp contrast with her lack of cultivation, and which make her, in spite of that, judge and appreciate at their true worth the men of genius whom she meets, without being influenced in her judgments by prestige or the false stamp that wealth and authority set upon people. She is ingenuous to the extent of allowing herself to be imposed on and mystified by an intriguer, and, on the other hand, sometimes ex- hibits, both before and during her trance states, a slyness that in some cases goes as far as de- ception. I have noted some instances of this trickery at the close of Chapter III, under the sub-head " Tricks." She possesses a most keen visual memory, to the extent of remembering five to ten mental texts presented to her during three seconds. She has the ability to recall very vividly, especially with her eyes shut, the outlines of persons, and with a power of vision so precise as to be able to de- lineate their characteristic traits. But she is not without morbid characteristics, which sometimes extend to hysterical insanity. She passes rapidly from joy to grief, has strange 112 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? phobias (for example, the fear of staining her hands), is extremely impressionable and subject to dreams in spite of her mature age. Not rarely she has hallucinations, frequently sees her own ghost. As a child she believed two eyes glared at her from behind trees and hedges. When she is in ahger, especially when her reputation as a medium is insulted, she is so violent and impul- sive as actually to fly at her adversaries and beat them. These tendencies are offset in her by a singular kindness of heart which leads her to lavish her gains upon the poor and upon infants in order to relieve their misfortunes, and which impels her to feel boundless pity for the old and the weak and to lie awake nights thinking of them. The same goodness of heart drives her to pro- tect animals that are being maltreated, by sharply rebuking their cruel oppressors. Before the seance, and sometimes when it has begun, she can give notification of what she will accomplish, although afterwards she cannot re- member whether she has done what she promised or not, and frequently does not succeed in doing what she boasted she would do. At the beginning of the trance her voice is hoarse, and all the secretions — sweat, tears, even the menstrual secretions — are increased. Hy- persesthesia, especially sinistral hypersesthesia, is succeeded by anaesthesia. Reflex movements of POWER AND ACTION OF MEDIUMS 113 the pupils and tendons are lacking. Tremors and myostenia occur, followed by amyostenia and paresis (especially dextral). When she is about to enter into the trance state, she lessens the fre- quency of the respiratory movements, just as do the fakirs, passing from 18 inspirations to 15 and 12 a minute; while, on the other hand, the heart beats increase from 70 to 90, and even to 120. The hands are seized with jerkings and tremprs. The joints of the feet and the hands take on movements of flexure or extension, and every little while become rigid. The passing from this stage to that of active somnambulism is marked by yawns, sobs, perspiration on the forehead, passing of insensible perspiration through the skin of the hands, and strange physiognomical expressions. Now she seems a prey to a kind of anger, expressed by imperious commands and sarcastic and critical phrases, and now to a state of voluptuous-erotic ecstasy. In the state of trance she first becomes pale, turning her eyes upward and her sight inward and nodding her head to right and left; then she passes into a state of ecstasy (see Fig. 38), exhibiting many of the gestures that are fre- quent in hysterical fits, such as yawnings, spas- modic laughter, frequent chewing, together with clairvoyance and a word often extremely select and even scientific, and not seldom in a foreign tongue, with very rapid ideation, so that she 114 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? comprehends the thought of those present even when they do not express it aloud or utter it in a mysterious manner. MorselH observed in her trance state all the characteristics of hysteria, namely, (i) loss of memory; (2) her personifi- cations as John King, in whose name she speaks ; (3) passional acts, now erotic, now sarcastic; (4) obsession, especially in the shape of fear that she may not succeed in the seances; (5) hallucinations; and so forth. Toward the end of the trance, when the more important phe- nomena occur, she falls into true convulsions and cries out like a woman who is lying-in, or else falls into a profound sleep, while from the aperture in the parietal bone of her head there exhales a warrn fluid, or vapor, sensible to the touch. And, as the medium produces spontaneous movements without the aid of the usual ana- tomical means, so she experiences visual and tac- tile sensations without the intervention of the usual organs of sense, since she informs us of things happening about us in positions inacces- sible to her sight or to the sight of any one else, occurrences which afterwards are shown to be true. Apropos of this, it is inaccurate to afifirm that she exhibits knowledge which out of the trance state she would not have. During the