THEORY OF PHYSICAL MANIFESTATIONS.

On the universal fluid.

— Movements and suspensions.

— Noises. — Phenomena apparently contrary to the known laws of Nature.

— The universal fluid is the principal agent of the manifestations.

— Increase and decrease of the weight of bodies.

The existence of the Spirits having been demonstrated, by reasoning and by facts, as well as the possibility they have of acting upon matter, it is now a matter of knowing how this action is effected and how they proceed to make tables and other inert bodies move.

An idea presents itself very naturally, and we had it.

By giving us another, very different explanation, for which we were far from waiting, the Spirits combated it, which constitutes a proof that their theory was not the effect of our opinion.

Now, that first idea everyone could have, as we did; 5 as for the theory of the Spirits, we do not believe that it has ever occurred to the mind of anyone whatsoever.

One will recognize without difficulty how superior it is to the one we espoused, although less simple, because it gives a solution to countless other facts which, with ours, found no satisfactory explanation.

From the moment that the nature of the Spirits became known, their human form, the semimaterial properties of the perispirit, the mechanical action that the latter can exert upon matter; from the moment that, in cases of apparition, fluidic and even tangible hands were seen to take hold of objects and transport them, it was judged, as was natural, that the Spirit very simply made use of its own hands to make the table turn and that it was by force of arm that it rose into space.

But then, if this were so, what need was there of a medium? Can the Spirit not act by itself alone? For it is evident that the medium, who most often places his hands upon the table in a direction contrary to its movement, or who does not even place his hands there, cannot second the Spirit by means of any muscular action whatever. Let us, however, first let the Spirits whom we questioned on this matter speak.

[On the universal fluid.]

The following answers were given to us by the Spirit Saint Louis. Many others, afterward, confirmed them:

1st Is the universal fluid an emanation of the divinity?

“No.”

2nd Is it a creation of the divinity?

“Everything is created, except God.”

3rd Is the universal fluid at the same time the universal element?

“Yes, it is the elementary principle of all things.”

4th Does it have any relation to the electric fluid, whose effects we know?

“It is its element.”

5th In what state does the universal fluid present itself to us, in its greatest simplicity?

“To find it in its absolute simplicity, we must ascend to the pure Spirits.

In your world, it is always found more or less modified, in order to form the compact matter that surrounds you.

Nevertheless, you may say that the state in which it is found closest to that simplicity is that of the fluid you call animal magnetic fluid.” 6th It has already been said that the universal fluid is the source of life. Is it at the same time the source of intelligence?

“No, that fluid only animates matter.”

7th Since it is of this fluid that the perispirit is composed, it seems that, in the latter, it is found in a kind of state of condensation, which brings it, up to a certain point, close to matter properly so called? “Up to a certain point, as you say, inasmuch as it does not have all the properties of matter. It is more or less condensed, according to the worlds.”

[Movements and suspensions.]

8th How can a Spirit produce the movement of a solid body?

“By combining a part of the universal fluid with the fluid, proper to that effect, which the medium emits.”

9th Is it with their own limbs, in a certain way solidified, that the Spirits lift the table?

“This answer will still not take you to where you desire.

When, beneath your hands, a table moves, the Spirit draws from the universal fluid what is necessary to give it a factitious life.

The table thus prepared, the Spirit attracts and moves it under the influence of the fluid that it releases from itself, by the effect of its will.

When it wishes to set in motion a mass too heavy for its forces, it calls to its aid other Spirits whose conditions are identical to its own.

By virtue of its ethereal nature, the Spirit, properly so called, cannot act upon coarse matter, without an intermediary, that is, without the element that links it to matter.

This element, which constitutes what you call the perispirit, furnishes you the key to all the spiritist phenomena of the material order. I think I have explained myself very clearly, so as to be understood.”

NOTE. We call attention to the following phrase, the first of the answer above: This answer will STILL not take you to where you desire. The Spirit had perfectly understood that all the preceding questions had been formulated only in order to arrive at this last one, and it alludes to our thought which, in effect, was waiting for another, very different answer, that is, for the confirmation of the idea we had about the manner in which the Spirit obtains the movement of the table. 10th Are the Spirits whom the one who wishes to move an object calls to its aid inferior to it? Are they under its orders?

“They are its equals, almost always. Very often they come spontaneously.”

