INTELLIGENT MANIFESTATIONS.

In what we have just seen, nothing certainly reveals the intervention of a hidden power, and the effects we have reviewed could be perfectly explained by the action of a magnetic or electric current, or even by that of some fluid.

Such was, precisely, the first solution given to these phenomena, and one which, with reason, could pass for being very logical. It would, no doubt, have prevailed, had not other facts come to demonstrate it insufficient. These facts are the proofs of intelligence that they gave.

Now, since every intelligent effect must necessarily derive from an intelligent cause, it became evident that, even admitting, in such cases, the intervention of electricity or of some other fluid, another cause was associated with it. What was it? What was the intelligence? This is what the continuation of the observations revealed.

For a manifestation to be intelligent, it is not indispensable that it be eloquent, witty, or learned; it suffices that it prove to be a free and voluntary act, expressing an intention, or responding to a thought.

Certainly, when a weathervane moves, everyone knows that it merely obeys a mechanical impulse: that of the wind; but if signs of intentionality were recognized in its movements, if it turned to the right or to the left, quickly or slowly, according as it was ordered, one would be forced to admit, not that the weathervane was intelligent, but that it obeyed an intelligence. This is what happened with the table.

We saw it move, rise, give knocks, under the influence of one or of several mediums.

The first intelligent effect observed was the obedience of these movements to a command. Thus, without changing its place, the table would rise alternately upon whichever leg was indicated to it; then, falling, it would strike a determined number of knocks, answering a question.

At other times, without the contact of any person, it would wander alone about the room, going to the right or to the left, forward or backward, executing various movements, according as those present ordered.

It is well understood that we set aside any supposition of fraud; that we admit the perfect honesty of the witnesses, attested by the integrity and the absolute disinterestedness of all of them. We shall speak later of the deceptions against which prudence requires that one be on guard.

By means of knocks and, above all, by means of the cracklings, which we treated of a little while ago, produced within the table, effects still more intelligent are obtained, such as: the imitation of the sounds of the drum, of the volley of fire by rank or by platoon, of a cannonade; then, that of the rasping of the saw, of hammer blows, of the rhythm of different tunes, etc.

It was, as is well understood, a vast field to be explored. It was reasoned that, if there was a hidden intelligence in this, it would necessarily be possible for it to answer questions, and it did in fact answer, by a yes, by a no, giving the number of knocks that had been agreed upon for one case and the other.

Since these answers were very insignificant, the idea arose of having the table indicate the letters of the alphabet and thus compose words and phrases.

These facts, repeated at will by thousands of persons and in all countries, could leave no doubt as to the intelligent nature of the manifestations.

It was then that a new system appeared, according to which this intelligence would be that of the medium, of the questioner, or even of those present.

The difficulty was in explaining how such an intelligence could be reflected in the table and express itself by knocks.

It having been ascertained that these were not given by the medium, it was deduced that they were, then, given by thought. But thought giving knocks constituted a phenomenon still more prodigious than all those that had been observed. It was not long before experience demonstrated the inadmissibility of such an opinion.

Indeed, the answers very often found themselves in formal opposition to the ideas of those present, beyond the intellectual reach of the medium, and were even given in languages of which the latter was ignorant, or related facts that everyone was unaware of.

The examples are so numerous that it is almost impossible for anyone who has occupied himself even a little with the Spiritist manifestations not to have witnessed this many times. We shall cite but one, which was reported to us by an eyewitness.

On a ship of the French imperial navy, stationed in the seas of China, the entire crew, from the sailors to the staff officers, occupied itself with making the tables speak.

They had the idea of evoking the Spirit of a lieutenant who had belonged to the garrison of the same ship and who had died two years before. The Spirit came and, after several communications that filled everyone with astonishment, said the following, by means of knocks:

“I beg you urgently to have paid to the captain the sum of… (it indicated the figure), which I owe him and which I regret not having been able to repay him before my death.”

No one knew of the fact: the captain himself had forgotten this debt, which was moreover trifling. But, searching through his accounts, he found a note of the lieutenant's debt, of an amount exactly identical to the one the Spirit had indicated.

We ask: of whose thought could this indication be the reflection?

The art of obtaining communications by the process of alphabetical knocks was perfected, but the means continued to be very slow.

Some, however, were obtained of a certain length, as well as interesting revelations about the world of the Spirits.

These indicated other means, and to them is owed that of written communications.

The first communications of this kind were received by adapting a pencil to the leg of a light table, placed upon a sheet of paper. Set in motion by the influence of a medium, the table began to trace characters, then words and phrases.

The process was gradually simplified, by the employment of little tables the size of a hand, constructed expressly for this; then, by that of baskets, of cardboard boxes, and, finally, by that of simple planchettes.

The writing came out as flowing, as rapid, and as easy as by hand.

But it was recognized later that all those objects were, in the end, nothing more than appendages, true pencil-holders, which could be dispensed with, the medium holding the pencil with his own hand.

Forced into an involuntary movement, the hand wrote under the impulse imparted to it by the Spirit and without the participation of the will or of the thought of the medium.

From then on, communications from beyond the grave became without limit, as is the ordinary correspondence between the living.

We shall return to treat of these different means, in order to explain them in detail. For now, we limit ourselves to sketching them, in order to show the successive facts that led observers to recognize, in these phenomena, the intervention of hidden intelligences, or, in other words, of the Spirits.