Michael Cremo - Human Devolution - A Vedic Alternative To Darwin's Theory

Later, the chair within the cabinet moved out and took up a position near Mrs. Blech. It then rose up and rested on top of Mrs. Blech’s head. The large tray of putty resting on the chair, weighing nine pounds, floated across the table into the hands of Mr. Blech. Eusapia exclaimed, “It is done.” Blech felt no pressure on the tray of putty in his hands. When they looked at the tray, the sitters saw the imprint of the profile of a human face in the putty. Mrs. Blech moved forward and kissed Eusapia on her cheeks, and detected no odor from the putty, which had a strong scent of linseed oil. The imprint of the face resembled Eusapia’s (Flammarion 1909, pp. 74–75).

Flammarion took the tray of clay, walked into the nearby dining room, and placed the tray on a table there, so they could examine the facial imprint more carefully. Eusapia came with the party. Flammarion observed her carefully. During the entire time, she stood motionless with both hands on the table. Eusapia then moved back into the other room. Flammarion (1909, p. 77) said, “We followed her, observing her all the while, and leaving the clay behind upon the table. We had already got into the chamber when, leaning against one of the halves of the double door, she fixed her eyes upon the tray of clay which had been left upon the table. The medium was in a very good light: we were separated from her by a distance of from six to ten feet, and we perceived distinctly all the details. All of a sudden Eusapia stretched her hand out abruptly toward the clay, then sank down uttering a groan. We rushed precipitately towards the table and saw, side by side with the imprint of the head, a new imprint, very marked, of a hand which had been thus produced under the very light of the lamp, and which resembled the hand of Eusapia.”

On November 16, 1897, Flammarion conducted a sitting with Eusapia at his home in Paris. Arthur Levy came with an attitude of distrust and skepticism. Eusapia and the researchers sat at a table close to a curtain hung across a corner of the room. Levy and another sitter, George Mathieu, controlled the hands and feet of Eusapia. During the sitting, a hand appeared and disappeared above Eusapia’s head (Flammarion 1909, p. 89). At another séance with Eusapia in Flammarion’s home, a Mr. and Mrs. Pallotti were present. The room was lit dimly by a night lamp set some distance from the table. Two of the sitters, Mr. Brisson and Mr. Pallotti, were controlling the medium. Mrs. Flammarion and Mrs. Brisson were sitting away from the table, some yards away, facing Eusapia. Mr. and Mrs. Pallotti expressed a desire to see their daughter. Flammarion (1909, p. 128) said, “There was a great movement of the curtain. Several times I see the head of a young girl bowing to me, with higharched forehead and with long hair. She bows three times, and shows her dark profile against the window.” The Pallottis talked to the figure, and felt the face and hair of the apparition. “My impression was that there was really there a fluidic being,” said Flammarion (1909, p. 128). But he believed the Palottis were simply imagining the materialized figure to be their departed daughter.

Other careful researchers also observed fluidic limbs materialize from Eusapia Palladino. During a sitting with Eusapia, Mrs. Frederick Myers, reported armlike protrusions extending from Eusapia’s body (Gauld 1968, p. 236–237). On another occasion, a Mrs. Stanley saw a similar armlike protrusion. Just after this incident, Mrs. Meyers, who was also present, assisted other witnesses in undressing and searching Eusapia. They found nothing suspicious (Gauld 1968, p. 237). Fluidic limbs, of the kind noticed by Mrs. Myers and Mrs. Stanley, were seen at other séances with Eusapia. Nobel laureate Charles Richet reported (1923, p. 419): “Venzano saw a fluidic hand take shape and emerge from the right shoulder of the medium to get a glass full of water and carry it to the medium’s mouth. Professors Morselli and Porro were present at these experiments.” Giuseppe Venzano was a physician, Enrico Morselli a psychiatrist, and Francesco Porro an astronomer. When a special commission of researchers investigated Eusapia in Naples, they reported fluidic limbs. The commission reported: “Mr. Feilding, while holding and seeing Eusapia’s two hands, was touched behind the curtain by a living hand, three fingers below and the thumb above, and grasped so that he felt the fingernails in his flesh. These hands occasionally became visible. Mr. Baggally, while seeing and holding the hands of the medium, was touched on the back of his own hand by a hand stroking it and proceeding up his arm” (Richet 1923, p. 420). Carrington (1931, p. 175) cited a report by Professor Felippe Botazzi, from a sitting with Eusapia at the University of Naples: “Botazzi felt a hand grasp the back of his neck. He moved his own left hand to the place of contact and reported: “I found the hand which was touching me: a left hand, neither cold nor hot, with rough, bony fingers which dissolved under pressure; they did not retire by producing a sensation of withdrawal, but they dissolved, dematerialized, melted. ” He then felt a hand placing itself on his head and quickly moved his own hand to touch it, reporting, “I felt it, I grasped it; it was obliterated and again disappeared in my grasp.” Later, the hand rested on his forearm. Botazzi grasped it with his left hand, reporting, “I could see and feel at the same time; I saw a human hand, of natural colour, and I felt with mine the fingers and the back of a lukewarm nervous, rough hand. The hand dissolved, and (I saw it with my eyes) retreated as if into mme Palladino’s body, describing a curve” (Carrington 1931, pp. 174–175).

Hans Driesch (1867–1941) was a German philosopher and scientist. He was one of the last important biologists to support the doctrine of vitalism (Berger 1991, pp. 113–114), which holds that the laws of material science alone are not sufficient to explain life. He was also actively involved in psychical research, and served as president of the Society for Psychical Research. He found a close connection between psychical phenomena and his vitalistic approach to biology. According to Driesch, some guiding nonmaterial agent was involved in the development of biological form. He used the Aristotelian word entelechy to name this vital principle.

Driesch’s interest in vitalism began with some experiments with sea urchins. He found that when he separated individual cells from the early embryonic stage of a sea urchin, they would each grow into an adult sea urchin. He attributed this to a vital principle that guided and ordered the development of ordinary matter. The materializations of ectoplasmic limbs and bodies produced by Eusapia Palladino and other mediums, were, according to Driesch, another variety of this same principle. He considered his vitalistic biology to be “a bridge leading into physical parapsychological phenomena” (Berger 1991, p. 114).

He explained the connection between vitalist biology and psychical materializations as follows: “Think of the little material body, called an egg, and think of the enormous and very complex material body, say, an elephant, that may come out of it: here you have a permanent stream of materializations before your eyes . . . a spreading of entelechial control” (Berger 1991, p. 114).

Bilocation events

Another form of paranormal production of biological form occurs in the phenomenon of bilocation, in which a duplicate form of a person appears in another place. Much of the documentation for this can be found in accounts of the lives of Christian saints. Rogo (1982, p. 81) states: “It shouldn’t be presumed, though, that bilocating saints are sending only some apparitional or ethereal representations of themselves to far-off places during the production of this miracle. For according to traditional mystical lore, this ‘second self’ is able to eat, drink, and carry out any physical act the body is capable of performing. In fact, according to Church doctrine, during the process of bilocation the human body is actually duplicated through the grace of God.”