11th Are all Spirits apt to produce phenomena of this kind?

“Those who produce effects of this sort are always inferior Spirits, who have not yet entirely freed themselves from all material influence.”

12th We understand that the superior Spirits do not occupy themselves with things that are far beneath them. But we ask whether, once they are more dematerialized, they would have the power to do it, given that they wished to? “The superior Spirits have moral force, as the others have physical force.

When they need this force, they make use of those who possess it. Has it not already been said to you that they make use of the inferior Spirits, as you make use of porters?”

NOTE. It has already been explained that the density of the perispirit, if one may so speak, varies according to the state of the worlds.

It seems that it also varies, in one and the same world, from individual to individual.

In Spirits morally advanced, it is more subtle and approaches that of the elevated Spirits; in inferior Spirits, on the contrary, it approaches matter, and it is this that makes the Spirits of low condition retain for a long time the illusions of terrestrial life.

These think and act as if they were still alive; they experience the same desires and one could almost say the same sensuality. This coarseness of the perispirit, giving it more affinity with matter, makes the inferior Spirits more apt for physical manifestations.

For the same reason it is that a man of society, accustomed to the labors of the intelligence, slight and delicate of body, cannot lift heavy burdens, as a porter does. In him, matter is, in a certain way, less compact, the organs less resistant; there is less nervous fluid.

The perispirit being, for the Spirit, what the body is for man, and its density being in proportion to the inferiority of the Spirit, this density replaces in the Spirit muscular force, that is, it gives it, over the fluids necessary to the manifestations, a power greater than that which those whose nature is more ethereal have at their disposal.

An elevated Spirit, wishing to produce such effects, does what among us delicate persons do: it calls a Spirit of the trade to execute them. 13th If we understand well what you have said, the vital principle resides in the universal fluid; the Spirit draws from this fluid the semimaterial envelope that constitutes its perispirit, and it is still by means of this fluid that it acts upon inert matter. Is it so? “It is.

That is to say: it lends to matter a kind of factitious life; matter is animated with animal life.

The table, which moves beneath your hands, lives like an animal; it obeys by itself the intelligent being.

It is not the latter that impels it, as man does with a burden. When it rises, it is not the Spirit that lifts it, with the effort of its arm: it is the table itself which, animated, obeys the impulse the Spirit gives it.” 14th What role does the medium play in this phenomenon?

“I have already said that the fluid proper to the medium combines with the universal fluid that the Spirit accumulates.

The union of these two fluids is necessary, that is, of the animalized fluid and the universal fluid, in order to give life to the table.

But note well that this life is only momentary, that it is extinguished with the action and, sometimes, before the latter ends, as soon as the quantity of fluid ceases to be enough to animate it.” 15th Can the Spirit act without the concurrence of a medium?

“It can act without the medium's knowledge.

This is to say that many persons, without suspecting it, serve as auxiliaries to the Spirits. From them the Spirits draw, as from a source, the animalized fluid they need.

Thus it is that the concurrence of a medium, such as you understand it, is not always necessary, which is verified principally in spontaneous phenomena.” 16th Animated, does the table act with intelligence? Does it think?

“It thinks as much as the cane with which you make an intelligent sign.

But the vitality with which it is animated permits it to obey the impulse of an intelligence.

Know, then, that the table that moves does not become a Spirit and that it has not, in itself, the capacity to think, nor to will.”

NOTE. Very often, in ordinary language, we make use of an analogous expression. It is said of a wheel that turns swiftly that it is animated with a rapid movement.

17th What is the preponderant cause in the production of this phenomenon: the Spirit, or the fluid?

“The Spirit is the cause, the fluid the instrument, both are necessary.”

18th What role, in this case, does the will of the medium play?

“That of attracting the Spirits and seconding them in the impulse they give to the fluid.”

a — Is the action of the will always indispensable?

“It increases the force, but it is not always necessary, since the movement can be produced against that will, or in spite of it, and this proves that there is a cause independent of the medium.”

NOTE. The contact of the hands is not always necessary for an object to move.

Most often this contact is only necessary to give the first impulse; but, once the object is animated, it can obey the will of the Spirit, without material contact. This depends either on the potentiality of the medium, or on the nature of the Spirit.

Even a first contact is not always indispensable, of which the spontaneous movements and displacements, which no one thought of provoking, are proofs. 19th Why is it that not everyone can produce the same effect and that not all mediums have the same power?

