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Before discussing in detail those methods which appear to me to be the surest, I think it well to make a few general recommendations. The first relates to the state of mind in which it is necessary to experiment. If interesting results are desired it is not advisable to laugh, joke, or mock at those practices—however ridiculous they may seem—with which I advise compliance. Act seriously, do not make light of experiments, the exact import of which we are so ignorant of. I think we should also avoid the other extreme, which we find in most spiritistic groups, and which impart to these seances all the solemnity of a religious service.

The foregoing might be considered a useless recommendation, which is not the case. Spiritists, whose experience in such matters is not to be disdained, insist on the necessity of harmony in the circle, which is, they say, an essential condition of success. My personal experience confirms their opinion on this point. I have often been present at sittings which promised well in the beginning, and became suddenly barren because of a futile discussion between the sitters. The harmony recommended by spiritists is a kind of equilibrium between the mental and emotional states of the sitters. Each sitter should be animated by the same spirit—I do not use this word in its spiritistic acceptation—and seek only the truth; for I take it for granted they will operate as I have done. This unity of views, this uniformity of desires, this harmony between brains and hearts ensures the synergy of the forces which each member of the circle develops.

For there is no doubt that some kind of force is emitted, and that if the medium throws off more than the other experimenters, an equilibrium between him and the other sitters is nevertheless fairly quickly established. The medium takes back from the latter the force he has expended. The result is that after a successful seance, the sitters are generally tired. I have noticed that certain persons give out this force more readily than others, and this perhaps explains a medium’s preference for certain experimenters as neighbours during the seance. We must not attribute this choice to the greater facility, which some people might offer for the execution of fraudulent phenomena. I have frequently been thus chosen, and I beg my readers to believe that I have a horror of fraud and imposture. I am also accustomed to experimenting; I feel no emotion whatever; I keep cool and observe with care. I am well acquainted with fraudulent methods, and I take good care not to be imposed upon.

I repeat, it is a mistake to attribute to fraudulent intentions the preference shown by the medium for such or such an experimenter. In reality, it seems as though the medium, possessing an organism much more sensitive than that of the majority, quickly recognises those persons who the more easily throw off the force which he requires to retrieve his losses. This more rapid emission may be the result of habit, or may even depend upon individual constitution. Eusapia quickly discerns people from whom she can easily draw the force she needs. In the course of my first experiments with this medium, I found out this vampirism to my cost. One evening, at the close of a sitting at l’Agnélas, she was raised from the floor and carried on to the table with her chair. I was not seated beside her, but, without releasing her neighbours’ hands, she caught hold of mine while the phenomenon was happening. I had a cramp in the stomach—I cannot better define my sensation—and was almost overcome by exhaustion.

This, for me, extraordinary incident astonished me greatly, and since then I have always carefully examined my sensations. This examination has the fault of being purely subjective, but certain objective realities have confirmed it. A special sensation accompanies the emission of this nervous force, and with custom the passage of the energy expended in a seance can be felt, just as the interruption of its flow can be discerned. I have questioned several experimenters about this, and their observations have often corroborated mine.

Therefore I think I may say that some kind of force is emitted by the sitters, which is elaborated by the medium; that the latter restores his losses at the expense of the experimenters, that certain people more readily than others furnish the medium with the force he requires; and that a certain sympathy of ideas, views, and sentiments between the experimenters is favourable to the emission of this force.

I have no decided opinion upon the nature and origin of this force. I think it is kindred to the energy which circulates in our nerves, and which provokes the contraction of our muscles. Further on I shall give the reasons which lead me to think so.

A second recommendation, no less important than the first, in my opinion, is to treat seriously, and note carefully all communications given through the table, through automatic writing or raps.

