The rapping Spirit of Dibbelsdorf.

Setting aside its comical aspect, the history of the rapping Spirit of Dibbelsdorf also contains an instructive part, as stands out from the passages of old documents, published in 1811 by the preacher Capelle.

On December 2, 1761, at six o’clock in the evening, a kind of hammering that seemed to come from the floor made itself heard in the room inhabited by Antoine Kettelhut. Attributing the episode to his servant, who wanted to amuse himself at the expense of the maidservant, then in the spinning room, he went out to throw a bucket of water on the joker’s head, but found no one outside. An hour later, the same noise began again, and he imagined it was caused by a rat. Thus, the next day he examined the walls, the ceiling, and the floor, finding not the slightest trace of that animal. At night, the same noise; the house was then considered dangerous to serve as a dwelling, and the maidservants themselves no longer wished to remain in the room during the evening. Soon after, the noise ceased, only to recur a hundred paces farther on, in the house of Mr. Louis Kettelhut, brother of Antoine, and with unusual force. It was in a corner of the room that the rapping thing manifested itself. Finally, the phenomenon became suspect to the peasants, and the burgomaster came to report it to the authorities, who at first did not wish to occupy themselves with a case they considered ridiculous. However, in the face of the insistent pressures of the inhabitants, someone from the authorities went to Dibbelsdorf on January 6, 1762, to examine the matter with greater attention. The walls and ceilings were demolished, but no result was obtained; the Kettelhut family swore they had absolutely nothing to do with that strange thing. Until then, no one had yet conversed with the rapper. Arming himself with courage, an individual from Naggam asked: Rapping Spirit, are you here? And a blow was heard. – Can you say what my name is? Among various names designated, the Spirit rapped out the name of the questioner. – How many buttons are there on my coat? 36 blows were given. The buttons were counted, and there were exactly 36. From that moment, the history of the rapping Spirit spread through the surrounding region, causing hundreds of inhabitants of Brunswick to go at night to Dibbelsdorf, as well as Englishmen and a host of foreign curiosity-seekers. The crowd became so numerous that the local militia could not control it. The peasants had to reinforce the night watch, and the visitors were not allowed to enter except one after another. This influx of people seemed to excite the Spirit to still more extraordinary manifestations, evolving toward certain forms of communication that attested to its intelligence. It was never at a loss in its answers: did one wish to know the name and color of the horses stationed in front of the house? It indicated them with precision; a songbook was opened, a finger was placed at random upon a page, and one asked the number of the piece of music, unknown even to the questioner himself: at once, a series of blows perfectly indicated the designated number. The Spirit did not keep one waiting for its answer, which followed immediately after the question. It also said how many persons were in the room, how many were outside, designating the color of the horses, of the clothes, the position and the profession of the persons. Among the curiosity-seekers there was one day a man from Hettin, completely unknown in Dibbelsdorf and having lived for only a short time in Brunswick. He asked the Spirit the place of his birth and, in order to lead it into error, cited a great number of cities; when he came to the name of Hettin, a blow was heard. A cunning burgher, imagining he would catch the Spirit at fault, asked it how many coins he had in his pocket, and was answered 681, his exact number. To a confectioner, it said how many biscuits he had made in the morning; to a merchant, how many measures of ribbon he had sold the day before; to another, the total amount of money received two days before by the Post. It was of quite a merry humor, rapping as one wished and, sometimes, so strongly that the noise was deafening. During supper, at night, and after the prayers, it rapped Amen. This sign of devotion did not prevent a sacristan, clothed in a great exorcist’s habit, from trying to dislodge the Spirit from its corner; the conjuration, however, failed. The Spirit feared nothing, showing itself as sincere in its answers to the reigning Duke Charles and to his brother Ferdinand as to any other person of lesser condition. The matter then took a more serious turn. The Duke charged a physician and some doctors of law to examine the matter. The learned men explained the rappings by the presence of an underground spring. They had a well dug eight feet deep and naturally found water, considering that Dibbelsdorf is situated in a low-lying region; the water that gushed forth flooded the room, but the Spirit continued to rap in its usual corner. The men of science then imagined that they were being the victims of a hoax, granting to the servant the honor of taking the place of that so well-instructed Spirit. His intention was to bewitch the maidservant. All the inhabitants of the village were invited to stay at home on a determined day; the servant was kept in sight, because, according to the opinion of the learned men, he must be the guilty one; but the Spirit again answered all the questions. Recognized as innocent, the servant was set at liberty. The authorities, however, wanted an author for the offense, accusing the Kettelhut couple of the noise they complained of, although they were benevolent, honest persons, irreproachable in all things, and had sought out the authorities from the very beginning of the manifestations. By means of promises and threats, a young woman was forced to testify against her employers. In consequence, they were arrested, despite the girl’s subsequent retractions and her formal confession that her first declarations were false and had been wrung from her by the judges. The Spirit continued to rap; even so, the Kettelhut couple were kept in prison for three months, being released without indemnity after the end of that term, even though the members of the commission had thus concluded their report: “All possible means to discover the cause of the noise were fruitless; perhaps the future will enlighten us somewhat about it.” – The future has as yet taught nothing. The rapping Spirit manifested itself from the beginning of December until March, the time at which it ceased to make itself heard. They again came to think that the already incriminated servant must be the author of all these pieces of bad taste; yet, how could he have escaped the snares laid by the dukes, judges, and so many other persons who questioned it?

Remark. – If we wish to refer to the date on which the things we have just narrated took place, and compare them to those that occur in our days, we will find a perfect identity in the manner of the communications and, even, in the nature of the questions and answers. Neither America, nor our epoch discovered the rapping Spirits, just as they did not discover the other Spirits, as we will demonstrate by countless authentic facts, more or less ancient. [See in the Review of March 1859: Pliny the Younger. Idem, January 1864: A rapping Spirit in the 16th Century.] There is, however, between the present phenomena and those of former times a capital difference: the latter were almost all spontaneous, whereas ours are produced almost at the will of certain special mediums. This circumstance has allowed us to study them better and to fathom their cause. To this conclusion of the judges: “Perhaps the future will enlighten us somewhat about it,” today the author would not reply – The future has as yet taught nothing. Were this author living, he would know that the future, on the contrary, has taught everything, and, more enlightened than a century ago, the justice of our days, with regard to the spiritist manifestations, would not commit the errors that recall those committed in the Middle Ages. Our own learned men have already penetrated far enough into the mysteries of Nature not to let themselves be carried away by unknown things; they have sagacity enough not to expose themselves, as their predecessors did, to the contradictions of posterity, to the detriment of their reputation. If something appears on the horizon, they do not hasten to say: “It is nothing,” for fear that this nothing may be a ship. If they do not see it, they keep silent and wait: therein lies true wisdom.