entire seance the medium remains in full rapport Fig. 39. (i. Upper Left) Magnesium Light Photograph. Present, Professor MoRSELLi ON Extreme Left. (2. Upper Right) Levitation of the Table AT 2 P.M. Present, Professors Porro and Mottza. (3. Lower Left) Eusapia with the Lad Pepping, whom she wished to adopt. (4. Lower Right) Magnesium Light Photograph (Seances 1901-1902). POWER AND ACTION OF MEDIUMS 115 with all present, expresses her own opinions and her own will, whether viva voce (frequently pro- nouncing the words badly, like a progressive paralytic) or else with taps, which are now heard to proceed from the table and now from other objects, — the thought conveyed either in Italian or in a foreign tongue. After the seance Eusapia is overcome by morbid sensitiveness, hypersesthesia, photopho- bia, and often by hallucinations and delirium (during which she asks to be watched from harm), and by serious disturbances of the di- gestion, followed by vomiting if she has eaten before the seance, and finally by true paresis of the legs, on account of which it is necessary for her to be carried and to be undressed by others. These disturbances are much aggravated if through the imprudence of any member of the company she is exposed to unexpected light, either before or after the sitting. This fact calls to mind the pythoness of Delphi, whose prophetic oracles shortened her life; also the sad case of Madame D'Esperance, who, through being ex- posed to brilliant light during a seance, suffered paralysis for many years, I ought to add here a fact discovered by Dr. Imoda; namely, that when Eusapia is in the normal state she has no influence whatever on the electroscope. One evening when she had ii6 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? just awakened from the trance state, by holding her hands in the air above the electrode she was able after three or four minutes to produce a lowering of the gold leaf. Taken in connection with the impression of her fingers on photo- graphic plates wrapped up in dark paper, this confirms the fact of her radio-activity in the trance state. It agrees, furthermore, with the frequent appearance of white fluctuating clouds, like luminous vapor, upon the surface of the table or upon her head during the seances, it being a property of the cathode rays to incite the formation of vapor, or mist, when they trav- erse a stratum of air saturated with humidity. Nor are these morbid phenomena peculiar to Eusapia: they may be observed and verified in all the mediums. The grandmother, mother, and one of the brothers of the famous medium Elena Smith ^ were subject to hypnotic and mediumistic phe- nomena. She herself had obsessions, hallucina- tions, from childhood up, and, later in life, fits of somnambulism, dysmenorrhoea, and, in the mediumistic trance, complete anaesthesia of one hand and allochiria [confusion of sensations], so that if pricked in the right hand she feels the pain in the left, and also believes she sees on the left objects which are really on her right. • See Floumoy, Des Indes aid Planete Mars. Paris, Genfeve, 1900. POWER AND ACTION OF MEDIUMS 117 Mrs. Piper, when entering into a trance, be- gins with a slight convulsion, with peculiar shocks or starts, upon which follow stupor, ster- torous breathings, a cry, after which she incar- nates herself and the spirits communicate with her on the left side (the usual spiritistic left- handedness).^ Her best communications are ob- tained at the beginning of the sitting. It must be observed that Mrs. Piper became a medium after her fright at a thunderbolt and after she had had two operations for the removal of tumors. " When I am in a trance," writes D'Espe- rance, " I have a feeling of vacuity and lose the sense of space. I cannot tell where my finger moves; it is as if I were moving in water. . . . The transformation of vapor into a living being is so rapid that I cannot tell which is first formed, the body or its clothing. When the phantasm appears, I feel it so difficult to recover my thoughts and gather up my powers that I can hardly reply. I seem as in a dream and am unable to move. When Yolanda moves, she makes me perspire and exhausts me more than if I myself moved. When she materializes her- self outwardly, I feel a stronger accession of power. When she touches some object, I feel my muscles contract, as if it were my hands that touched it. When she put her hands into melted * Sage, Madame Piper. Paris, 1902. Il8 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? paraffine, I felt my hands burn. When a thorn penetrated her finger, I experienced great pain. I saw her playing the organ ; I saw her six times outside the cabinet. In the first moment of the semi-trance, when the phantasms have not yet appeared, I have a greater sensitiveness than the normal. I feel a person moving about in the house; I have a perception of the movements of the church clock and of the hissings of steam such as I do not have when in the normal state, and I am conscious of what persons pfesent are thinking. When I touch the hands of Yolanda, I believe I am feeling my own, but perceive my error afterwards when I see four hands. When I stretch out my hands to touch her, I feel only the empty air. I have no sensation when