“This depends on the organization and on the greater or lesser facility with which the combination of the fluids can be operated.

There also influences it the greater or lesser sympathy of the medium toward the Spirits who find in him the necessary fluidic force.

With this force occurs what is verified with that of the magnetizers, which is not equal in all.

In this respect, there are even persons who are wholly refractory; 5 others with whom the combination is operated only by an effort of will on their part; 6 others, finally, with whom the combination of the fluids is effected so naturally and easily that they do not even notice it and serve as an instrument in spite of themselves, as we said above.” (See further on the chapter on Spontaneous Manifestations.)

NOTE. These phenomena have, without doubt, magnetism as their principle, but not as it is generally understood.

The proof lies in the existence of powerful magnetizers who did not succeed in making a tiny table move, and in that of persons who do not manage to magnetize anyone, not even a child, for whom, nevertheless, it suffices that they place their fingers upon a heavy table for it to be agitated.

Thus, since the mediumistic force does not keep proportion with the magnetic force, it is that another cause exists. 20th Can the persons qualified as electric be considered mediums?

“These persons draw from themselves the fluid necessary to the production of the phenomenon and can operate without the concurrence of other Spirits.

They are not, therefore, mediums, in the sense attributed to this word.

But it can also happen that a Spirit assists them and takes advantage of their natural dispositions.”

NOTE. It happens with these persons what occurs with those who can operate with or without the concurrence of foreign Spirits. (See, in the chapter on Mediums, the article relative to somnambulistic mediums.)

21st Does the Spirit that acts upon solid bodies to move them place itself in the very substance of the bodies, or outside it?

“The one and the other thing occurs.

We have already said that matter does not constitute an obstacle for the Spirits. They penetrate everything.

A portion of the perispirit identifies itself, so to speak, with the object into which it penetrates.” [Noises.]

22nd How does the Spirit do to rap? Does it make use of some material object?

“As much as of arms to lift the table.

You know perfectly well that the Spirit has no hammer at its disposal.

Its hammer is the fluid which, combined, it sets in action, by its will, to move or to rap.

When it moves an object, light gives you the perception of the movement; when it raps, the air brings you the sound.” 23rd We conceive that it is so, when the Spirit raps on a hard body; but how can it make noises, or articulated sounds, be heard in the unstable mass of the air?

“Since it is possible to act upon matter, it can act upon a table as much as upon the air.

As for articulated sounds, it can imitate them, as it can do with any other noises whatsoever.” 24th You say that the Spirit does not make use of its hands to displace the table. Nevertheless, hands have already been seen, in certain visual manifestations, appearing to run over a keyboard, to strike the keys and to draw sounds from them. In this case, will the movement of the keys not be due, as it seems, to the pressure of the fingers? And is that pressure not also direct and real, when it is felt upon us, when the hands that exert it leave marks on the skin? “You cannot comprehend the nature of the Spirits nor the manner in which they act, except by means of comparisons which, of the one and the other thing, give you only an incomplete idea, and you will always err whenever you wish to assimilate to your own the processes they use. These, necessarily, must correspond to the organization that is proper to them.

Have I not already said to you that the fluid of the perispirit penetrates matter and identifies itself with it, that it animates it with a factitious life? Well then! When the Spirit places its fingers upon the keys, it really places them and in fact moves them. But it is not by means of muscular force that it exerts the pressure. It animates them, as it does with the table, and the keys, obeying its will, lower themselves and pluck the strings of the piano.

In all this one thing still occurs, which it will be difficult for you to understand: it is that some Spirits are found so little advanced and, in comparison with the elevated Spirits, keep themselves so material, that they retain the illusions of terrestrial life and think they act as when they had the body of flesh.

They do not perceive the true cause of the effects they produce, any more than a peasant understands the theory of the sounds he articulates.

Ask them how it is that they play the piano and they will answer you that it is by striking the keys with their fingers, because they think it is thus that they do it.

The effect is produced instinctively in them, without their knowing how, although it results in them from the action of the will. The same occurs when they express themselves by words.”

NOTE. From these explanations it follows that the Spirits can produce all the effects that we men produce, but by means appropriate to their organization.

