Isis unveiled, Volume 1 (of 2), Science

“Now,” asks de Mirville, “what are we to believe of the Americans, and their thousands of mediums who produce the same raps before millions of witnesses?” “Ventriloquism, to be sure,” answers Babinet. “But how can you explain such an impossibility?” The easiest thing in the world; listen only: “All that was necessary to produce the first manifestation in the first house in America was, a street-boy knocking at the door of a mystified citizen, perhaps with a leaden ball attached to a string, and if Mr. Weekman (the first believer in America) (?)[200] when he watched for the third time, heard no shouts of laughter in the street, it is because of the essential difference which exists between a French street-Arab, and an English or Trans-Atlantic one, the latter being amply provided with what we call a sad merriment, ”gaité triste.”[201]

Truly says de Mirville in his famous reply to the attacks of de Gasparin, Babinet, and other scientists: “and thus according to our great physicist, the tables turn very quickly, very energetically, resist likewise, and, as M. de Gasparin has proved, they levitate without contact. Said a minister: ‘With three words of a man’s handwriting, I take upon myself to have him hung.’ With the above three lines, we take upon ourselves, in our turn, to throw into the greatest confusion the physicists of all the globe, or rather to revolutionize the world—if at least, M. de Babinet had taken the precaution of suggesting, like M. de Gasparin, some yet unknown law or force. For this would cover the whole ground.”[C]

It would appear, that M. de Mirville in his narrative of the wonders manifested at the Presbytere de Cideville,[202] was much struck by the marvellousness of some facts. Though authenticated before the inquest and magistrates, they were of so miraculous a nature as to force the demonological author himself to shrink from the responsibility of publishing them.

These facts were as follows: “At the precise moment predicted by a sorcerer” a case of revenge—“a violent clap of thunder was heard above one of the chimneys of the presbytery, after which the fluid descended with a formidable noise through that passage, threw down believers as well as skeptics (as to the power of the sorcerer) who were warming themselves by the fire; and, having filled the room with a multitude of fantastic animals, returned to the chimney, and having reascended it, disappeared, after producing the same terrible noise.” “As,” adds de Mirville, “we were already but too rich in facts, we recoiled before this new enormity added to so many others.”[203]

But Babinet, who in common with his learned colleagues had made such fun of the two writers on demonology, and who was determined, moreover, to prove the absurdity of all like stories, felt himself obliged to discredit the above-mentioned fact of the Cideville phenomena, by presenting one still more incredible. We yield the floor to M. Babinet, himself.

The following circumstance which he gave to the Academy of Sciences, on July 5, 1852, can be found without further commentary, and merely as an instance of a sphere-like lightning, in the “Œuvres de F. Arago,” vol. i. p. 52. We offer it verbatim.

“After a strong clap of thunder,” says M. Babinet, “but not immediately following it, a tailor apprentice, living in the Rue St. Jacques, was just finishing his dinner, when he saw the paper-screen which shut the fireplace fall down as if pushed out of its place by a moderate gust of wind. Immediately after that he perceived a globe of fire, as large as the head of a child, come out quietly and softly from within the grate and slowly move about the room, without touching the bricks of the floor. The aspect of this fire-globe was that of a young cat, of middle size ... moving itself without the use of its paws. The fire-globe was rather brilliant and luminous than hot or inflamed, and the tailor had no sensation of warmth. This globe approached his feet like a young cat which wishes to play and rub itself against the legs, as is habitual to these animals; but the apprentice withdrew his feet from it, and moving with great caution, avoided contact with the meteor. The latter remained for a few seconds moving about his legs, the tailor examining it with great curiosity and bending over it. After having tried several excursions in opposite directions, but without leaving the centre of the room, the fire-globe elevated itself vertically to the level of the man’s head, who to avoid its contact with his face, threw himself backward on his chair. Arrived at about a yard from the floor the fire-globe slightly lengthened, took an oblique direction toward a hole in the wall over the fireplace, at about the height of a metre above the mantelpiece.”

This hole had been made for the purpose of admitting the pipe of a stove in winter; but, according to the expression of the tailor, “the thunder could not see it, for it was papered over like the rest of the wall. The fire-globe went directly to that hole, unglued the paper without damaging it, and reascended the chimney ... when it arrived at the top, which it did very slowly ... at least sixty feet above ground ... it produced a most frightful explosion, which partly destroyed the chimney, ...” etc.