a weight is placed on my feet. Nevertheless, one Sabbath I felt the entire weight of her body" (Aksakoflf, Un Cas de Dematerialisation). Politi, when out of the trance, does not ex- hibit any anomaly: in the trance this medium has convulsions, anaesthesias, terrific zoomorphic hallucinations, delirious ideas of persecutions. All this is affined to hysteria, — just as (says Morselli very truly) tabes and general paralysis, without being due to syphilitic processes, develop more in those who have been syphilitic, just as those afflicted with gravel and asthma, while they may not be by nature gouty or rheumatic persons, have afi affinity for those troubled with these POWER AND ACTION OF MEDIUMS 119 diseases, although they have never had suffer- ing in the joints. The foregoing diagnosis suffices very well for the conclusion that the whole thing is a true hysteric equivalent, a new form of hysterical at- tack, just as, in my opinion, the creative frenzy (or oestrus) of genius is an equivalent of the psycho-epileptic paroxysm on a neurotic and morbid background. Hence, when Professor Lucatello at Padua finds in Zuccarini complete cutaneous insensibil- ity to pain, and somnambulism carried to the point of catalepsy, in consequence of a simple cutting of the skin (and Patrizi had already noted other hysterical anomalies, such as dissym- metry of the face with inferior development of the left half; the phenomenon of Claude Ber- nard Horner, so frequent among epileptics; dis- parity of the visual function in the two eyes; ambidexterity; disproportion between the great opening of the arms (1.71) and the stature (1.60); habitual talking in her sleep, and de- ficient power of attention), that argues nothing against her mediumistic powers, but in part sug- gests and explains them, just as, in my opinion, the miracles of genius are explained by the neu- rotic concomitants. And we are so much the more led at the very outset to believe that all the spiritistic phenom- ena take their rise in the abnormal state of the 120 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? medium, since many of these phenomena always take place in her immediate vicinity, especially on the left side, and since the phantasmal arms and hands issue with more facility from her body and her garments, and the spectral forms appear for the most part above her head or that of her control standing by. Further, the rarer and more important are the phenomena (for instance, the apparition of phantasms), so much the heavier is the trance of the medium. Indeed, when movement of objects occurs, even at some distance away from said medium, syn- chronous movements are noticed in him or her. And, as soon as a phantasm appears, there is frequently noticed (for instance, in the medium Fairland, who was sewed into a hammock to allow the registration of variations in her weight) a gradual diminution of this, till it reached 66 pounds, — half her weight ; and the moment the phantasm disappeared her weight began to in- crease (Psychic Studies, 1887). This fact proves that the body of the spectral appearance is formed at the expense of the body of the psychic, and the matter is confirmed by the circumstance that in the first materializations of mediums many of the phantasms they evoke bear a certain resemblance to the face or the limbs of the medium, or even to the whole of his or her person, — something that must have fos- tered still further the suspicions as to trickery and deceit. ' Reprodmieri nodi Pi)5lellfn.>l HI lOi r ir ' oe t ^^ \ t *|jiji . Reprodujiert nach Paslellmalereien. die mnainbuten Zustande bergestelll v len ZuNl.Mide licryt-sl^lll - Fig. 41. Flowers drawn with Colored Crayons by a German Peasant Woman while in the Somnambulistic State. POWER AND ACTION OF MEDIUMS 12 1 I may add here the fact discovered by Rochas of the exteriorization of the sensitivity and mo- tive power of the medium to the extent of several centimetres beyond his proper body. Now, the abihty to extend this exteriorization to the psychic activity and prolong the motive power of that activity to a greater distance would suffice to explain a large part of the most mysterious phe- nomena of spiritism, especially since the phan- tasms, or spectres (the most important spiritistic phenomenon), often issue from the belly or the head of the medium (D'Esperance) and assume the medium's gestures and general appearance. Moreover, the medium has some special char- acteristics. Not to speak of the strange epileptic- like look, even when out of the trance state he shows, according to Maxwell, zoomorphic spots in the iris of the eye; a,nd, if he is not specially wicked, he becomes so in the trance. The me- dium may vary in intelligence from the ultra mediocrity of Politi up to the positive genius of D'Esperance and Moses. But in the trance state even the most stolid may develop an extraordi- nary intelligence, and Wallace tells of an igno- rant, coarse-witted salesman who could discourse, when in trance, upon fate and prescience, whereas afterwards he could scarcely speak on common things. The matter is worse still as respects the moral- ity of mediums, many of them being ready de- 122 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? ceivers and lascivious, while others, like the woman Smith and like Moses, are perfect saints. I have personally known some of them during intoxication, or when experiencing deep and joy- ful emotion, double their mediumistic powers. I have known of others who were not indubitably affected by albuminuria or diabetes, and yet dur- ing a seance these things appeared in them and grew worse. For the most part, in order to develop their mediumistic powers, they require darkness, ex- citement, voices, cries, songs,^ and (with the exception of the famous D'Esperance and Home) have no remembrance or consciousness of what they do in the trance, just as in the case of epileptics. The proofs of the transmission of thought, whatever others affirm, are frequent and evident during Eusapia's trances. I was thinking hard of being able to see my mother again: the table energetically assented to my thought unexpressed in words, and im- mediately afterwards appeared the image of my mother. Signor Becker mentally asks that his cravat be untied and removed, and his desire is immediately satisfied. Dr. Surada mentally wills that John pour water into a goblet in the me- dium's cabinet, and the thing is at once done: the glass full of water is transported to the table ' Maxwell recalls the incantations of witches and magicians. POWER AND ACTION OF MEDIUMS 123 and then placed to the hps of one of the con- trollers. The Countess of A. -(at Venice, Pro- fessor Faifofer) sews under a fold of her dress a little bag containing a piece of money, and conies to the seance with the idea unexpressed in words that it be unsewed and abstracted ; and, behold ! no sooner does she concentrate her mind on the thought again at the seance than it is done. On another occasion she comes wearing a jewel on her head and in thought desires that it be transferred to the head of Eusapia, to whom she wishes to present it; and as soon as she thinks the thought anew the transfer takes place. During trance, as we shall see, mediums ac- quire muscular and intellectual energy which they have not before had, and which can only rarely be explained by the transfer of thought from the minds of spectators (i.e., by telepathy), and which therefore demand a special explanation, — that of aid from the spirits of the departed. They transfer during trance some of their most singular powers, such as left-handedness (Eu- sapia) and incombustibility (Home, who not only could touch a glowing coal without feeling pain, but could transfer this power to another). Many of them manifest their activity in only one direction. The most common and least im- portant, and often most liable to error, are the typtological mediums, who communicate by taps emanating from the table, and by the movements 124 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? of a pointer placed over an alphabet spread out on the table. The most common and mediocre are the motor mediums, who cause tables, chairs, etc., to move. There are healers among them, often most ignorant of medicine, and who can still obtain results. I have seen one of the most stupid of them (a woman), whom the Hindu fakirs would have recognized as a sister, benefit for fifteen or twenty days, by means of ridiculous muscular exercises, the health of a woman in the last stage of tabes. And there are painter mediums, such as Sar- dou, Ugo di Alexis, Desmoulin, who without any ideas whatever sometimes depict and color ob- jects. They seem to copy them by a transparent medium from a model. See, for example, the flowers painted during somnambulism by the peasant woman " R." who was absolutely igno- rant of design. Note also the flowers and land- scapes of Machner, a German sailor, who before he did this work had never taken a pencil in hand. And there are some who, like Desmoulin, execute in the dark oil paintings that would ordi- narily require whole months of work, and which when awake these mediumistic somnambulists are unable to complete. Then there are speaking mediums ; also rhab- domancists, who locate metals in the earth; pneumatographers, who call forth direct writing POWER AND ACTION OF MEDIUMS 125 without making use of a pen; the dematerial- izers, who bring in apports from without in spite of windows and doors closed and intact ; evokers of phantasms ; photof ors, who bring out gleams of light of a more or less circumscribed nature; photographers, who print the forms of invisible spirits upon photographic plates, even in the dark; glottologues, who speak unknown tongues ; fore- seers, who prophesy; intuitive writers, who hear in the brain a voice dictating to them what they shall write, while acoustic mediums hear with their ears the voice of spirits. Then we have the musician mediums, who before the seance do not know a note, and yet play on various instru- ments. Others handle glowing coals without burning themselves. Others are the incarnaters, who rapidly impersonate by word and look, etc., one or more deceased persons, one after the other. Such a one is Randone, of Rome, who impersonated for us the face and gestures suc- cessively of an idiot, a church orator, a profes- sor affected with general paralysis, etc. There are some (such as Zaccardini, of Bo- logna) who make a specialty of levitation and nothing more. Eusapia and Home unite