Professor Morselli.

A Bewildering Series of Phenomena.

Now let us see what the Scientists have been doing in Italy. In no country in the world is such interest being manifested at the present time in these bewildering phenomena as in Italy, where all the leading Scientific giants, including the great Lombroso himself, have been for some years, and are still, holding seances at the Universities of Naples, Turin, Genoa, and Milan.

The medium is an ignorant, ill-bred peasant woman, named Eusapia Paladino, and the investigating Scientists have been allowed to conduct the proceedings on their own conditions and to impose such a rich variety of unique tests as to almost trespass on the verge of the ridiculous. I cannot recount the elaborate precautions they took, notwithstanding the fact that the experiments were made in their own laboratories and that this wonderfully mediumistic woman was the only stranger amongst them. I will therefore ask the reader to take it for granted that they have not left the slightest loophole for fraud or delusion. As exacting page 38 Scientists, accustomed to scrutinising things with the greatest care, and trained to weigh and consider the minutest circumstance, it is hardly likely that they would do so.

The source of my information is the official Reports written by one or other of these Scientific investigators themselves, signed with their own names and published from time to time in The Annals of Psychical Science last year. Their details would cover pages of a newspaper, and therefore what I am about to reproduce is a very brief resume.

I will first deal with the Report of Professor Morselli, Director of the Department of Psychiatry in the University of Genoa, who, up to the time of writing, says that in about 30 sittings he has seen Paladino perform several hundred phenomena. I lead off with him because, although he admits that the phenomena are real and genuine, and says that in these days only ignorant people talk about fraud and delusion, he nevertheless declares that he has no room at present in his mental fabric for any hypothesis pertaining to the "Spiritual," and cannot see anything beyond the realm of the physical Sciences. He, in fact, acknowledges that he simply does not know what is the cause. It is a mystery to him and yet this is what he says :—

"In full light we saw the table raised to the height of our heads while we were standing up in the middle of the room. I have also seen the table turn upside down by full gas light. Seats are seen to move at such a distance from the medium as to render absurd the hypothesis of deception. Several times I was pulled violently on my chair back towards the cabinet to receive special manifestations of a personal character.

"Sometimes we felt our chairs pulled from beneath us. Musical instruments (the mandoline, zither, pianoforte, trumpets, etc.) are spontaneously set in action at a distance from the medium—this occurred at almost every sitting. I have witnessed the mysterious opening and closing of the electric circuit of the lights by means of unperceived manipulation of the pear-shaped switches contained in the pockets of one of the sitters. It sometimes happens that the medium is lifted bodily, together with her chair, and to her great alarm, deposited on the table. I have only once seen this miracle contrary to the law of gravitation.

"A veritable current of air sometimes rushes through the room and it is sometimes intensely cold. Raps are heard—some have the intensity of blows delivered by a powerful but invisible fist. In various cases the clapping of hands is heard." "A favourite phenomenon with students of psychical matters," continues page 39 Morselli, "is impressions in plastic substances—impressions of fingers, palms, hands, feet, and also of faces. We obtained many such impressions."

Then he goes on—"Apports of various kinds are brought by invisible agency. These figure as phenomena of the foremost rank, and are of the greatest significance for the Spiritual doctrine of the disintegration and re-constitution of matter, for it consists in the unexpected appearance on the table or in the room of objects (such as flowers, branches, leaves, coins, stones, etc.) coming from a distance and penetrating through doors and walls"

I wish the reader to bear this declaration of Professor Morselli in mind—that the production of these particular phenomena figure in the foremost rank and are of the greatest significance—because I propose presently to relate some of my own personal experiences as a witness of what I believe to have been the passage of matter through matter.

This distinguished narrator proceeds to say that touching, feeling and grasping by invisible hands form a very common phenomenon, and "they are really human hands"—this is his exact phraseology—"which touch, press, grasp, pull, push, pat lightly, strike, pull the sitters' beards or hair, take off their spectacles, &c. Some of those to whom such contacts were new have been caused to shudder and really the first time they cause quite an impression. We felt the skin, the warmth, the movable fingers, etc.; materialised forms, tangible but invisible, advance towards the sitters and embrace them, draw them nearer or push them away, caress and kiss them with all the movements of living and real persons, and some have had their pockets searched"

"It is all real and authentic" exclaims this highly intellectual sceptic, "though incomprehensible." At the same time he candidly admits that the Spiritualistic hypothesis covers the whole of the phenomena—if one is prepared to accept it.

He goes on—"Spirit lights are frequently seen: sometimes they are veritable tongues of fire like those figured on the heads of the Apostles. They are very evident; sometimes multiple and running together into one."

"Visible hands appear with elongated fingers and I have seen complete materialisations a few times, but this is not the place for me to relate the particulars of my extraordinary spiritistic adventure—the apparent materialisation of a discarnate being who was very dear to me" This reference is, presumably, to Professor Morselli's mother, for in the Annals of Psychical Science for September this year Professor Lombroso, at the outset of an article he contributes, page 40 says—"During the first few days after the apparition of his own mother, Morselli admitted to me that he had seen her and had quite a conversation in gestures with her." Morselli, however, has since declared that he cannot feel for certain that it was really his mother, and there the matter ends for the present.

Professor Morselli concludes—"In reality the sitting is sometimes very complicated and different manifestations occur simultaneously.