Читать книгу Psychic Phenomena - Edward T. Bennett - Страница 13

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The reader is asked to refer to the general conditions of the case of Mr. C. testified to by Professor Barrett in the previous chapter. He says:—

"They (the sounds) came more readily and more loudly when music was played, or a merry song struck up. Usually they kept time with the music, and altogether displayed a singular degree of intelligence. Sometimes a loud rhythmic scraping, as of a violoncello bow on a piece of wood, would accompany the music. Again and again I placed my ear on the very spot on the table whence this rough fiddling appeared to proceed, and felt distinctly the rhythmic vibration of the table, but no tangible cause was visible either above or below the table.... On one occasion, when no one else was in the room, ... I asked my young friend the medium to put her hands against the wall, and see how far she could stretch her feet back from the wall without tumbling down. This she did, and whilst in this constrained position—with the muscles of arms and legs all in tension—I asked for the knocks to come. Immediately a brisk pattering of raps followed my request. All the while the child remained quite motionless. My reason in making this experiment, was to test the late Dr. Carpenter's muscular theory of the cause of the sounds. Had Dr. Carpenter been present, I feel sure he would have admitted that here at any rate that theory fell through."[13]

Professor Barrett sums up his conclusions on this case thus:—

"A long and careful examination convinced me that trickery on the part of the child was a more improbable hypothesis than that the sounds proceeded from some unknown agency. Nor could the sounds be accounted for by trickery on the part of the servants in the house, for in addition to my careful inquiries on this point, Mr. C. informed me that he had obtained the raps on the handle of his umbrella out of doors, when the child was by his side; and that the music-master complained of raps proceeding from inside the piano whenever the child was listless or inattentive at her music lesson. Mrs. C. told me that almost every night she heard the raps by the bedside of the child when she went to bid her good-night; and that after she had left the room and partially closed the door, she would hear quite an animated conversation going on between her daughter and her invisible companion, the child rapidly spelling over the alphabet, and the raps occurring at the right letters, and the child thus obtaining with surprising rapidity a clue to the words spelt out.

"Still more violently improbable is the supposition that the parents of the child were at the bottom of the mystery, stimulated by a desire to impress their friends with the wonderful but imaginary gifts their child possessed. The presence of the parents was not necessary for the occurrence of the sounds, which, as I have said, often took place when I was the only person in the room besides the child.

"Hallucination was the explanation which suggested itself to my own mind when first I heard of the phenomena, but was dismissed as wholly inapplicable after the first day's inquiry; nor do I think that any one could maintain that different people, individually and collectively, for some weeks, thought they heard and saw a series of sounds and motions which had no objective existence.

"No! I was then, and am still, morally certain that the phenomena had a real existence outside oneself, and that they were not produced by trickery or by known causes. Hence I could come to no other conclusion than that we had here a class of phenomena wholly new to science."[14]

After some three months the sounds ceased as unexpectedly as they had commenced.

There is one form of sound manifestation to which no allusion has been made—what is called the "Direct Voice." It is alleged to be of frequent occurrence in spiritualistic circles. Articulate words are, it is stated, spoken "direct," not through the voice organs of any person present. The phenomenon, so far as I have heard, occurs only in darkness—and is an objective voice audible alike to every one present. It corresponds to the phenomenon of "direct writing." But no attempt that I am aware of has been made to treat the matter scientifically. One of the earliest alleged occurrences of this phenomenon took place in London, at a private seance at which I was present at the house of Mr. Thos. Everitt, who departed this life in August of last year, and who was one of the most prominent London spiritualists, Mrs. Everitt being the medium. Some little time later, at a similar seance at the same house, the sitting was terminated by the singing of a hymn by three or four soft, gentle voices, purporting to be "direct" voices, which sounded as if they proceeded from the top of the room close to the ceiling. They were certainly not the voices of any of the company present. It was one of the most beautiful and touching manifestations I ever experienced. I can only compare it to the singing of a choir of boys' voices, high up out of sight in Truro Cathedral, which I had heard many years before. The seances at Mr. Everitt's were conducted in an exclusively religious tone, and afforded no opportunity for obtaining scientific evidence. It is much to be desired that a careful inquiry should be made into the reality of so interesting a phenomenon.