in them- selves many of these features, such as material- ization, direct writing, apports, levitation. But the majority are mediums who produce physical results of a motor nature. The minority (and the most elect) deal with intellectual and mixed 126 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? phenomena. I noticed also in the life of Eusa- pia that her first manifestations were motorial; the last, phantasmal. Even in the trance only motorial phenomena are identified and studied at first. The spectral forms appear with her only in the last stages of the trance, when the lethar- gic condition has reached its most acute stage. ACTION OF THE MEDIUMS There is also another singular attribute of mediums which we must admit in order to ex- plain certain spiritistic phenomena; namely, the fact that in the psychological atmosphere (milieu amhiant) of the medium in a trance, and by the medium's own action, the conditions of matter are modified, just as if the space in which the phenomena takes place belonged not to three, but to four dimensions, in which (according to the theory of the mathematicians) the law of gravity and the law of the impenetrability of matter would suddenly fail, and the laws that rule time and space would suddenly cease, so that a body from a far-off point may all at once find itself near by, and you may find a bunch of freshest flowers in your coat-pocket without their show- ing any trace of being spoiled; or a stone or a key or a garment may enter a room closed tight as wax; or one ring may pass within an- other; or knots may be formed or untied in a POWER AND ACTION OF MEDIUMS 127 string tied and sealed at a certain point/ or the levitation not merely of inorganic, but of living bodies may take place. And we should have to Fic. 44. Experiment with Kiiots fokmed m a Sealed Stkino, BY ZOLLNEK. give this explanation, too, when Eusapia, merely by touching a sheet of paper with the finger of Schiapparelli, produces writing either on the last ' ZoUner, after having tied in a knot the two ends of a long slender cord and sealed th^ knot, unexpectedly placed it under the eyes of Blade expressing the desire that knots should be formed thereon; whereupon these suddenly appeared on it while Blade's hands were three quarters of an inch from the seal, which remained intact In another trial ZiSllner ded two thick rings to a string, which he knotted and suspended from the edge of a table upon which Blade was holding his hands. All of a sudden the rings disappeared from the string and were found at the foot of another table near by. f 128 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? pages of a ream of paper or on the curtain-pole above the window ; or when she makes roses drop out of my sleeves and Richet's while we are hold- ing her hands; or when she levitates the table or slowly raises herself in the air above the table itself. Perhaps, also, by inverting the laws of time, like those of space, we should be able to explain how mediums can at times succeed as prophets, — a fact authenticated with precision by Hodg- son and by Hyslop in five or six instances in which the American medium, Mrs. Piper, figured. This medium predicted for persons perfectly well the malady each should be afflicted by, and who would cure them, and what complications would ensue. Now, in order that an object may by apparent automatic movement pass out of a closed room without any opening of door or windows, it must needs be made to pass through wood or glass or bricks. But in order that this may take place (says Broflferio, op cit., p. 195) one of three things must happen : either it must pass through the panes of glass without coming apart or break- ing up, — that is to say, its atoms must pass through the interatomic spaces of the panes; or else it must be decomposed into imponderable material (an operation which we not very hap- pily call " dematerialization ") before passing the walls, and afterwards be recomposed; or else. Fig. 43. Experiment with Ring and Knotted String, by Zollner. POWER AND ACTION OF MEDIUMS 129 in order to appear and disappear without passing through the walls at all, it would be necessary for it to pass into a fourth dimension of space and then, returning, emerge from that again. Before the eyes of beings living in a space of only two dimensions (just as the photographic figures in the electrotachiscope seem to move, maintaining themselves always in one plane) we could cause a flower painted within a circle to disappear, and then make it reappear outside of said circle, because we could lift it into the air and make it disappear in a third dimension, in height or depth (a thing of which those photo- graphic beings could not have the slightest idea). CHAPTER V Mediums and Magicians in Savage Tribes That mediums have so preponderating a power in spiritistic matters is a fact strengthened and buttressed by what is observed^ among almost all primitive peoples and savage tribes, who be- lieve in the powers of certain individuals, — magicians, wizards, prophets. These are all true mediums having an influence in the political and religious constitution of the community, indi- viduals who act in our realm of space as if they were living in a space of the fourth dimension, upsetting our laws of time, space, and gravity: prophets and saints who predict the future and transport themselves through the air; witches who pass with their entire bodies through a key- hole and transport themselves in a flash to a dis- tance of thousands of miles. It is in vain to disparage the opinions of the vulgar ; for if it is true that they do not possess the means of the learned scientist for the attain- ment of truth, nor his culture and talent, they supplement this by manifold illiterate and em- pirical observations, the result of which in the ' Q. di Vesme, Storia dello Spiritismo. 3 vols. Torino. MEDIUMS IN SAVAGE TRIBES 131 end is superior in many cases to that attained by the highest scientific genius. And so the influ- ence of the moon and of meteors on the human mind, the inheritance of disease, and the conta- giousness of consumption were recognized by the plain people before they were by the learned sci- entist. The latter received the assertion of these facts with loud bursts of laughter, and perhaps still does so (the learned academies do not exist for nothing!). It is to be noted that among the Hebrews an insane man or a neurotic passed for a prophet; and Saul, when he prophesied, stripped himself naked, as madmen did ( i Sam. xix. 24. Richard Mead, Medic. Sacra, III.). In i Samuel, also, we see bands of false prophets running naked through the fields and elsewhere, and we behold them committing crazy and indecent acts in pub- lic, — cutting their hands, eating dung, going to brothels and boasting of it, and the like deeds. In the huge work on the Scientific Exploration of Algiers, Rel. di El A jack, we read : " The people of Tripoli are famous for their sincerity and for the great number of medjdub among them " (p. icxd). Further on, speaking of one of them, he says : " He was the best of the medjdub; his djedjeb (convulsion) was powerful" (p. 130). " The word medjduhim stands in Tripoli for those individuals who under special circumstances fall into a condition that recalls exactly that of 132 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? the convulsionaries of Saint-Medard. They are numerous in Algiers, and are better known under the name of aicaovi or ammarim." Among the Kosa Kaffirs the doctor, or magi- cian, receives his diploma or credentials (so to speak) after a mental malady, during which he believes he sees the powers of water, earth, and sky, and horses, and is mentally disturbed thereby. The facts are set before the chief, who according to their importance either approves of them or refuses to nominate him for the office. The yogis of India are regarded as possessing the most perfect holiness, thanks to yoga, or union with God, a something attained by fixing the gaze on the point of the nose or on the navel. The yogis have the power of so governing the senses as not to perceive external sensations, or else of falling into a hypnotic trance. Amongst the Batachi, when they find a man possessed of an evil spirit, they respect him most profoundly and look on him as an oracle. " They pointed out to me," says a traveller, " a girl whom they called ' the daughter of the demon,' because her father was mad. She was continually vis- ited by evil spirits and hence all her wishes were executed." Modigliani observes that the Nias select for their magicians or doctors those afflicted with some special deformity, notwithstanding the fact that they have a supreme contempt for deform- MEDIUMS IN SAVAGE TRIBES 133 ity. Above all, they choose those whom the genii (beta) strike with madness suddenly, thus show- ing that they (the genii) pick them out for their intermediaries. Then the Nias drive them out of the village to take up their habitation in the trees. And, when their compatriots find them perched up there, they pull them down, consign them to the chief magician, who instructs them for fourteen days, during which they are obliged to feast the whole village as well as their instruc- tors. But they have their retaliation, for in their turn they are sumptuously feasted and cared for during life, so that many feign madness that they may obtain so rich an honor. In Peru, besides the priests, the sacred virgins, etc., there were magicians or prophets of a sec- ondary order who improvised prophecies (called hecheloc) while in the midst of convulsions and terrible contortions. They were venerated by the people, but despised by the more cultivated class. The Patagonians have female magicians and doctors who prophesy while affected with con- vulsive fits. Men may also be elected to the priesthood ; but they must dress like women and must always have exhibited from youth up special dispositions. Epileptics receive lawful election because they possess the divine spirit. Among the Carajas of Brazil he who is born or becomes epileptic or neurotic, and so is dis- 134 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? posed by nature to nervous ailments, becomes a doctor. Kiernan says that among the nomadic peoples of Mongolia the symptoms exhibited by the fetich- istic magicians (shaman) are so similar to epi- lepsy, in furious ragings and visions, that the two states were long confounded under the single name of " the sacred malady." It was always believed that