In previous posts in the intermittently appearing "Spookiest Years" series on this blog (here, here, here and here), I had looked at some very spooky events reported between 1848 and 1852. Let me pick up the thread and report some spooky events reported in 1853.
In 1853 we saw the publication of "A discussion of the facts and philosophy of ancient and modern spiritualism" by S. B. Brittan and B. W. Richmond. Samuel Byron Brittan MD was much later the writer of a work I called a classic of parapsychology, the work Man and His Relations, which I review here. The book is a back-and-forth dialog between Richmond and Brittan, with Richmond often making skeptical speculations trying to minimize spiritual manifestations like the ones mentioned in the quote below, speculations that Brittan tries to rebut. The book shows a very healthy tendency of thinkers such as Brittan to study and respond at great length to objections by skeptics.
On page 14 of the book we have some remarkable testimony by nine named witnesses, four of them medical doctors. In the middle of their testimony, quoted by Brittan, they state the following:
"Persons at the circle have been unexpectedly turned round with the chairs in which they were sitting, and moved to and -from the table ; chairs and sofas have suddenly started, from their positions against the wall, and moved forward to the center of the room, when they were required in the formation of the circle ; the persons in the circle have each successively lifted his own side of the table, and the invisible power has raised the opposite side correspondingly ; occasionally the spirits have raised the table entirely, and sustained in air, at a distance of from one to three feet from the floor, so that all could satisfy themselves that no person in the flesh was touching it ; lights of various colors have been produced in dark rooms ; the table has often been rocked with great violence, and suddenly — and unexpectedly to the whole company — it has been instantly arrested and held firm and immovable, with the upper surface inclined to an angle of some forty-five degrees, when the lamp, pencils and other objects on the table, would slide or roll to the very edge, and there remain fixed as if riveted to the table ; a man has been suspended in, and conveyed through, the air, in all a distance of fifty feet or more. The communications have been given in various ways, but chiefly in writings and by the rappings, after the ordinary alphabetical mode."
Page 16 of the book lists the following people as asserting the claim above: R. T. Hallock, M. D. , A. G. Hull, M. D., John F. Gray, M.D., L. T. Warner, M.D., W. J. Baner, Samuel T. Fowler, Almira L. Fowler, and Mr. and Mrs. Charles Partridge.
In the book here (pages 101 to 102) we have an account claiming a miraculous healing. We are told that a medium identified only as Mrs. French was strangely compelled to go to a place where a blind boy was found, and strangely found her self unable to leave. We are told that after some vaguely described manipulations there soon occurred a healing of the boy's blindness.
An 1853 book quotes an account submitted to a Philadelphia newspaper:
"Visiting at the house of a friend when a medium was present, I heard, for the second time, the 'rappings ;' but, such is the uncertainty in locating sound, and the many ways of producing it, that these were, to me, not convincing proofs of either spiritual or electrical agency. I was induced to form one of a circle; and the table we surrounded soon began to oscillate rapidly. My right arm was seized with a convulsive tremor, and though then in a ‘positive condition,' it refused obedience to my will. I looked upon it with the same surprise that I would have regarded the arm of another, subject to the same wild and wondrous spell. A pencil and paper were lying on the table. The pencil came into my hand; my fingers were clenched on it! An unseen iron-grasp compressed the tendons of my arm—my hand was flung violently forward on the paper, and I wrote meaning sentences, without any intention, or knowing what they were to be. Such messages were thus addressed to me, and through others in the circle, so unexpected, and bearing strong interior evidence in structure of thought and language of having come from the loved and gone from whom they purported to come, that I yielded to the gush of bewildering emotion, as I would have done had I found myself suddenly in the society of all most dear to me."
