Researches in the Phenomena of Spiritualism |
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accordion action animal magnetism apparatus appear cabinet cage Carpenter chair Coleman Sellers committee conclusion Cook's copper vessel Council Crookes's curtain evidence examine exerted experimental explained fact Faraday favour feet friends fulcrum give glass vessel Home Home's hands Huggins impossible imposture inches inquiry instrument intelligence investigation Journal of Science Kate Fox Katie Katie King Katie's letter light luminous mahogany board manner mechanical medium mediumship ments mis-statements Miss Cook move movements muscular nature object observations occasions occurred opportunity paper person phenomena planchette present pressure produced Professor Stokes Psychic Force published Quarterly Journal Quarterly Review reason reference Royal Society scientific séances seen Serjeant Cox's Sir Charles Wheatstone sitting speak advisedly Spiller Spiritualism spiritualist tells spring balance statement table-turning test conditions test experiments Thallium theory tion trick trickery truth unconscious weight whilst WILLIAM CROOKES witnessed writing
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Page 4 - Nothing is too wonderful to be true, if it be consistent with the laws of Nature ; and in such things as these experiment is the best test of consistency.
Page 86 - raps ' conveys a very erroneous impression of this class of phenomena. At different times, during my experiments, I have heard delicate ticks, as with the point of a pin, a cascade of sharp sounds as from an induction coil in full work, detonations in the air, sharp metallic taps, a cracking like that heard when af rictional machine is at work, sounds like scratching, the twittering as of a bird,
Page 107 - ... senseless; she did not move when I took her hand and held the light quite close to her face, but continued quietly breathing. Raising the lamp, I looked around and saw Katie standing close behind Miss Cook. She was robed in flowing white drapery as we had seen her previously during the seance. Holding one of Miss Cook's hands in mine, and still kneeling, I passed the lamp up and down so as to illuminate Katie's whole figure, and satisfy myself thoroughly that I was really looking at the veritable...
Page 105 - Katie was then standing before me clothed in her usual white robes and turban head-dress. I immediately walked into the library up to Miss Cook, Katie stepping aside to allow me to pass. I found Miss Cook had slipped partially off the sofa, and her head was hanging in a very awkward position. I lifted her on to the sofa, and in so doing had satisfactory evidence, in spite of the darkness, that Miss Cook was not attired in the " Katie " costume, but had on her ordinary black velvet dress, and was...
Page 22 - These remarks, however, were written too hastily. It was taken for granted by the writers that the results of my experiments would be in accordance with their preconceptions. "What they really desired was not the truth, but an additional witness in favor of their own foregone conclusion. When they found that the facts which that investigation established could not be made to fit those opinions, why,—' so much the worse for the facts,' — they try to creep out of their own confident recommendations...
Page 112 - And to imagine that an innocent school-girl of fifteen should be able to conceive and then successfully carry out for three years so gigantic an imposture as this, and in that time should submit to any test which might be imposed upon her, should bear the strictest scrutiny, should be willing to be searched at any time, either before or after a seance, and should meet with even better success in my own house than at that of her parents, knowing that she visited me with the express object of submitting...
Page 87 - I have had these sounds proceeding from the floor, walls, &c., when the medium's hands and feet were held — when she was standing on a chair — when she was suspended in a swing from the ceiling — when she was enclosed in a wire cage — and when she had fallen fainting on a sofa. I have heard them on a glass harmonicon — I have felt them on my own shoulder and under my own hands. I have heard them on a sheet of paper, held between the fingers by a piece of thread passed through one corner....
Page 82 - ... articles of scientific belief — amongst others, the ubiquity and invariable action of the force of gravitation — that, even now, on recalling the details of what I witnessed, there is an antagonism in my mind between reason, which...
Page 23 - Science is bound, by the everlasting law of honour, to face fearlessly every problem which can fairly be presented to it. If a probable solution, consistent with the ordinary course of nature, can be found, we must not invoke an abnormal act of Creative Power.
Page 93 - I have retained one of these hands in my own, firmly resolved not to let it escape. There was no struggle or effort made to get loose, but it gradually seemed to resolve itself into vapour, and faded in that manner from my grasp.