this was due to some supernatural power, benign or malign; and they accordingly were in the habit of either placating it or driv- ing it out. Amongst the Zulus, the Bechuanas, and the Walla- Wallas the profession of medicine is he- reditary, therefore the fathers choose certain sons, to whom they give counsel, even (it is claimed) after death. The same is true with the Siberian shamans. In certain Siberian tribes the medical gift or power (the shamanic force) comes upon one suddenly, like a nervous disease. It manifests itself in weakness and tension of the limbs, in tremors and inarticulate cries, fevers and convulsions and epileptic attacks, until the victims fall insensible. Afterwards they touch and swallow with impunity needles and glowing- hot pieces of iron. They also become delirious, until, all of a sudden, they take the magic drum and set up as shaman, or fetich doctor. Among the Diujeric of South Australia those become doctors who from childhood up have had I MEDIUMS IN SAVAGE TRIBES 135 visions of the Devil. They have frightful dreams, with visions of incubi and the like. The Kaffirs are an extremely superstitious folk. Superstition plays a great part in the relations of their life, and forms a part of their laws, cus- toms, religion. Their religion consists in vener- ation of the spirit of the departed (amadhlosi) . They call their predicters, or diviners, isanusi, or isangoma. They may be regarded as the priests of the Kaffirs and are the intermediaries between the living and the dead. Their power over good and evil, like their power over the hearts of the Kaffirs, is unbounded. The art of divination may be exercised both by women and men, and all those who engage in this profession form a very distinct class among the South Afri- can stocks. Europeans confound diviners and magicians. On the contrary, diviners, or proph- ets, among the Kaffirs are defined as a religious sect who act for the benefit of the people. If one were to give to an isangoma (diviner) the title untakati (sorcerer), it would give him very serious offence. It would be like calling a police- man a thief in Europe. Among the Kaffirs the diviner is thought of as the protector of the people. To him it belongs to unmask the kings and wizards and bring them to judgment and punishment. While the magician exercises his art for his own proper behoof, the diviner must work for 136 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? the common good by legitimate means, in the character of a servant of the state. For this reason he has the entire confidence and respect of the Kaffirs. Before electing a diviner, it be- hooves to test his skill in the discovery of male- factors, finding lost articles, and recognizing a disease and its cause. Mastery in such things as these is indispensable to a diviner. In addition, he may also become an inganga (doctor) in other departments of knowledge. There are specialists for rain, hail, thunder, the grass, and what not. Usually the diviner is also an expert in the medi- cal art. However, all these specialties are not necessary; they are merely attributes of the di- viner, who ought to be able to communicate with the spirits of the departed in order to disclose their thoughts and secure their protection. In the fulfilling of their task, imagination and decep- tion co-operate. He who possesses sensitive nerves and has un- easy dreams is considered to be skilful in holding communication with the spirits of those who have passed beyond, and it is for this reason that women have greater aptitude for divination. No one can of his own volition and alone declare himself a diviner. The candidates must for some time be instructed by a wise diviner, chosen from among the oldest of the tribe, and be nominated with the consent of the chiefs. In the spring, with the budding of the leaves, appear th? fir§t MEDIUMS IN SAVAGE TRIBES 137 symptoms of the future diviners. If at this sea- son a young man has agitated dreams, he pres- ently imagines that the spirits are in communi- cation with him. He seems to hear their voices. He goes wandering about aimlessly in solitary places, dives into deep waters to receive commu- nications from the spirits, and, when at night he returns to his home, he is dark of mood, refuses food (whereas formerly he ate like a wolf), and then falls into a state of ecstasy (see Fig. 45). In continuation of these phenomena his parents conclude to have him examined by a diviner. If this man finds his vocation genuine, he orders him a medicine to strengthen his mysterious symptom^, puts a bunch of feathers on his head, and initiates him into the secrets of the science. The candidate continues his cure by means of medicine and rubbings. Seized with frenzy, he dashes himself against the rocky walls of the house or throws himself into the water, exposing his life to danger so seriously that his friends are compelled to watch him and keep him from succumbing. He charms serpents and winds them about his body and neck. During the dif- ferent tests he grows visibly thinner, — which increases his worth, for the natives have little faith in fat diviners. Other diviners come into his hut ; and not unf requently it happens that they quarrel concerning their art, charging each other with being deceivers. 