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MY EXPERIMENTS WITH EUSAPIA PALADINO.

In the earlier pages of this volume some of my later experiments with the Neapolitan medium, Eusapia Paladino, have been described. We shall now revert to the earlier ones.

My first experimental séance with this remarkable medium took place on the 27th of July, 1897. In response to the invitation of an excellent and honorable family,—that of Blech,—the name of which has for a long time been happily associated with modern researches in theosophy, occultism, and psychological studies, I betook myself to Montfort-l'Amaury, to make the personal acquaintance of this medium, whose case had already been studied in several particulars by MM. Lombroso, Charles Richet, Ochorowicz, Aksakof, Schiaparelli, Myers, Lodge, A. De Rochas, Dariex, J. Maxwell, Sabatier, De Watteville, and a great number of other scholars and scientists of high standing. Mme. Paladino's gifts had even been made the subject of a work by Count de Rochas upon The Externalization of Motivity, as well as of innumerable articles in the special reviews.

The impression that results from the reading of all the official reports is not altogether satisfactory, and besides leaves us with our curiosity entirely ungratified. On the other hand, I can say, as I have already had occasion to remark, that, during the last forty years, almost all the celebrated mediums have been present at one time or another in my salon in the avenue l'Observatoire in Paris, and that I have detected them nearly all in trickery. Not that they always deceive: those who affirm this are wrong. But, consciously or unconsciously, they bring with them an element of trouble against which one is obliged to be constantly on guard, and which places the experimenter in conditions diametrically opposed to those of scientific observation.

Apropos of Eusapia I had received from my illustrious colleague, M. Schiaparelli, director of the observatory at Milan, to whom science is indebted for so many important discoveries, a long letter from which I will quote a few passages: