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We'll read from mysterious psychic forces written by Camille Flamarian and published in 1907. Nicholas Camille Flamarian was a French astron, mystic, and prolific author, including popular science works about astronomy, several notable early science fiction novels, and works on psychical research. He has been described as being obsessed by life after death, and also with life on other worlds.

Like that on Mars, and he seemed to see no distinction between the two.

Let's get cozy.

Close your eyes.

Relax your body into this softness of your bed.

Now, take a few deep breaths. One day, in the month of November, 1861, under the gallery de Lodian, I spied a book, the title of which struck me, the Book of Spirits, by Alon Kardeck. I bought it and read it with a bitter day. Several chapters seeming to me to agree with the scientific basis of the book I was then writing, the plurality of inhabited worlds. I hunted up the author, who proposed that I should enter as a free, associated member, the Parisian Society for spiritualistic Studies, which he had founded and of which he was president. I accepted, and by chance, have just found the green ticket signed by him on the 15th day of November 1861. This is the date of my debut in psychic studies. I was then 19, and for three years had been an astronomical pupil at the Paris Observatory. At this time, I was putting the last touches to the book I just mentioned, the first edition of which was published some months afterwards by the printer publisher of the observatory. The members came together every Friday evening in the assembly room of the society in a little passageway. The president opened the saiyans by an invocation to the good spirits. It was admitted as a principle that invisible spirits were present there and revealed themselves. After this invocation, a certain number of persons seated at a large table were besought to abandon themselves to their inspiration and to write. They were called writing mediums. Their dissertations were afterwards read before an attentive audience. There were no physical experiments of table turning, or tables moving, or speaking. The President, Alon Kardeck, said he attached no value to such things. It seemed to him that the instructions communicated by the spirits ought to form the basis of a new doctrine, of a sort of religion. the the same period, but several years earlier, my illustrious friend, Victorian Sardoux, who had been an occasional frequenter of the observatory, had written, as a medium, some curious pages on the inhabitants of the planet Jupiter and had produced picturesque and surprising designs, having as their aim to represent men and things as they appeared in this giant of worlds. He designed the dwellings of people in Jupiter. One of his sketches showed us the house of Mozart in one of the landscapes of this immense planet. The dwellings are ethereal and have an exquisite lightness. The first represents a residence of Zoroaster, the second, the animal's quarters belonging to the same. On the grounds are flowers, hammocks, swings, flying creatures, and below intelligent animals playing a special kind of nine pins where the fun is not to knock down the pins, put to put a cap on them as in the cup and bowl toy, etc. These curious drawings prove indubitably that the signature Bernard Palisie of Jupiter is apocryphal, and that the hand of Victorian Sardou was not directed by a spirit from that planet. Nor was it the gifted author himself who planned these sketches and executed them in accordance with a definite plan. They were made while he was in the condition of mediumship. A person is not magnetized nor hypnotized nor put to sleep in any way

while in that state. But the brain is not ignorant of what is taking place. It sells perform their functions and act, doubtless by a reflex movement upon the motor nerves.

At that time, we all thought Jupiter was inhabited by a superior race of beings. The spiritistic communications were the reflex of the general ideas in the air. Today, with our present knowledge of the planets, we should not imagine anything of the kind about that globe. And moreover, sayances have never taught us anything upon the subject of astronomy. results as were a t attained fail utterly to prove the intervention of spirits. Have the writing mediums given any more convincing proofs of it than these? This is what we shall have to examine in as impartial away as we can. I myself tried to see if I, too, could not write. By collecting and concentrating my powers and allowing my hand to be passive and unrestrained, I soon found that after it had traced certain dashes and oaves, and sinuous lines more or less interlaced, very much as a four-year-old child learning to write might do, it finally did actually write words and phrases. these meetings of the Parisian Society for spiritualistic studies, I wrote for my part, some pages on astronomical subjects signed Galileo. The communications remained in the possession of the society and in 18 1867, Al-Nkardeck published them under the general euronography in his work entitled Genesis. I have preserved one of the first copies with his dedication. These astronomical pages taught me nothing, so I was not slow in concluding that they were only the echo of what I already knew, and that Galileo had no hand in them. When I wrote the pages, I was in a kind of waking dream. sides. My hand stopped writing when I began to think of other subjects. The writing medium is not put to sleep nor is he magnetized or hypnotized in any way. One is simply received into a circle of determinant ideas, the brain acts by the meditation of the nervous system,

a little differently from what it does in its normal state.

