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

The medium demanded less light. The kerosene lamp was turned off and a lamp of the kind used in photography dark rooms was turned on. It provided a dim red light, enough for the witnesses to see what was happening in the room. Many unusual occurrences took place, among which I consider the following to be the most significant. first of all the music box sounded behind the curtain, as if someone was turning its handle. As this was happening, the medium’s hands and feet were being carefully controlled by flammarion and another witness (de fontenay). Eusapia moved the hand held by de fontenay, and guiding the finger of de fontenay, touched the finger to flammarion’s cheek and moved it in circles, as if turning the handle of the music box. When she stopped, the music box stopped playing; when she moved the finger again, the music box again played. According to flammarion (1909, p. 72), the soundings and silences of the music box exactly matched the movements and stoppings of the finger on his cheek.

As I write this summary of what happened at the séance, I find myself desiring to leave certain things out. They seem too incredible to me, too unbelievable. But I shall resist that impulse. A small round table moved toward the table at which the party was sitting, and then it rose onto the table top. The sitters heard the guitar sounding behind the curtain and moving around. It emerged from the cabinet, floated toward the sitters, rose onto the tabletop, and then rose onto the shoulder of de fontenay. from there it rose into the air above the sitters, emitting sounds. flammarion (1909, p. 73) noted: “The phenomenon lasts about fifteen seconds. It can readily be seen that the guitar is floating in the air, and the reflection of the red lamp glides over its shining surface.” flammarion (1909, p. 74) also observed another striking movement of a large object: “Later, the chair within the cabinet moves out and takes up a position near Mrs. Blech. It then rises up and rests on top of Mrs. Blech’s head.”

After the séance at the Blech’s, flammarion held eight séances with Eusapia at his own home. flammarion (1909, p. 85) said, “Before every séance Eusapia was undressed and dressed again in the presence of two ladies charged with seeing that she did not hide any tricking apparatus under her clothes.” Arthur Levy, who came with an attitude of distrust and skepticism, gave an account of the séance of november 16, 1897. Levy examined the room, paying special attention to the cabinet, formed by hanging curtains across one corner of the room. He determined that there were no mechanisms therein and no ways to enter or leave the cabinet area except through the curtains, which were always in sight during the séance. The five sitters and the medium sat at a rectangular white table in front of the curtain. Some musical instruments were placed in the cabinet.

One of the sitters placed on the table a scale for weighing letters. Eusapia put her hands four inches from each side of the instrument and caused the scale to move. Levy noted: “Eusapia herself asked us to convince ourselves, by inspection, that she did not have a hair leading from one hand to the other, and with which she could fraudulently press upon the tray of the letter-weigher. This little display took place when all the lamps of the salon were fully lighted” (flammarion 1909, p. 88).

Levy and George Mathieu controlled the hands and feet of the medium. The sitters rested their hands on the table. “In a few moments,” observed Levy, “it begins to oscillate, stands on one foot, strikes the floor, rears up, wholly into the air,—sometimes twelve inches, sometimes eight inches, from the ground . . . All this in full light” (flammarion 1909, p. 88). Eusapia asked for less light, complaining that the brightness was hurting her eyes. The lamp was moved some distance away, and was placed on the floor behind a piano. But there was still sufficient light for the sitters to see what was happening. A tambourine and violin were thrown out of the cabinet onto the table. Levy took the tambourine in his hand, and an invisible personality tried to wrest it from his grasp, cutting Levy’s hand in the process. The table shook violently. An accordion was thrown from the cabinet onto the table. Levy said, “I seize it by its lower half and ask the Invisible if he can pull it out by the other end so as to make it play. The curtain comes forward, and the bellows of the accordion is methodically moved back and forth, its keys are touched, and several different notes are heard” (flammarion 1909, p. 90). Eusapia called for the sitters to join hands with her in a chain. Eusapia then cast an inflamed look at a large sofa, which then, according to Levy, marched up to the table. Eusapia looked at the sofa “with a satanic smile” and then blew upon it, whereupon it went back to its place.

The paranormal effects continued. Levy said: “The tambourine rose almost to the height of the ceiling; the cushions took part in the sport, overturning everything on the table; M.M. [Mr. Mathieu] was thrown from his chair. This chair—a heavy dining-room chair of black walnut, with stuffed seat—rose into the air, came up on the table with a great clatter, then was pushed off. Eusapia seems shrunken together and is very much affected. We pity her. We ask her to stop. ‘no, no!’ she cries. She rises, we with her; the table leaves the floor, rises to a height of twenty-four inches, then comes clattering down” (flammarion 1909, pp. 91–92). Soon thereafter, the séance, which lasted two hours, ended. Levy stated: “We took every precaution not to be the dupes of complicity, of fraud . . . And when, on looking back, doubts begin to creep into the mind, we must conclude that, given the conditions in which we were, the chicanery necessary to produce such effects would be at least as phenomenal as the effects themselves. How shall we name this mystery?” (flammarion 1909, p. 92)

Mrs. flammarion recorded the results of the séance held on november 19. 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 some yards away from the table, facing Eusapia. The curtain behind Eusapia began to move. “And what do I see?” said Mrs. flammarion. “The little table on three feet, and leaping (apparently in high spirits) over the floor, at the height of about eight inches, while the gilded tambourine is in its turn leaping gayly at the same height above the table, and noisily tinkling its bells” (flammarion 1909, pp. 126–127). Mrs. flammarion drew the attention of Mrs. Brisson to this event. “And then,” she wrote, “the table and the tambourine begin their carpet-dance again in perfect unison, one of them falling forcibly upon the floor and the other upon the table” (flammarion 1909, p. 127). On november 21, flammarion and the other sitters saw a book move through the curtain. flammarion noted (1909, pp. 129–130): “The book went through the curtain without any opening, for the tissue of the fabric is wholly intact.” flammarion’s wife, who was looking behind the curtain saw the book enter the cabinet through the curtain, while outside the cabinet, said flammarion, the book “disappeared from the eyes of the persons who were in front, notably M. Baschet, M. Brisson, M. J. Bois, Mme. fourton and myself. . . . collective hallucination? But we were all in cool blood, entirely self-possessed.”

In his books on psychical research, flammarion included the results of the investigations of others. In 1891, the prominent Italian psychiatrist cesare Lombroso, on hearing of Eusapia’s phenomena, went to naples to experience them for himself. Six sitters participated in a séance. The room was lit by candles. Lombroso and another sitter controlled Eusapia. Levitations of the table occurred. further séances were held, giving positive results (flammarion 1909, pp. 142–146).