Isolation of heavy bodies.

The movement imparted to inert bodies by the will is today so well known that it would be almost puerile to relate facts of this kind; the same is not the case, however, when the movement is accompanied by certain less common phenomena, for example, that of their suspension in space. Although the annals of Spiritism cite numerous examples, this phenomenon presents such a derogation of the laws of gravity that doubt seems quite natural to whoever has witnessed them. We ourselves, we confess, however habituated we may be to extraordinary things, were quite glad to verify its reality. The fact we are about to narrate was repeated several times before our eyes, in the gatherings that formerly took place at the house of Monsieur B***, on the Rue Lamartine, and we know that it occurred countless times in other places. We can, then, attest to it as incontestable. Here is how things took place:

Eight or ten people, among whom some endowed with a special power, although they were not recognized as mediums, would seat themselves around a heavy and massive dining table, with their hands at its edges and all united by intention and by will. At the end of a more or less long time, ten minutes or a quarter of an hour, according to whether the surrounding dispositions were more or less favorable, the table would set itself in motion, despite its weight of nearly one hundred kilograms; it would slide to the right or to the left on the floor; it would direct itself to various parts of the room that were designated; it would then raise itself, now on one foot, now on another, until forming an angle of 45°; and it would sway rapidly, imitating the rocking movement of a ship. If, in such a position, those present redoubled their efforts by their will, the table would rise completely off the ground, to ten or twenty centimeters in height, sustaining itself in this way in space without any point of support, for a few seconds, only to fall afterward with all its weight. The movement of the table, its raising onto one foot, and its rocking were produced more or less at will, several times during the gathering, and also several times without any contact of the hands; the will alone sufficed for the table to direct itself to the side indicated. The complete isolation was more difficult to obtain, and was repeated often, so as not to be seen as an exceptional fact. Now, this took place not only in the presence of the adepts, who might be believed very accessible to illusion, but before twenty or thirty people, among whom were some quite unsympathetic ones, who would not have failed to raise the suspicion of some secret trickery, without consideration for the master of the house, whose honorable character ought to have removed all thought of fraud and for whom, moreover, it would have been a very singular pleasure to spend a few hours per week mystifying an assembly, without any profit.

We narrate the fact in all its simplicity, without restriction or exaggeration. We shall not say, however, that we saw the table flutter in space as though it were a feather; but, even as things took place, the fact none the less demonstrates the possibility of the isolation of heavy bodies without a point of support, by means of a force until now unknown. Neither shall we say that it sufficed to extend the hand or to make some sign for the table, at that very instant, to move and to rise as if by enchantment.

On the contrary, we shall say, for the sake of truth, that the first movements always took place with a certain slowness, acquiring their maximum intensity only gradually. The complete raising occurred only after several preparatory movements, which were as it were rehearsals for a kind of heave. The acting force seemed to redouble its efforts to encourage those present, like a man or a horse performing a heavy task and that is spurred on by gestures and words. Once the effect was produced, everything returned to calm and, for a few moments, nothing was obtained, as if that same force had need to catch its breath.

We shall many times have occasion to cite phenomena of this kind, whether spontaneous or provoked, and realized in far more extraordinary proportions and circumstances; but, when we have been a witness, we shall always relate it in such a way as to avoid any false or exaggerated interpretation. If in the fact related above we had contented ourselves with saying that we saw a table of one hundred kilograms rise from the ground by the mere contact of the hands, let no one doubt that many people would think that the table had risen up to the ceiling, and with the rapidity of the blink of an eye. It is thus that the simplest things become prodigies through the proportions that the imagination lends them. What will not happen when the facts cross the centuries and pass through the mouths of poets! If it were said that superstition is the daughter of reality, one would have advanced a paradox, and yet nothing is more true; there is no superstition that does not rest upon a real foundation; everything lies in discerning where one ends and the other begins. The true means of combating superstitions is not to contest them in an absolute manner; in the minds of certain people there are ideas that are not so easily uprooted, because there are always facts to cite in support of their opinion; on the contrary, it is necessary to show what is real in them; then, only the ridiculous exaggeration will remain, to which good sense will do justice.