In the April 2, 1853 edition of The Spiritual Telegraph, we have an account claiming spiritual manifestations at the house of Mrs. Brown at #78 West 26th Street, occurring a week previously. The listed witnesses were J. F. Gray, George Willets, E. F. Capron, Mrs. Brown and the medium Catherine Fox (the same as Kate Fox, one of the famed Fox sisters). We read of mysterious events in a well-lit room. We are told that first the handle of a bell mysterious disappeared, and was just as mysteriously restored. We are told that a pocket knife, a set of keys and a quarter coin were placed under a table, and that all disappeared. We are told that a search could not produce them, but that the keys and knife suddenly reappeared as if thrown.
The same edition gives this account of clairvoyance from the Cleveland Plain Dealer:
"A Mr. Jackson, of Ohio City, came into our office yesterday with his little daughter, a fine, rosy girl about seven years of age. It surprised us to learn that so young a person should be a clairvoyant. Mr. Jackson states that she has possessed such powers of vision for about seven weeks—that she received intimations one evening from the Spirit-world that she would be magnetized [hypnotized] and receive the the gift next day. Such accordingly was the case. She also became a medium, produced the rappings, and has frequent intercourse with the spirits of the departed inhabiting other spheres. In the experiments performed in our office, the most doubting skeptic admitted that there was no collusion, and that her mortal vision was completely obstructed. A kid glove, filled with cotton, was placed upon each eye, a bandage applied over them , and securely tied around her head, A Spanish quarter of a dollar was then thrown upon the table and she was requested to tell the date. She took it up, and instantly rend—'1700.' A bank bill was next presented, and she read it off promptly, ' That's one dollar. State Bank of Ohio.' On one bill a steam boat and sail vessel were engraved in the vignette so minutely as to be just discernible by the naked eye. She described them exactly. In fact, anything that was placed before her was read or described just as correctly as if she were examining it with the natural eye. She has the power of putting herself into the clairvoyant state, as also of throwing it off."
Similar powers were previously demonstrated innumerable times in public exhibitions by the clairvoyant Alexis Didier.
In the July 2, 1853 Spiritual Telegraph we have evidence of the utter obstinance of mainstream scientific authorities in encountering paranormal phenomena. We read a long newspaper account of a public investigation of the phenomenon called table tipping or table turning, conducted before a large audience at a public hall in Liverpool, England, one called the Atheneum. On a stage before many public spectators, various tests were done. Some of them clearly produced inexplicable phenomena. We read this:
"The experiments commenced at eight o’clock. The first table which moved was a round one, about three feet in diameter, standing upon three legs, without castors, and having a leather top. At this table four ladies took their places, and in five minutes it began to turn rapidly, the ladies running round with it. After several stoppages, for which the experimenters could not account, the table moved round so rapidly that several of the ladies appeared to be getting giddy, until two of them became so much alarmed that they discontinued the experiment. These ladies had simply placed their hands upon the table, without touching those of each other....After each successful experiment, a member
of the committee, or the chairman, inquired of each of the operators
whether he or she had abstained from muscular action upon the table, and
in every instance a decided assurance was given in the affirmative.”
We hear mention of a Dr. Braid giving a nonsensical claim that such effects were produced by unconscious muscle action. A table of the described size with no castors (no wheels) could not be spun rapidly by four people merely touching it, no matter how much they pressed it. In the same edition we read this:
"The great table-moving question, which has excited such an
extraordinary degree of interest in this city [Paris] as to be the universal topic of
conversation for a period much longer than the nine days’ life generally
enjoyed by a wonder, has at length forced itself on the attention of the
Academy of Sciences. Among the vast mass of letters and reports detailing experiments, which have been sent to the Academy, the presiding
authorities selected one by M. Scguin, a distinguished savant, to be read
at its last public sitting. The statements made in this document were of
the most extraordinary kind, one of them being, that a table when acted
on was made to move to the notes of a piano."