138 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? After a time the novice calms down, his ap- petite returns, his dreams are tranquil, and he begins practice as a finder of lost objects. Be- fore being publicly received, he must prove him- self before the people. Various objects are hid- den in secret places, and, if he alone is unable to find them, other diviners come to his aid. If the trial gives good results, he is declared to be a true diviner. Among the Kaffirs consecrations never take place without plenty of meat and beer, and the instructors of the new man, after having revealed to their colleague the secrets of the science, for fear that he should forsake them and return to his former life, kill in his honor the animal that suffices for a public banquet. His friends make him presents to supply his first necessities. In the sequel, with a good stock of cunning and self- possession, he can lead his clients about by the nose and procure wealth. That will not be diffi- cult for him if he puts on a bold front and as- sumes a firm deportment. During his novitiate he has already had experience of that kind. If his predictions come true, he takes the fancy of the Kaffirs, becomes celebrated, and soon acquires a rich clientele. If he makes an error, he needs only to say, as do the Spiritualists, that the spirits have deceived him to-day, or else that they were in a bad humor and would not reveal anything to him. a MEDIUMS IN SAVAGE TRIBES 139 The confession that a certain old Kaffir woman (magician) makes is very interesting. Her name is Paula, of Marianhill. For twelve years now she has been a Christian, but for forty years be- fore this she was a celebrated diviner. She gives this curious account of herself and of her divining powers: " When I was a young woman, after I had had my third child, I continued ill; I was at- tacked by convulsions and had visions; my ap- petite left me, I became as thin as a stake. My parents came to the determination to consult a diviner. But my father, who was famous in this craft, said, ' Bring her to me, I will make a clair- voyante of her.' My husband was at first opposed, fearing he should have to spend too much money, but finally I was approved by a diviner. His verdict was this-: ' She is one of us.' I was taken to the house of a woman-diviner, who, with my father, taught me how to see clearly into mys- teries. They brought me the three excellent medi- cines, Kindness, Gentleness, and Conformity with the Spirits of the Departed. I drank them for thirty days, then was thoroughly washed and rubbed with them. They placed goatskins on my shoulders as a sign of my merit. The spirits kept communicating more and more with me. In my dreams I saw the living and the dead. The spirits of my ancestors appeared to me under the form of gray lizards, sat on my shoulders, and I40 AFTER DEATH — WHAT? encircled me. I began to make predictions of future events. People brought me money and other things. " After passing all the proofs, I was declared capable and conducted to my own native town, where a great feast was held in my honor. Oxen were killed and utschwala (the beer of the Kaf- firs) was drunk. My instructors each received two oxen as a gift. I took a young cock and rubbed and drenched it with the medicines. I then put it on the roof of my hut, and there it remained night and day, giving me notice by its crowing of the approach of my clients. When the convulsions were about to attack me, I would cry, ' Help ! Quick ! come and help me ! The spirits are attacking me ! ' The people would run up and sing and dance, stamping their feet. About seventeen years ago the magistrate of Maritzburg had me called before him, for he had lost two horses. I said, ' Go to the waterfall of Umgeni; you will find the two horses there tied, but the robbers have cut off their tails and their manes.' A posse of policemen was sent to the place indicated by me and found the horses just as I said. The thief, who was waiting near by to run them off, was put into prison." For his investigations the diviner makes use of the bones of animals or of sticks which he throws on the ground, drawing his conclusions from the way the sticks fall. When thrown high Fig. 46. Kaffir Priestess. MEDIUMS IN SAVAGE TRIBES 141 up into the air, if they fall back horizontally, the question gets a negative answer. If they make as if they would strike the client, the answer is " Yes." And, if it is a case of a sick stomach, the sticks ought to fall on the man's belly. If, on the contrary, they hit another part of the body, it means that the evil lies there. THE ARTIFICIAL CREATION OF MEDIUMS AND SORCERERS Mediums, prophets, magicians, who are masters in a greater or less degree of nature, of time and space, have become rare in our day, because accurate scientific instruments (especially in me- teorology) and the wisdom of scientific authori- ties supply them with greater certainty. But in ancient times and among barbarous peoples they were very common. And it is a curious thing that when they became scarce people created them artificially, by stimulating neuropathic symp- toms in certain ones predisposed to these, instill- ing fears into them during infancy or even during conception, and