It was not alone believers who wondered at the credulity displayed by M. Babinet, in persisting to call the manifestation a meteor; for Dr. Boudin mentions it very seriously in a work on lightning he was just then publishing. “If these details are exact,” says the doctor, “as they seem to be, since they are admitted by MM. Babinet and Arago, it appears very difficult for the phenomenon to retain its appellation of sphere-shaped lightning. However, we leave it to others to explain, if they can, the essence of a fire-globe emitting no sensation of heat, having the aspect of a cat, slowly promenading in a room, which finds means to escape by reascending the chimney through an aperture in the wall covered over with a paper which it unglues without damaging it!”[205]

“We are of the same opinion,” adds the marquis, “as the learned doctor, on the difficulty of an exact definition, and we do not see why we should not have in future lightning in the shape of a dog, of a monkey, etc., etc. One shudders at the bare idea of a whole meteorological menagerie, which, thanks to thunder, might come down to our rooms to promenade themselves at will.”

The line of demarcation not being sufficiently fixed and determined, which of the opponents is best fitted to take upon himself the difficult task? Which of the two is better entitled to become the public arbiter? Is it the party of superstition, which is supported in its testimony by the evidence of many thousands of people? For nearly two years they crowded the country where were daily manifested the unprecedented miracles of Cideville, now nearly forgotten among other countless spiritual phenomena; shall we believe them, or shall we bow to science, represented by Babinet, who, on the testimony of one man (the tailor), accepts the manifestation of the fire-globe, or the meteor-cat, and henceforth claims for it a place among the established facts of natural phenomena?

Mr. Crookes, in his first article in the Quarterly Journal of Science, October 1, 1871, mentions de Gasparin and his work Science v. Spiritualism. He remarks that “the author finally arrived at the conclusion that all these phenomena are to be accounted for by the action of natural causes, and do not require the supposition of miracles, nor the intervention of spirits and diabolical influences! Gasparin considers it as a fact fully established by his experiments, that the will, in certain states of organism, can act at a distance on inert matter, and most of his work is devoted to ascertaining the laws and conditions under which this action manifests itself.”[207]

Precisely; but as the work of de Gasparin called forth numberless Answers, Defenses, and Memoirs, it was then demonstrated by his own work that as he was a Protestant, in point of religious fanaticism, he was as little to be relied upon as des Mousseaux and de Mirville. The former is a profoundly pious Calvinist, while the two latter are fanatical Roman Catholics. Moreover, the very words of de Gasparin betray the spirit of partisanship:—“I feel I have a duty to perform.... I lift high the Protestant flag against the Ultramontane banner!” etc.[208] In such matters as the nature of the so-called spiritual phenomena, no evidence can be relied upon, except the disinterested testimony of cold unprejudiced witnesses and science. Truth is one, and Legion is the name for religious sects; every one of which claims to have found the unadulterated truth; as “the Devil is the chief pillar of the (Catholic) Church,” so all supernaturalism and miracles ceased, in de Gasparin’s opinion, “with apostleship.”

But Mr. Crookes mentioned another eminent scholar, Thury, of Geneva, professor of natural history, who was a brother-investigator with Gasparin in the phenomena of Valleyres. This professor contradicts point-blank the assertions of his colleague. “The first and most necessary condition,” says Gasparin, “is the will of the experimenter; without the will, one would obtain nothing; you can form the chain (the circle) for twenty-four hours consecutively, without obtaining the least movement.”[209]

The above proves only that de Gasparin makes no difference between phenomena purely magnetic, produced by the persevering will of the sitters among whom there may be not even a single medium, developed or undeveloped, and the so-called spiritual ones. While the first can be produced consciously by nearly every person, who has a firm and determined will, the latter overpowers the sensitive very often against his own consent, and always acts independently of him. The mesmerizer wills a thing, and if he is powerful enough, that thing is done. The medium, even if he had an honest purpose to succeed, may get no manifestations at all; the less he exercises his will, the better the phenomena: the more he feels anxious, the less he is likely to get anything; to mesmerize requires a positive nature, to be a medium a perfectly passive one. This is the Alphabet of Spiritualism, and no medium is ignorant of it.