"It seems to me that I have said enough about table turning in France, and
that l am becoming repetitious, if not tedious. I must say, however, that
such is the fever, that there is hardly a house in Paris that the phenomenon has not invaded. Experiments are daily made at the Observatory, at
the Hotel Dion, at the Institute, at the Eeole Poly technique...The American savans [experts] have kept aloof, and, in the space of two years— three years, perhaps—no
explanation has been offered of a fact which has stared then in the face
the whole time...All the professors, the instructors, those who study far those who have not
the time to study for themselves, have kept clear of a matter which they
did not discover, and which they consequently can not recognise. ...The Feuilleton of Jules Jan in this morning, treats of nothing but table
turning ; and that of Auguste Lireux, in the Constitutionnel, contains an
account of a series of extremely successful experiments, in which he, Emile
Angier, Baroche, Ferrien, of the Academy of Sciences, and others, all
skeptics when they began, wore convicted believers when they finished."
In the August 6, 1853 Spiritual Telegraph we have a comment on the attempt of Michael Faraday to explain the table turning phenomena as mere unconscious action by the muscles: "As for the Professor’s conclusion which resolves the wonders of table-moving
to mere muscular and quasi voluntary action, we are willing
to leave it in the hands of the thousands who have repeatedly
seen heavy tables, and other articles of furniture, move with
great freedom and power when no living being or other visible
agency was in contact with them, and who have witnessed
many other phenomena to which his tests fail to apply." In the same edition a J. C. Hall gives this testimony:
"I refer to instances of table moving, in my
presence, without any hands touching them. Chairs have been upset in
the room, and made to revolve faster than the persons present could possibly move. I have seen with my own eyes a common wooden table, while
standing on the floor, made to tremble and quiver every fiber of the wood,
as if it was live flesh—effects which all the men in the world could not
produce, and the aid of all the sciences could not effect. I have also seen
the same table move in different directions around the room with no one
near it, and on stepping back, as if to leave the room, the table followed
with no one near it, until it struck the door-casing, and, turning upside
down, and from that lip edgewise, seemed not to be contented till it had
chased me completely out of the room, coming quite through the door into
an adjoining hall."
The legend that Michael Faraday explained the phenomenon of table turning is one of the most groundless legends of the many groundless legends told by science professors. It is an example of what goes on very often when skeptics try to explain things: what we may call "weakest examples" explanation. It works like this: you claim that you can explain some baffling phenomenon beyond your explanation, by the method of ignoring all of the stronger examples of the phenomenon, and offering something that might explain only the weakest examples. So, for example, a skeptic might try to explain UFO sightings by saying they are caused by misidentifications of the planet Venus. Such an explanation only handles the weakest examples of UFO sightings, not the strongest examples in which people reported seeing something very large in the sky or something moving incredibly fast.
Faraday's explanation was a similar example of "weakest examples" explanation. His "ideomotor effect" explanation of unconscious muscle action could only explain the weakest examples of the table turning phenomenon, cases in which lots of people put their hands on a table, and the table slightly moved. His explanation completely failed to explain all of the stronger examples of the phenomenon, which included:
(1) Very many reports of tables levitating in the air when no person touched the table.
(2) Very many reports of tables standing on two legs, with the other end rising high in the air, or a table standing up on only single leg.
(3) Very many reports of tables violently moving about suddenly, often when no one was touching the table.
(4) Very many reports of tables spinning around rapidly, with or without someone touching the table.
Whenever any mainstream source attempts to repeat the groundless legend that Michael Faraday explained table turning, the source will inevitably describe table turning by only citing the weakest examples of its occurrence, never the stronger examples, even though thousands of witnesses (many very reliable professionals) in many different countries reported the stronger varieties of the phenomena. As an 1855 book states, "Next comes the theory of Professor Faraday of world-renowned fame, that the moving of the table is by the unconscious force of the medium, when there are thousands of witnesses to the fact of the movement of tables, where neither a medium nor any other person was near them !"