I now arrive at the examination of one of the most curious facts which so-called ‘psychical’ experiences reveal. To a certain extent the manifesting force appears to be intelligent. Nothing permits me to affirm or even to think, that the manifestations are due to an entity distinct from that of the sitters. It is not my province to discuss hypotheses: I confine myself to the relation of facts, and in the course of my recital, I will point out in detail the circumstances, which permit me to signalise the apparent individuality of the manifesting force. As in such matters I have always thought it better to preserve an expectant attitude, I have always been careful never to slight the communications received through the phenomena. I have imposed on myself the habit of treating these manifestations in the manner desired by them. Every time I acted otherwise, the results were indifferent.

Generally, the manifestations are attributed to a deceased person, known or unknown to the sitters. This is not absolute, for I have witnessed the table call itself the devil, or even pretend to be a man still alive. Automatic writing has been signed by a Mahatma; but, as a rule, it is the soul of a deceased person who claims to be manifesting. This usual attribution explains spiritistic belief. I have good reason for thinking, that the spirits of the dead have had nothing to do with my experiments; but as, in reality, I am ignorant of the cause of the phenomena which I have observed, I have politely accepted the explanation these have given of themselves. It is thus we address those whom we meet at table d’hôte, calling them by the name they give themselves without concerning ourselves as to who they really are.

Therefore, whatever the changeable personification of the phenomena may be, my advice is to accept it and to heed its observations. We must not suppose the ideas expressed are due to the operators’ unconscious movements; that may be true when the communications are obtained through automatic writing, through a table or articles with which the experimenters are in contact; but it is certainly not so when they are obtained by raps given without any contact whatsoever, as I have been able to prove many and many a time. As I confine myself to indicating the results of my personal experience, it is perhaps enough to say once more that the methods I recommend seem good to me. I have always noticed the unhappy consequences of my refusal to take into account the spontaneous advice of the personification.

The most frequently given advice concerns the placing of the experimenters.

However, at the beginning of the sitting, the experimenters may seat themselves as they please. I have already said it was generally necessary to place the medium’s chair against the curtains of the cabinet, and to alternate the sexes. The experimenters seated, the experiment begins. It is a good plan to choose a manager. Nothing is worse than the absence of direction. When every one wishes to direct the proceedings, confusion reigns in the circle, and results are bad. I have been present at seances where every one spoke at the same time, each one demanding a different phenomenon. As a rule, on such occasions nothing was received. Some one, therefore, ought to be appointed to conduct the experiment, especially to converse with the personification if it express a desire for conversation.

When the sitters wish to make a report of an experiment, it is indispensable to intrust one of the experimenters with the task of taking notes of the incidents as they occur. This experimenter ought to form one of the circle.

It must not be thought that the circle can be modified with impunity. My personal experience has shown me it is bad to frequently introduce strangers into the circle. It should be arranged that a series of at least six sittings will be held without modifying the group: that no new experimenter will be admitted: and that none of the original experimenters will miss even one seance. Then if at the end of six sittings nothing has been obtained, my advice is to change the circle, to eliminate certain elements, replacing them by others. It is preferable to change the sitters one by one, and to make a few experiments with the circle thus modified before making further changes.

If interesting results be forthcoming, and a desire be felt to show them to other people, the new sitters must be introduced one by one, and, I repeat, at intervals of three or four sittings. Otherwise there would be a risk of compromising the success of the experiments.

The personification sometimes asks for the addition to the circle of a certain person; it is then well to invite him to the sittings if circumstances allow of it.

I now return to the seance which, I suppose, has begun. The sitters put their hands on the table; it is not generally necessary to ‘form the chain,’ that is to say, to establish contact between the sitters by linking the little fingers. The hands in position, and the room well lighted up, we wait. Talking or singing may be indulged in. The emission of the voice, especially rythmical emission, is an excellent condition: it is a good thing to play some music, organ-playing is particularly effective. Why is the production of sonorous rythmical waves favourable to these phenomena? I have no explanation to offer for this fact, which I am not the only one to have observed.

At the end of a few minutes, the table often seems to be agitated. If we are experimenting with spiritists or with people accustomed to spiritistic proceedings, the table, raising itself, will be seen to strike the floor with one of its legs. I advise asking the table if it wishes to speak, and to arrange that two raps will mean ‘no,’ and three raps ‘yes.’ Of course any other numbers or signs will do equally well. The table, thus consulted, generally replies ‘yes.’ It can then be asked, if the sitters are well placed: if it indicates any other arrangement it is well to heed its advice.

We should then make known to the table what kind of results are desired, and point out, particularly, that movements with contact, failing to carry conviction, are undesirable. I have already said that the personification—it is thus I call the entity, whatever it may be, who claims to be manifesting—is generally very open to suggestion; and it suffices to indicate, at the beginning of the experiment, the objection that is made to movements with contact to be almost completely rid of them.

There is no need to point out the object of the above suggestion. From the special point of view of the observation of material facts, the movement of a table upon which the hand rests means nothing at all. I look upon these movements as loss of time; they are sufficiently explained by our own unconscious and involuntary muscular contractions. The phenomenon is only worthy of a serious man’s attention when it is produced without contact, or without sufficient contact; as, for example, when the table is completely raised from the ground, the sitters’ hands resting on top of the table all the time. It is better not to experiment than to lose one’s time in observing movements with contact, unless, of course, we are seeking to analyse the tenor of typtological messages.

I strongly recommend most carefully avoiding the production of automatic movements. I have excellent reasons for believing, that the agent which produces telekinetic phenomena only realises them, if it has accumulated sufficient force to have acquired a certain given tension. I have already pointed out the close connection—identity perhaps—between this agent and that which causes our muscles to contract; further on I shall indicate experiences which give weight to this impression; at present it suffices to mention it, to understand why I so earnestly recommend sitters to avoid yielding to more or less subconscious movements from the very outset. If, as I think, the energy which our nervous system elaborates is closely connected with that energy, whose effects are seen in telekinetic phenomena, it is probable that it will only produce these curious effects, in proportion as it is able to acquire a sufficient tension for its emission. My knowledge of physics is too rudimentary to allow me to draw precise comparisons between this force and electricity. Nevertheless, it has seemed to me to present some analogies with electricity, although the two are certainly not identical; but the analogies are, perhaps, sufficient to enable me by a comparison to make my meaning clearer.

An electrical conductor, charged with a given amount of electricity, will have an electrical density of σ; if the amount increases, this density will be σ´, and we will have σ´>σ; the tension in the first case will be T = 2πσ², in the second T´ = 2πσ´²; T´ will be greater than T.

The conductor will remain charged, as long as the tension does not exceed the resistance which the surroundings offer to the emission of electricity; as soon as this resistance becomes inferior to the tension, there will be emission of electricity.

In the case of a medium, the charge of energy increases with time and relative immobility. If by making unconscious or voluntary movements, experimenters do not allow this energy to accumulate, it will never reach the tension necessary for exteriorisation. There are, however, some reservations to be made; for I have noticed, that when the tension is sufficient, simulated or executed movements determine the production of the motor phenomenon—just as if the execution of the movement appeared to liberate a quantity of energy superior to that which was utilised by the working of the muscle; the excess of force was then apparently employed in the realisation of the telekinetic movement.

I have noticed that, every time we allow voluntary or involuntary movements, telekinetic movements are difficult to obtain. One would think, that the energy which determines them can only accomplish them when it cannot find a normal outlet; it has a tendency to expend itself normally in ordinary muscular movements: this tendency is one of the most frequent causes of involuntary fraud, and the habitual occasion of voluntary fraud. We must see that this tendency be checked: this may call for some effort of attention at the beginning, but ‘habit is second nature.’

Things being thus regulated, we wait. A first seance is generally without apparent result, unless one has the good luck to meet with a medium straight away—which is not always the case. Those who seriously wish to understand these facts must have a great fund of indefatigable patience. I can guarantee them success sooner or later, but I cannot tell how many barren experiments may be made before that success comes. They must not grow weary; let them progressively modify the composition of the circle until the necessary element be met with. They will then be rewarded for their trouble. I strongly advise them to avoid professional mediums. Some of them are sincere, and I think that Eusapia Paladino is of that number. It is true that sometimes she produces suspicious phenomena, but it is puerile to conclude therefrom that she constantly cheats. The suspicious cases I have observed with Eusapia are interesting, if studied impartially. They show the rôle which the subliminal conscience—impersonal or bound to a second personality—plays in the phenomena, and give rise to attractive psychological problems.

Spiritistic mediums, whose number is legion, form another category with whom we should not experiment, except for purposes of especial research. Some of these mediums are trustworthy, and one of them, Madame Agullana of Bordeaux, has sometimes given me interesting sittings. The phenomena I have observed with this medium differ greatly from Eusapia’s; they are of an intellectual order, and raise a very complicated problem. Madame Agullana’s medianity must not be judged from seances with her groups. These seances have the religious character of nearly all truly spiritistic meetings. It is difficult there for an experimenter to observe at his ease; the curiosity of those who seek only the objective demonstration of a fact may appear impertinent and out of place at such meetings. The faithful have a right to look upon such people as intruders. Convinced of the truth of their doctrines, they ill brook the open discussion of them at meetings, where discussion is not wanted. They prefer the discourses of an entranced medium to the needless interference of the profane. Their meetings, nearly always consecrated to the acquiring of communications, have the serious defect of developing unconscious automatism in their medium. For me this is a conclusive reason.

Madame Agullana, at some seances where only a few experimentalists took part, gave proof of the possession of certain supernormal faculties, which I have not observed in the same degree of intensity at the usual sittings of her group. This medium is also entirely reliable, and of praiseworthy disinterestedness. She never receives any remuneration—an important consideration—for, mediums who take fees are more open to suspicion.

My most convincing results have been obtained with persons unacquainted with spiritism and ignorant of its practices. Once I discovered a medium most unexpectedly. He sat down with me at a table, invited to experiment for the first time in his life. He had scarcely seated himself when violent knockings resounded on the floor; this person, honourable, well-educated and intelligent, is one of the most remarkable sensitives I have met with. But as he fears ridicule, has no desire to be scoffed at in newspapers, and, moreover, dreads publicity of any kind, he does not wish his name to be mentioned. These are the results of the malevolent criticisms heaped upon experiments of this nature.

I am sure the number of mediums is much more considerable than we think; in a circle of from eight to ten people chosen under the condition I have mentioned, it is seldom we do not find a medium.

Of whatever sex, to whatever social status he may belong, the medium is a sensitive. This must never be forgotten; and we must never lose sight of the fact, that the phenomena will be clearer and better in proportion as the medium’s confidence and sympathy are won.

This statement will not surprise those who are familiar with hypnotic experimentation, for they know how easy it is to induce sleep in a person who lets himself go, and, on the contrary, how difficult it is in one who resists or who mistrusts the operator. I am persuaded that the impersonal strata of the consciousness play a rôle in psychical phenomena similar to what they play in the phenomena of hypnotism.

Therefore, I insist on the necessity for due regard being paid to the medium. I have had much practice, and in all mediums I have met with extreme sensitiveness. Those who have come under the refining influences of education, instruction, or rank, are the most sensitive—‘touchy’; but this sensitiveness ought not to be interpreted as a sign of degeneracy. Certain contemporary savants consider every deviation from the normal state as a blemish! Such a way of thinking implies a veritable a priori judgment, a begging of the question, which is detrimental to the true development of scientific thought. The normal man is only a mean term; there are individuals who are inferior to the mean, there are others who are superior to it. Nature knows not equality. She offers us, everywhere, inequalities, discrepancies, diversities. It is the illusory unity of our own personality, which leads us to unify and to codify natural phenomena and even humanity itself. It is one of the conditions of the organisation of our Sciences, that they become intelligible only on condition of adapting themselves to our particular form of understanding. Nothing authorises our supposing that this form of understanding has any metaphysical reality; it may only be a subjective condition of our perception.

It is by an analogous mental process, that we give reality to the intellectual or physical type of the average man. Degeneracy, which is often a sliding backwards, a relapse into inferior types, is a negative deviation from the average man: genius is a positive variation. In the same way, the nervous system of the imaginary average man is but an abstraction; in reality, the sensibility of the nervous system of the different human individualities varies immensely. A negative variation will give beings who are less sensitive, less delicate than those of the average type; a variation in the positive sense will give individuals of a more sensitive and more delicate type. To consider either as abnormal is only grammatically true: the former are infra-normal, the latter are supra-normal. The first have not reached the average level, the second have passed it.

Therefore, it is not astonishing that a more refined sensitivity of the nervous system should have a correspondingly greater emotivity: ‘touchiness’ in itself is a function of emotivity. This seems to me to explain a fact which appears certain—that the feelings of mediums are very easily hurt. A discontented, irritated medium is a bad instrument—as I have had occasion to prove with Eusapia and many other mediums.

I have always noticed that discontent and moral discomfort, as well as fatigue and physical discomfort in the medium brought about failure.

The advice I give is important to follow. Win the confidence and sympathy of the medium by your own sympathy, your own deference, your own loyalty. If you detect fraud, which seems voluntary to you, do not hesitate—after the sitting and at the first favourable opportunity—to tell him frankly your doubts and your impression. If you perceive an involuntary fraud, put the medium on guard against himself, always act toward him with sincerity, but at the same time with kindness and courtesy.

As already pointed out, fatigue and physical discomfort produce the same effects as moral discomfort. It is unwise therefore to experiment with a sick medium. The results would be bad from an experimental standpoint, and the medium’s health would suffer. Carefully avoid experimenting too frequently with the medium. Even three sittings a week are really more than is desirable. We may experiment three times a week when operating with a medium in good form, and when the experiments are not likely to last for more than two or three weeks. It would be bad to experiment so often or for a longer period with a young sensitive. Two sittings a week seem the safest number to me; while only one ought to be made if the medium follows a trying profession.

I have seen mediums become ill through experimenting too often. The abuse of experimentation rapidly brings on nervous breakdown, and may cause serious disorders, of which neurasthenia is the most frequent and the least serious. Therefore I have made it an invariable rule to experiment with non-professional mediums, only on condition that they bind themselves to experiment with no other than my own circle as long as our series of experiments lasts. I am as persuaded of the absolute innocuousness of experiments prudently conducted, as I am positive of the dangers of experimentation when frequent, prolonged, or conducted by incompetent persons. I have no fear of assuming the responsibility of the first, but for no consideration whatever would I endorse, even indirectly, the second, and I cannot too strongly recommend the same prudence to other experimenters.

A last recommendation remains to be made; experimentation with persons of doubtful morality must be avoided. I have no need to enlarge upon the many inconveniences to which such an imprudent collaboration may expose experimenters.

To sum up the indications I have just given in perhaps too complete a fashion, I will briefly recall to mind the conditions which have seemed the best to me: sufficient light first of all—the personification must not acquire the habit of operating in darkness, for the brighter the light, the more convincing the experiment; a small room; a light table with four legs, put together with wooden pegs rather than with nails; a cabinet of soft thin curtains; the experimenters not to exceed as a rule eight in number; the experimenters to agree to experiment seriously, without turning into ridicule the practices to which they submit themselves. It is a good plan to allow only one of their circle to direct the seance, to converse with the personification, to control the proceedings. They must try and keep up a spirit of good understanding, and refrain from reciprocally accusing each other of pushing the table—novices do this regularly. Discussion should be relegated to the end, and should never be provoked during the sitting. Finally, they should pay great attention to the susceptibility of the medium—whoever he may be.

The greatest patience will be required; the circle should be modified with prudence, and only after a certain number of sterile experiments.