The opinion of Thury, as we have said, disagrees entirely with Gasparin’s theories of will-power. He states it in so many plain words, in a letter, in answer to the invitation of the count to modify the last article of his mémoire. As the book of Thury is not at hand, we translate the letter as it is found in the résumé of de Mirville’s Defense. Thury’s article which so shocked his religious friend, related to the possibility of the existence and intervention in those manifestations “of wills other than those of men and animals.”

“I feel, sir, the justness of your observations in relation to the last pages of this mémoire: they may provoke a very bad feeling for me on the part of scientists in general. I regret it the more as my determination seems to affect you so much; nevertheless, I persist in my resolution, because I think it a duty, to shirk which would be a kind of treason.

“If, against all expectations, there were some truth in Spiritualism, by abstaining from saying on the part of science, as I conceive it to be, that the absurdity of the belief in the intervention of spirits is not as yet demonstrated scientifically (for such is the résumé, and the thesis of the past pages of my mémoire), by abstaining from saying it to those who, after having read my work, will feel inclined to experiment with the phenomena, I might risk to entice such persons on a path many issues of which are very equivocal.

”Without leaving the domain of science, as I esteem it, I will pursue my duty to the end, without any reticence to the profit of my own glory, and, to use your own words, ‘as the great scandal lies there,’ I do not wish to assume the shame of it. I, moreover, insist that ‘this is as scientific as anything else.’ If I wanted to sustain now the theory of the intervention of disembodied spirits, I would have no power for it, for the facts which are made known are not sufficient for the demonstration of such a hypothesis. As it is, and in the position I have assumed, I feel I am strong against every one. Willingly or not, all the scientists must learn, through experience and their own errors, to suspend their judgment as to things which they have not sufficiently examined. The lesson you gave them in this direction cannot be lost.

Let us analyze the above letter, and try to discover what the writer thinks, or rather what he does not think of this new force. One thing is certain, at least: Professor Thury, a distinguished physicist and naturalist, admits, and even scientifically proves that various manifestations take place. Like Mr. Crookes, he does not believe that they are produced by the interference of spirits or disembodied men who have lived and died on earth; for he says in his letter that nothing has demonstrated this theory. He certainly believes no more in the Catholic devils or demons, for de Mirville, who quotes this letter as a triumphant proof against de Gasparin’s naturalistic theory, once arrived at the above sentence, hastens to emphasize it by a foot-note, which runs thus: “At Valleyres—perhaps, but everywhere else!”[210] showing himself anxious to convey the idea that the professor only meant the manifestations of Valleyres, when denying their being produced by demons.

The contradictions, and we are sorry to say, the absurdities in which de Gasparin allows himself to be caught, are numerous. While bitterly criticizing the pretensions of the learned Faradaysiacs, he attributes things which he declares magical, to causes perfectly natural. “If,” he says, “we had to deal but with such phenomena (as witnessed and explained (?) by the great physicist), we might as well hold our tongues; but we have passed beyond, and what good can they do now, I would ask, these apparatus which demonstrate that an unconscious pressure explains the whole? It explains all, and the table resists pressure and guidance! It explains all, and a piece of furniture which nobody touches follows the fingers pointed at it; it levitates (without contact), and it turns itself upside down!”[211]

“People will be advocating miracles, you say—magic! Every new law appears to them as a prodigy. Calm yourselves; I take upon myself the task to quiet those who are alarmed. In the face of such phenomena, we do not cross at all the boundaries of natural law.”[212]

“I do not risk myself to explain anything; it is no business of mine.(?) To authenticate simple facts, and maintain a truth which science desires to smother, is all I pretend to do. Nevertheless, I cannot resist the temptation to point out to those who would treat us as so many illuminati or sorcerers, that the manifestation in question affords an interpretation which agrees with the ordinary laws of science.

“Suppose a fluid, emanating from the experimenters, and chiefly from some of them; suppose that the will determined the direction taken by the fluid, and you will readily understand the rotation and levitation of that one of the legs of the table toward which is ejected with every action of the will an excess of fluid. Suppose that the glass causes the fluid to escape, and you will understand how a tumbler placed on the table can interrupt its rotation, and that the tumbler, placed on one of its sides, causes the accumulation of the fluid in the opposite side, which, in consequence of that, is lifted!”