This phenomenon of table turning was also scientifically investigated at length by Count Agenor de Gasparin, who published in 1857 a two-volume scientific book describing countless paranormal effects (such as table levitation and mysterious rappings) observed under controlled conditions. Gasparin's research is well-summarized in
Chapter VI of the book
Mysterious Psychic Forces by the astronomer Camille Flammarion. For example, Gasparin described this happening on September 20, 1853:
“Some one proposed the experiment which consists in causing a table to rotate and give raps while it has on it a man weighing say a hundred and ninety pounds. We accordingly placed such a man on the table, and the twelve experimenters, in chain, applied their fingers to it. The success was complete: the table turned, and rapped several strokes. Then it rose up entirely off the floor in such a way as to upset the person who was upon it.”
Such a result is inexplicable through any result of subconscious muscle movement. Gasparin reported the following occurring on October 7, 1853:
“Let us turn again to the finest of all demonstrations, that of levitation without contact. We began by performing it three times. Then, since it was thought by some that the inspection of the witnesses could be carried on in a surer way in the case of a small table than in that of a large one, and with five operators more certainly than with ten, we had a plain deal centre-table brought which the chain, reduced by half, sufficed to put in rotation. Then the hands were lifted, and, contact with the table being entirely broken, it rose seven times into the air at our command.”
The original text of this report (in French) is contained
here. I used Google Translate to verify that the translation above is accurate.
Here is what Gasparin reported occurring on November 9, 1853:
"Our first care was to renew the experiment of the levitation of an inert weight. It was agreed among us this time that we would always start from the state of absolute immobility in the object: we wanted to produce movement, not to continue it.
The centre of the table, then, having been fixed with nice precision, a first tub of sand, weighing 46 pounds, was placed upon it. The legs easily rose from the floor when they got the order.
[Pg 241]A second tub, weighing 42 pounds, was next placed in the middle of the other. They were both lifted—less easily, but very neatly and clearly.
Then a third tub, smaller, and weighing 28⅗ pounds, was placed on top of the two others. The levitations took place.
We had still further got ready enormous stones weighing altogether 48½ pounds. They were placed on the third tub. After rather long hesitation, the table lifted several times in succession each of its three legs. It lifted them with a force, a decision, an élan, which surprised us. But its strength, already put to so many proofs, could not resist this last one. Bending under the powerful swaying motion imparted by the total mass of 165 pounds, it suddenly broke down, and its massive centre-post was split from top to bottom—to the great peril of the operators on the side of whom the entire load rolled off."
The original text of this report (in French) is contained here. I used Google Translate to verify that the translation above is accurate.
Since the reports above were of levitations of a table without contact by humans, they obviously cannot be explained through Faraday's “ideomotor effect” of subconscious muscle movement. Shockingly, the phenomenon of table turning had stood up well to rigorous scientific experiments, with the investigators finding it to be a mysterious paranormal reality rather than something they could debunk.
In his 1859 book Mystic Hours, or Spiritual Experiences, George A. Redman describes having some astounding experiences at a time that seemed to be 1853 (since he says they occurred at about the time of Faraday's hypothesis appeared, which was in 1853). He reports this example of the table phenomenon (using the term pirouetting to refer to spinning around in a circle):
"Simultaneously with the sound of his skillfully wielded bow, the table commenced pirouetting like some votary of Terpsichore. It would balance itself, first on one of its legs, then on one of its leaves, then wheel round again, till it ultimately reached the parlor door, against which it then began thumping as if to say, 'Let me out.' "
This is a reference to a table standing up on only one of its legs. Redman elsewhere says that around the same time he saw "the table slowly tipped to an angle of 45 degrees." On another page he says a table mysteriously rose so that the "table was next lifted to a level with our heads." On another page he says, "Soon after taking my seat in our friend's comfortable parlor, the old table, as if conscious of our needs, came sliding into the room, no one touching it, and all present, nothing loath, assembled round it." On another page we read this: "Mrs. Green being lifted by the spirits from the floor, and placed on the bed-piece of the table, it started down stairs, not stopping till it regained the lower hall, when Mrs. G-. stepped off, to the no small amusement of those who had thus had an opportunity of testing the reliability of Professor Faraday's expositions." On another page Redman reports a table levitating into the air and then mysteriously shattering into pieces. On another page Redman says, ""The table rose and came down on the floor with a tremendous thump; it danced to and fro without human contact, at each of its movements making the very house shake."