The difference is not so great as one might suppose. The chief difference may be described as follows. In the normal state, we think of what we are going to write before the act of writing begins. There is a direct action of the will in causing the pen, the hand, and the forearm to move over the paper. In the abnormal state, on the other hand, we do not think before writing. We do not move the hand, but let it remain in earth, passive, free. We place it upon the paper, taking care merely that it shall meet with the least possible resistance. We think of a word, a figure, a stroke of the pen, and the hand of its own volition begins to write. But the writing medium must think of what he is doing, not beforehand, but continuously, otherwise the hand stops. For example, try to write the word ocean, not voluntarily the ordinary way, but by simply taking a lead pencil and letting the hand rest lightly and freely upon the paper, while you think of your word and observe carefully whether the hand will write. Very good. It does begin to move over the paper, writing first and O, then a C, and the rest. At least, that was my experience when I was studying the new problems of spiritualism and magnetism. I purpose to show in this book what truth there is in the phenomena of table turnings, table movings, and table wrappings in the communications received therefrom in levitations that contradict the laws of gravity in the moving of objects without contact in unexplained noises in the stories told of haunted houses, all to be considered from the physical and mechanical point of view. Under all that just mentioned heads, we can group material facts produced by causes still unknown to science. And it is with these physical phenomena that we shall especially occupy ourselves here. For the first point is to definitively prove by sufficient observations their real existence. Hypothesis, theories, doctrines will come later. In the country of Voltaire, we are inclined to smile at everything that relates to the marvelous, to tales of enchantment, the extravagances of cultism, the mysteries of magic, this arises from a reasonable prudence, but it does not go far enough to deny and prejudge a phenomena has never proved anything. The truth of almost every fact which constitutes the sum of the positive sciences of our day has been denied. What we ought to do is to admit no unverified statement. To apply to every subject of study no matter what the experimental method without any preconceived idea, whatever either for or against. We are dealing here with a great problem which touches on that of the survival of human consciousness. We may study it in spite of smiles. When we consecrate our lives to an idea useful, noble, exalted, we should not hesitate for a moment to sacrifice personalities above all our own self, our interest, our self-esteem, our natural vanity. The sacrifice is a criterion by which I have estimated a good many characters. How many men, how many women, put their miserable little personality above everything else? If the forces of which we are to treat are real, they cannot but be natural forces. We ought to admit as an absolute principle that everything is in nature, even God himself, as I have shown in another work. Before any attempt at theory, the first thing to do is to scientifically establish the real existence of these forces. mediumistic experiences might form and doubtless soon will form, a chapter in physics. Only it is a kind of transcendental physics, which touches on life and thought, and the forces in play are pre-eminently living forces. Psychic forces. I shall relate in the following chapter the experiments I made between the years 1861 and 1865, previous to the penning of the protest reprinted in the long citation above given in the introduction. But since in certain respects they are summed up in those I have just had, in 1906 I will begin by describing the latter in this first chapter. In fact, I have recently renewed these investigations with a celebrated medium. the mazzell, Eusepia Paladino of Naples, who has been several times in Paris, namely in 1898, 1905, and very recently in 1906. things I am going to speak of happened in the salon of my home in Paris, the last ones in full light without any preparation, very simply as if during after dinner talks. Let me add that this medium came to Paris during the first months of the year 1906 at the invitation of the Psychological Institute, several members of which have been recently engaged in researches begun long ago. Among these savants I will mention the name of the lamented Pierre Curie. The eminent chemist, with whom I had a conversation a few days before his unfortunate, interimal death. My mediumistic experiences with Madame Azale Paladino formed for him a new chapter in the great book of Nature, and he also was convinced that there exists hidden forces to the investigation of which it is not unscientific to consecrate oneself. His subtle and penetrating genius would perhaps have quickly determined the character of these forces.