If every one of the experimenters were clever mesmerizers, the explanation, minus certain important details, might be acceptable. So much for the power of human will on inanimate matter, according to the learned minister of Louis Philippe. But how about the intelligence exhibited by the table? What explanation does he give as to answers obtained through the agency of this table to questions? answers which could not possibly have been the “reflections of the brain” of those present (one of the favorite theories of de Gasparin), for their own ideas were quite the reverse of the very liberal philosophy given by this wonderful table? On this he is silent. Anything but spirits, whether human, satanic, or elemental.

Thus, the “simultaneous concentration of thought,” and the “accumulation of fluid,” will be found no better than “the unconscious cerebration” and “psychic force” of other scientists. We must try again; and we may predict beforehand that the thousand and one theories of science will prove of no avail until they will confess that this force, far from being a projection of the accumulated wills of the circle, is, on the contrary, a force which is abnormal, foreign to themselves, and supra-intelligent.

Professor Thury, who denies the theory of departed human spirits, rejects the Christian devil-doctrine, and shows himself unwilling to pronounce in favor of Crookes’s theory (the 6th), that of the hermetists and ancient theurgists, adopts the one, which, he says in his letter, is “the most prudent, and makes him feel strong against every one.” Moreover, he accepts as little of de Gasparin’s hypothesis of “unconscious will-power.” This is what he says in his work:

“As to the announced phenomena, such as the levitation without contact, and the displacement of furniture by invisible hands—unable to demonstrate their impossibility, a priori, no one has the right to treat as absurd the serious evidences which affirm their occurrence” (p. 9).

As to the theory proposed by M. de Gasparin, Thury judges it very severely. “While admitting that in the experiments of Valleyres,” says de Mirville, “the seat of the force might have been in the individual—and we say that it was intrinsic and extrinsic at the same time—and that the will might be generally necessary (p. 20), he repeats but what he had said in his preface, to wit: ‘M. de Gasparin presents us with crude facts, and the explanations following he offers for what they are worth. Breathe on them, and not many will be found standing after this. No, very little, if anything, will remain of his explanations. As to facts, they are henceforth demonstrated’” (p. 10).

As Mr. Crookes tells us, Professor Thury refutes “all these explanations, and considers the effects due to a peculiar substance, fluid, or agent, pervading in a manner similar to the luminiferous ether of the scientists, all matter, nervous, organic or inorganic, which he terms psychode. He enters into full discussion as to the properties of this state, or form, or matter, and proposes the term ectenic force ... for the power exerted when the mind acts at a distance through the influence of the psychode.”[213]

We certainly could very easily demonstrate that the two forces are identical, moreover, the astral or sidereal light as explained by the alchemists and Eliphas Levi, in his Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie; and that, under the name of Akasa, or life-principle, this all-pervading force was known to the gymnosophists, Hindu magicians, and adepts of all countries, thousands of years ago; and, that it is still known to them, and used at present by the Thibetan lamas, fakirs, thaumaturgists of all nationalities, and even by many of the Hindu “jugglers.”

In many cases of trance, artificially induced by mesmerization, it is also quite possible, even quite probable, that it is the “spirit” of the subject which acts under the guidance of the operator’s will. But, if the medium remains conscious, and psycho-physical phenomena occur which indicate a directing intelligence, then, unless it be conceded that he is a “magician,” and can project his double, physical exhaustion can signify nothing more than nervous prostration. The proof that he is the passive instrument of unseen entities controlling occult potencies, seems conclusive. Even if Thury’s ectenic and Crookes’s psychic force are substantially of the same derivation, the respective discoverers seem to differ widely as to the properties and potencies of this force; while Professor Thury candidly admits that the phenomena are often produced by “wills not human,” and so, of course, gives a qualified endorsement to Mr. Crookes’s theory No. 6, the latter, admitting the genuineness of the phenomena, has as yet pronounced no definite opinion as to their cause.

Thus, we find that neither M. Thury, who investigated these manifestations with de Gasparin in 1854, nor Mr. Crookes, who conceded their undeniable genuineness in 1874, have reached anything definite. Both are chemists, physicists, and very learned men. Both have given all their attention to the puzzling question; and besides these two scientists there were many others who, while coming to the same conclusion, have hitherto been as unable to furnish the world with a final solution. It follows then, that in twenty years none of the scientists have made a single step toward the unravelling of the mystery, which remains as immovable and impregnable as the walls of an enchanted castle in a fairy tale.