Some forces, proper to them, replace the muscles that we need in order to act, in the same manner that, for a mute, gesture replaces the speech he lacks. [Phenomena apparently contrary to the known laws of Nature.]

25th Among the phenomena that are pointed out as proving the action of an occult power, there are some evidently contrary to all the known laws of Nature. In these cases, will doubt not be legitimate? “It is that man is far from knowing all the laws of Nature.

If he knew them all, he would be a superior Spirit.

Each day that passes belies those who, supposing they know everything, claim to impose limits on Nature, without thereby, however, becoming less proud.

By unveiling to him, incessantly, new mysteries, God warns man that he must distrust his own lights, inasmuch as a day will come when the science of the wisest will be confounded.

Do you not have every day, before your eyes, examples of bodies animated with a movement that dominates the force of gravitation? Does a stone, thrown into the air, not momentarily overcome that force?

Poor men, who consider yourselves very wise and whose foolish vanity is at every moment being unseated, know that you are still very small.” [The universal fluid is the principal agent of the manifestations.]

These explanations are clear, categorical and free of ambiguity.

From them there stands out, as the capital point, that the universal fluid, in which is contained the principle of life, is the principal agent of the manifestations, an agent that receives impulse from the Spirit, whether incarnate, whether wandering.

Condensed, this fluid constitutes the perispirit, or semimaterial envelope of the Spirit.

When the latter is incarnate, the perispirit is found united to the matter of the body; the Spirit being in erraticity, it is found free.

When the Spirit is incarnate, the substance of the perispirit is found more or less bound, more or less adherent, if we may so express ourselves.

In some persons there is verified, by the effect of their organizations, a kind of emanation of this fluid, and it is this, properly speaking, that constitutes the medium of physical influences.

The emission of the animalized fluid can be more or less abundant, as its combination is more or less easy, whence mediums more or less powerful.

This emission, however, is not permanent, which explains the intermittence of mediumistic power.

Let us make a comparison. When one has the will to act materially upon a point placed at a distance, it is thought that wills, but thought by itself alone will not go to strike the point; it needs an intermediary, placed under its direction: a rod, a projectile, a current of air, etc.

Note also that thought does not act directly upon the rod, inasmuch as, if the latter is not touched, it will not move.

Thought, which is nothing but the incarnate Spirit, is united to the body by the perispirit and cannot act upon the body without the perispirit, as it cannot upon the rod without the body.

It acts upon the perispirit, because this is the substance with which it has the most affinity; the perispirit acts upon the muscles, the muscles take the rod and the rod strikes, at the point aimed at.

When the Spirit is not incarnate, a foreign auxiliary is needed by it, and this auxiliary is the fluid, by means of which it takes the object, upon which it wishes to act, rendering it apt to obey the impulse of the will.

Thus, when an object is set in motion, lifted or thrown into the air, it is not that the Spirit takes it, pushes it and suspends it, as we would do with the hand.

The Spirit saturates it, so to speak, with its fluid, combined with that of the medium, and the object, momentarily vivified in this manner, acts as a living being would, with the only difference that, not having a will of its own, it follows the impulse the will of the Spirit gives it.

Since the vital fluid, which the Spirit, in a certain way, emits, gives factitious and momentary life to inert bodies; 4 since the perispirit is nothing more than this same vital fluid, 5 it follows that, when the Spirit is incarnate, it is itself that gives life to its body, by means of its perispirit, 6 keeping itself united to that body, as long as the organization of the latter permits it. When it withdraws, the body dies.

Now, if, instead of a table, we sculpt a wooden statue and act upon it, as upon the table, we shall have a statue that will move, that will rap, that will answer with its movements and raps. We shall have, in short, a statue momentarily animated with an artificial life. In place of speaking tables, one would have speaking statues.

How much light this theory projects upon an immensity of phenomena until now without solution! How many allegories and mysterious effects it explains!

The incredulous still object that the phenomenon of the suspension of tables, without a point of support, is impossible, as being contrary to the law of gravitation.

We shall answer them that, in the first place, the negative does not constitute a proof; in the second place, that, the fact being real, it matters little that it contradict all the known laws, a circumstance that would only prove one thing:

that it derives from an unknown law, and the deniers cannot nourish the pretension of knowing all the laws of Nature.

We have just explained one of these laws, but this is no reason for them to accept it, precisely because it is revealed to us by Spirits who have stripped off the terrestrial garment, instead of being so by Spirits who still wear that garment and have a seat in the Academy.