Redman also reports being mysteriously levitated with two other people:
"I was raised in a half stupified state from the chair, conveyed to the ceiling of the room, which was some ten feet from the floor, and I floated alone in the air for a few moments. I was then joined by Mrs. Shepherd, and soon after by her daughter. Here were three of us, all suspended in the atmosphere, in no contact with any material object, but upheld by an unseen power, and wafted by it over the heads of some dozen individuals all wide awake, and in the perfect possession of their reasoning faculties."
"Thus, I have known a pine table with four legs lifted bodily up from the floor, in the center of a circle of six or eight persons, turned upside down and laid upon its top at our feet, then lifted up over our heads, and put leaning against the back of the sofa on which we sat. I have known that same table to be tilted up on two legs, its top at an angle with the floor of forty-five degrees, when it neither fell over of itself, nor could any person present put it back on its four legs. I have seen a mahogany table, having only a center leg, and with a lamp burning upon it, lifted from the floor at least a foot, in spite of the efforts of those present, and shaken backward and forward as one would shake a goblet in his hand, and the lamp retain its place, though its glass pendants rang again. 1 have seen the same table tipped up with the lamp upon it, so far that the lamp must have fallen off unless retained there by something else than its own gravity, yet it fell not, moved not."
On another page of his 1853 work, Edmonds quotes a letter from N. P. Tallamadge who discussed seeing something else involving a table, something that could never be explained by any theory of unconscious "ideomotor force" as advanced by Faraday:
"The table moved occasionally, perhaps a foot, first one way and then the other. After the communication closed, we all moved back from the table, from two to four feet — so that no one touched it. Suddenly it moved from the position it occupied some three or four feet — rested a few moments — and then moved back again to its original position. Then it again moved as far the other way, and returned to the place it started from. One side of it was then raised, and stood for a few moments at an angle of about thirty-five degrees, and then again rested on the floor as usual.
The table was a large, heavy, round one, at which ten or a dozen persons might be seated at dinner. During all these movements no person touched it, nor was any one near it. After seeing it raised in the manner above mentioned, I had the curiosity to test its weight by raising it myself. I accordingly took my seat by it — placed my hands under the leaf, and exerted as much force as I was capable of in that sitting posture, and could not raise it a particle from the floor. I then stood up, in the best possible position to exert the greatest force — took hold of the leaf, and still could not raise it with all the strength I could apply. I then requested the three ladies to take hold around the table, and try altogether to lift it. We lifted upon it until the leaf and top began to crack, and did not raise it a particle. We then desisted, fearing we should break it. I then said, 'Will the spirits permit me to raise the table?' I took hold alone, and raised it without difficulty !"
On the same page and the next page of his 1853 work, Tallamadge describes sitting on a table while the entire table (with him sitting on it) levitated six inches above the floor.
The 1853 book "Sights and sounds: the mystery of the day: comprising an entire history of the American 'spirit' manifestations" by lawyer Henry Spicer is a long and balanced look at the reports of inexplicable phenomena between 1848 and 1853. Constantly addressing an imagined skeptical reader, the book "bends over backwards" to consider every possible natural explanation for the reported phenomena, finding none of them satisfactory. The author sounds like someone who would have been much happier dismissing all the reports as fraud, but who finds himself unable to do that. Near the end of the book (page 461-462) he states that the extraordinary character of the manifestations have been proven, that all attempts to explain them have failed, and that what remains is an important mystery that is unsolved.
Most professors fail to seriously study the paranormal
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