Music of Space.

Excerpt from a letter from a young man to one of his friends, a guard of Paris:

“Mulhouse, March 27, 1868.

“About five years ago — I was then no more than eighteen years old and was ignorant even of the name of Spiritism — I was witness and object of a strange phenomenon, of which I became aware only a few months ago, after having read The Spirits' Book and The Mediums' Book. This phenomenon consisted of an invisible music, which made itself heard in the surroundings of the room, and accompanied my violin, on which I was taking lessons at that time. It was not a succession of sounds, like those I produced on my instrument, but perfect chords, whose harmony was moving; one would have said a harp played with delicacy and feeling. Sometimes there were about a dozen of us gathered, and we all heard it without exception; but if someone came to listen out of mere curiosity, everything ceased, and as soon as the curious one departed, the effect was reproduced immediately. I remember that recollection contributed greatly to the intensity of the sounds. What was singular is that this happened only between five and eight o'clock in the evening. However, one Sunday, a barrel organ was passing in front of the house, about one o'clock in the afternoon, and was playing an air that held my attention; soon the invisible music made itself heard in the room, accompanying that air. “At these moments I experienced a nervous agitation, which fatigued me noticeably and even made me suffer; it was like a kind of disquiet; at the same time, my whole body radiated a heat, which was felt at about ten centimeters.

“After I read The Mediums' Book, I tried to write; an almost irresistible force carried my hand from left to right in a feverish movement, accompanied by great nervous agitation; but as yet I have traced only unintelligible characters.”

This letter having been communicated to us, we wrote to the young man to ask him for some complementary explanations. Here are the answers to the questions we addressed to him, and which will make the questions easily conjectured.

1st The fact took place in Mulhouse, not in my room, but in the one where I practiced most ordinarily, situated in a neighboring house, in the company of two friends, one of whom played the flute, and the other the violin; it was the latter who gave me lessons. The fact was not produced at any other address.

2nd It was necessary that I be playing; and if, at times, I stopped for a long while, several sounds and sometimes various chords were heard as if to invite me to continue. However, on the day when this music was produced, accompanying a barrel organ, I was not playing;

3rd This music had a character marked enough to be noted; I did not have the idea of playing it;

4th It seemed to come from a well-determined point, but one that constantly changed within the room; it fixed itself for a few moments, so that one could point with the finger to the place from which it came; but when at that place one sought to discover the secret, it soon changed place and fixed itself elsewhere, or made itself heard in different places;

5th This effect lasted about three months, from February 1862. Here is how it ceased:

One day, we were gathered, my employer, another employee and I; we were talking of one thing and another, when my employer, without preamble, put this question to me: “Do you believe in ghosts?” — No, I answered him. He continued to question me and I decided to tell him what was happening. He listened to me with much admiration; when I finished, he clapped me on the shoulder, saying: “They will speak of you.” He spoke of this to a physician, said to be very learned in Physics, who explained the fact to him, saying that I was a sensitive, a magnetized person. My employer, seeking to account for the matter, came one day to find me in my room and had me play. I obeyed and the invisible music made itself heard for a few seconds, very distinctly for me, vaguely for the employer and those present. The employer set about it in every way, without obtaining anything more. The following Sunday I returned to the room; it was the one in which the music had made itself heard, accompanying the barrel organ, without my playing. It was the last time; since then nothing similar has occurred.

Observation. – Before attributing a fact to the intervention of the Spirits, it is necessary to study carefully all its circumstances. The one in question has all the characters of a manifestation; it is probable that it was produced by some Spirit sympathetic to the young man, with the aim of leading him to Spiritist ideas and of drawing the attention of other people to these kinds of phenomena. But then, they will ask, why was this effect not produced in a more resounding manner? Why, above all, did it cease abruptly? The Spirits do not have to render account of all the motives that lead them to act; but it is possible that they judged what happened sufficient for the impression they wished to produce. Moreover, the cessation of the phenomenon at the very moment when its continuation was desired ought to have had as its result to prove that the young man's will entered into it not at all, and that there was no charlatanry. Being heard by the people present, this music excluded any effect of the imagination, as well as any story for amusement; furthermore, the young man, having no notion of Spiritism, cannot be supposed to have suffered the influence of preconceived ideas; only after several years was he able to explain the phenomenon. Countless people are in the same case; Spiritism brings back to their memory facts lost from sight, which they attributed to hallucination and of which they can, henceforth, give account. Spontaneous phenomena are what may be called natural experimental Spiritism.