So that, if the Spirit of Arago, living on Earth, had enunciated this law, they would have admitted it with eyes closed; but, since it comes from the Spirit of Arago, dead, it is a utopia. Why is this? Because they believe that, Arago having died, everything that was in him also died.

We do not have the presumption of dissuading them; nevertheless, since such an objection can cause embarrassment to some persons, we shall attempt to give them an answer, placing ourselves at the point of view at which they place themselves, that is, abstracting, for an instant, from the theory of factitious animation. [Increase and decrease of the weight of bodies.]

When a vacuum is produced in the bell jar of the pneumatic machine, that bell jar adheres with such force to its support that it becomes impossible to lift it, because of the weight of the column of air that presses upon it. Let air be admitted and the bell jar can be lifted with the greatest facility, because the air that remains beneath it counterbalances the air that, from the exterior part, compresses it. However, if no one touches it, it will remain set upon the support, by the effect of the law of gravity. Now, let the air be compressed within it, let it be given a density greater than that of what is outside, and the bell jar will rise, despite gravity. If the current of air is violent and rapid, the same bell jar will keep itself suspended in space, without any visible point of support, after the manner of those little figures that are made to spin atop a jet of water.

Why then could the universal fluid, which is the element of all Nature, accumulated around the table, not have the property of diminishing or increasing its relative specific weight, as the air does with the bell jar of the pneumatic machine, as hydrogen gas does with balloons, without its being necessary for this the abrogation of the law of gravity? Do you know, perchance, all the properties and all the power of this fluid? No.

Well, then, do not deny the reality of a fact, merely because you cannot explain it.

Let us return to the theory of the movement of the table. If, by the indicated means, the Spirit can suspend a table, it can also suspend any other thing:

an armchair, for example. If it can lift an armchair, it can also, having sufficient force, lift it with a person seated in it.

There is the explanation of the phenomenon that Mr. Home produced countless times with himself and with other persons. He repeated it during a journey to London and, to prove that the spectators were not the playthings of an optical illusion, he made, on the ceiling, while suspended, a mark with a pencil, and had many persons pass beneath him.

It is known that Mr. Home is a powerful medium of physical effects. In that case, he was at the same time the efficient cause and the object.

We spoke, a moment ago, of the possible increase of weight. Effectively, this is a phenomenon that sometimes is produced and that presents nothing more abnormal than the prodigious resistance of the bell jar, under the pressure of the atmospheric column.

There have been seen, under the influence of certain mediums, very light objects offering identical resistance and, then, suddenly yielding to the least effort. In the experiment of which we treated above, the bell jar does not become really more nor less heavy in itself; but it seems to have greater weight, by the effect of the exterior cause that acts upon it. The same probably occurs here.

The table always has the same intrinsic weight, inasmuch as its mass has not increased;

but a foreign force opposes its movement, and this cause may reside in the ambient fluids that penetrate it, as in the air there resides that which increases or diminishes the apparent weight of the bell jar.

Make the experiment of the pneumatic bell jar before an ignorant rustic, incapable of understanding that what acts is the air, which he does not see, and it will not be difficult for you to persuade him that that is the work of the devil.

They will say perhaps that, this fluid being imponderable, an accumulation of it cannot increase the weight of any object. Agreed; but note that, if we make use of the term accumulation, it was by comparison, not because we absolutely assimilate that fluid to air.

It is imponderable: be it so. Nevertheless, nothing proves that it is. We are unaware of its intimate nature and we are far from knowing all its properties.

Before the gravity of air had been experimented, no one suspected the effects of that same gravity.

Electricity too is classified among the imponderable fluids; nevertheless, a body can be fixed by an electric current and offer great resistance to whoever wishes to lift it. It has thus become, apparently, heavier.

It would be illogical to affirm that the support does not exist, simply because it is not visible. The Spirit may have levers that are unknown to us: Nature proves to us every day that its power surpasses the limits of the testimony of the senses.

Only by a similar cause can the singular phenomenon, so many times observed, be explained, of a weak and delicate person lifting with two fingers, without effort and as if it were a feather, a strong and robust man, together with the chair on which he is seated.

The intermittences of the faculty prove that the cause is foreign to the person who produces the phenomenon.