Psychic Phenomena by Edward T. Bennett (historical books to read TXT) 📕

Mr. L. and Miss I., but they were at no time touching it, and occasionally were so distant that I could perceive a free space all round the table whilst it was still in motion. When thus under my very nose, the table rose repeatedly, and enabled me to be perfectly sure, by the evidence of touch, that it was off the ground, and further, that no human being, consciously or unconsciously, had any part in this movement."

Professor Barrett, with his accustomed caution, comments thus:—

"The results, it is true, were very remarkable and unaccountable; but though I had not the slightest doubt of the good faith of Mr. L. and Miss I., yet I do not adduce this evidence as unexceptionable. I should have preferred to have taken precautions which were not so easy to impose on a lady, and I should also have preferred to have had the seance at my own house."

This latter objection was met by Mr. L. and Miss I. going to Professor Barrett's house shortly afterwards, no one else besides Professor Barrett being present. Some remarkable sounds were again heard. Then, this happened—again quoting Professor Barrett's own words:—

"Suddenly, only the tips of our fingers being on the table, the heavy loo-table at which we were sitting made a series of very violent prancing movements (which I could not imitate afterwards except by using both hands and all my strength); the blows were so heavy that I hurriedly stopped the performance, fearing for the safety of the gas chandelier in the room below. Here, too, I cannot avoid the conclusion that the phenomena described are inexplicable on any known hypothesis."

After discounting the "pious platitudes" spelt out by the tilts of the table, and the possibility, and even probability, that "unintentional muscular movements" were the cause of these, and after recognising the impossibility of keeping up a continuous vigilant watch on the hands and feet of any person, and after supposing that Miss I. had some ingenious mechanism concealed about her person, whereby she could produce the sounds that were heard, Professor Barrett says: "This would fail to account for the undoubted motion of a heavy table, free from the contact of all present. After giving due weight to every known explanation, the phenomena remain inexplicable to me."

Testimony Collected by Frederic W. H. Myers.

Next in order of time come two papers by Mr. F. W. H. Myers, under the title of "Alleged Movements of Objects without Contact, occurring not in the Presence of a Paid Medium." They are published in vol. vii. of the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research.[8] The first article goes over most of the ground traversed in the earlier part of this chapter, but devotes twenty lines only to the Report of the Committee of the Dialectical Society, and refers only to Professor Barrett's cases as having been already published. A number of other cases are, however, described in detail. The evidence in these scarcely comes up to the level of scientific, and unless it had been sifted by so careful a critic as Mr. Myers, who convinced himself of the reality of the facts, could hardly be considered of much value. The two following cases in the first article present the strongest evidence.

(1) The Armstrong Case.—Mr. George Allman Armstrong, of 8 Leeson Place, Dublin, and Ardnacarrig, Bandon, writes an account dated 13th June 1887. After vouching for the perfect good faith of the small group of experimenters, he describes in detail the movements of a table. The "rising" was generally preceded by a continuous fusillade of "knocks" in the substance of the table. When the knocks had, as it were, reached a climax, the table slowly swayed from side to side like a pendulum. It would stop completely, and then, as if imbued with life, and quite suddenly, would rise completely off the floor to a height of twelve or fourteen inches at least. It nearly always came down with immense force, and on several occasions proved destructive to itself, as the broken limbs of the table used at Kinsale could testify. The table was a round, rather heavy walnut one, with a central column standing on three claw legs. Mr. Armstrong says that on several occasions he succeeded in raising the table without contact. It rose to the fingers held over it at a height of several inches, like the keeper of a strong electro-magnet.[9]

(2) A Bell-ringing Case.—Mr. Myers, in introducing this case, says: "The usual hypotheses of fraud, rats, hitched wires, &c., seem hard to apply. The care and fulness with which it has been recorded will enable the reader to judge for himself more easily than in most narratives of this type. Our informant is a gentleman [Mr. D.], occupying a responsible position; his name may be given to inquirers."[10] The detailed report of the occurrences occupies no less than twelve pages, the greater part of which consists of a long letter addressed by Mr. D. to the Society for Psychical Research. He explains that he is writing in the main from notes taken at the time and not from memory. The following is an abstract:—

On Friday, 23rd September 1887, he took his four pupils to a circus, his lady housekeeper also going, leaving two servants at home. They left at about 2 p.m. All but himself returned about 5.30 p.m. The two servants were on the doorstep, telling the boys not to go in by the area door—the kitchens being below ground—and explaining that all the bells were ringing violently, no one touching them, and that they had been doing so almost ever since half-past two. When the master of the house came home, he found the same state of things, the servants almost in hysterics and the bells ringing. Nine bells hung in a row just inside the area door, opposite the kitchen door, and there was one bell—a call bell—on the landing at the top of the house.

Mr. D. frequently saw several of these bells ringing at once, the ringing being sudden and very violent, louder, he believed, than they could be rung by pulling the handles. One bell was more than once pulled over, so that it could not return to its normal position. Several of the upstairs bells had no bell-pulls. The bellhanger was several times summoned to the premises. He showed that the wires could not have been entangled, and entirely agreed that it would be an utter impossibility for any animals, such as cats or rats, to ring the bells as they were rung. The house was quite a new one, standing alone, surrounded by unoccupied plots of building land.

As to the question of trickery. There seemed no possibility of that being the explanation. The phenomena occurred when the housekeeper and pupils were all away; also when the cook was away; also when only the two servants and the master were in the house, and both of them in his sight. For instance, he says he stood in the passage in front of the nine bells watching them ring, with both the servants close by. Once in particular he watched the housemaid on her knees in the middle of the wash-house scrubbing the tiles, while the front door, area door, and bath-room bells were pealing violently. The ringing was also heard by tradesmen, and by men working in the gardens near. The wires of the bells were distinctly moved, not only the bells and the clappers. The bell-handles were never observed to be moved. The ringing lasted between three and four weeks, and then ceased. Knockings in considerable variety were also heard, and a few cases of the movement of chairs and small articles, without any contact, also occurred.

Mr. D. was at one time disposed to think that the housemaid was in some way connected with the disturbances, but he could trace no evidence. She was a young girl who had not been out to service before. She got into such a state of nervous excitement about the occurrences, that brain fever or something serious was feared. She had only been in the house a few weeks previous to the commencement of the manifestations, and nothing occurred after she left. Mr. D. was, however, perfectly convinced that she had nothing to do voluntarily with the bell-ringing.[11]

The second paper by Mr. Myers is devoted exclusively to some "strange experiences" which occurred several years previous to 1891, at the village of Swanland, a few miles from Hull, in the East Riding of Yorkshire. The evidence is that of John Bristow, who states he was an eye-witness. There were no intellectual phenomena, nothing but the apparently meaningless throwing about of pieces of wood—directed, however, by some intelligence, so as to attract attention without doing harm. Here again what value the case has rests almost solely on its having received the critical study of Mr. Myers.[12]