Those who have given some little attention to these psychological studies are acquainted with the powers of Mademoiselle Paladino. The published psychological scientific works have pointed them out and described them in such detail that it would be superfluous to recur to them at this point. Farther on we shall find a place for discussing. Running underneath all the observations, the one dominant idea can be, as if in palimpsest. Namely, the imperious necessity the experimenters are constantly under of suspecting tricks in this medium. But all mediums, men and women have to be watched. During a period of more than 40 years, I believe that I have received at my home nearly all of them. Men and women of diverse nationalities and from every quarter of the globe. One may lay it down as a principle that all professional mediums cheat, but they do not always cheat, and they possess real, undeniable psychic powers. Their case is nearly that of the hysterical folk under observation at the Salpatriere or elsewhere. I have seen some of them out with with their profound craft, not only Dr. Charcut, but especially Dr. Luz and all the physicians who were making a study of their case. But because hysterics deceive and simulate, It would be a gross error to conclude that hysteria does not exist, and because mediums frequently descend to the most brazen face in posture, it would not be less absurd to conclude that mediumship has no existence. Disreputable Psalm Nambulists do not forbid the existence of magnetism, hypnotism, and genuine Psalm Nambulism. This necessity of being constantly on our guard has discouraged more than one investigator as the illustrious astronomer, Shia Pirelli, director of the Observatory of Milan, especially wrote me in a letter which will appear farther on. words fraud and trickery, in this connection a sense a little different from their ordinary meaning. Sometimes the mediums deceive purposely, knowing well what they are doing and enjoying the fun. but often they unconsciously deceive, impaled by the desire to produce the phenomena that people are expecting. They help on the success of the experiment when that success is slow in its appearance. Mediums who deal with objective phenomena are gifted with the power of causing objects at a distance to move, of lifting tables, etc. But they usually appear to apply this power at the ends of their fingers, and the objects to be moved have to be within reach of their hands or feet. A very regrettable thing, and one which furnishes fine sport for the skeptics. Sometimes the mediums act like the billiard player who continues for an instant the gesture of hand and arm. Holding his cue pointed at the rolling ivory ball and leaning forward as if by his will he could push it. He knows very well that he has no further power over the fate of the ball, which is initial stroke alone in pells, but he guides its course by his thought and his gesture. It may not be superfluous to caution the reader that the word medium is employed in these pages without any preconceived idea. And not in the etymological sense in which it took its rise at the time of the first spiritualistic theories, which affirmed that the man or the woman endowed with psychic powers is an intermediary between spirits and those who are experimenting. The person who has the power of causing objects to move contrary to the laws of gravity, even sometimes without touching them, of causing sounds to be heard at a distance and without any exertion of muscular force, and of bringing before the eyes various apparitions, has not necessarily on that account any bond of union with this embodied minds or souls. We shall keep this This word, medium, however, now so long in use.

We are concerned. this embodied minds or souls. We shall keep this word medium, however, now so long in use.

We are concerned here only with facts. I hope to convince the reader that these things really exist and are neither illusions nor viruses. My object is to prove their reality with absolute certainty, to do for them what, in my volume the unknown and the psychic problems I have done for telepathy, the apparations of the dying, premenentory dreams, and clairvoyance. I shall begin, I repeat, with experiments which I have recently renewed, namely during four seances on March 29th, April 5th, May 30th, and June 7th of 1906. Take the case of the levitation of a round table. I have so often seen a rather heavy table lifted to a height of 8, 12, 16 inches from the floor, and I have taken such undeniably authentic photographs of these. I have so often proved to myself that the suspension of this article of furniture by the imposition upon it of the hands of four or five persons producing the effect of a floating in a tub full of water or other elastic fluid. For me, the levitation of objects is no more doubtful than that of a pair of scissors lifted by the aid of a magnet. But one evening, when I was almost alone with Paladino, March 29, 1906. There were four of us all together, being desirous of examining at leisure how the thing was done. I asked her to place her hands with mine upon the table, the other persons remaining at a distance. The table very soon rose to a height of 15 or 20 inches while we were both standing. At the moment of the production of the phenomenon, the medium placed one of her hands on one of mine, which she pressed energetically, are two other hands resting side by side. Moreover, on her part, as on mine, there was an act of will expressed in words of command addressed to the Spirit. Come now, lift the table, take courage, come, try now, etc. We ascertained at once that there were two elements or constituents present. On the one hand, the experimenters address an invisible entity. On the other hand, the medium experiences a nervous and muscular fatigue, and her weight increases in proportion to that of the object lifted, but not in exact proportion. We are obliged to act as if there really were a being present who was listening. This being appears to come into existence and then becomes non-existent as soon as the experiment is ended. It seems to be created by the medium. Is it an auto-suggestion of hers or of the dynamic ensemble of the experimenters that creates a special force? Is it a doubling of her personality? Is it the condensation of a psychic milieu in the midst of which we live? If we seek to obtain proofs of actual and permanent individuality and above all of the identity of a particular soul called up in our memory, we never obtain any satisfaction. There lies the mystery. Conclusion. We have here an unknown force of the psychic class, a living force, a life of a moment only. May it not be possible that in exerting ourselves we give rise to a detachment of forces which acts. But this is not the place in these first pages to make this hypothesis. The experiment of which I have just spoken was repeated three three times running in the full light of a gas chandelier and under the same conditions of complete proof in each case. Around table weighing about 14 pounds is lifted by this unknown force. a table of 25 or 50 pounds or more requires a greater number of persons, but they

will get no result if one at least among them is non-gifted with the mediumistic power.