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{{Style P-HPB SB. Title continued|Another Eminent Convert|2-9}} | {{Style P-HPB SB. Title continued|Another Eminent Convert|2-9}} | ||
{{Style P-No indent|would have been nothing very extraordinary if every one of us had given way to this peculiar, mysterious, nervous state of mind, seeing as well as himself that “something white,” which hallucination developing and strengthening, under such an unwholesome mental disposition should compel us to see gradually assuming a human shape. The same theory, I thought, can be easily applied to those seemingly objective ''touches'' felt by some persons in the circle. I felt them myself on the knee, but this touch was so slight and so insignificant, that I did not hesitate for a moment at that time to take it for something subjective. It seemed to me then that every series of spiritual seances, as a rule, began by objective phenomena, perfectly real, manifested more or less distinctly by raps and table-moving; after which, when on the one hand the Spiritualists were pretty well tired out with a long sitting, and, on the other, their nervous systems began to feel over excited, there came in at that time a long procession {{Style S-HPB SB. Lost|a}} delusive phenomena, which are all accepted as real by the Spiritualists.}} | |||
would have been nothing very extraordinary if every one of us had given way to this peculiar, mysterious, nervous state of mind, seeing as well as himself that “something white,” which hallucination developing and strengthening, under such an unwholesome mental disposition should compel us to see gradually assuming a human shape. The same theory, I thought, can be easily applied to those seemingly objective ''touches'' felt by some persons in the circle. I felt them myself on the knee, but this touch was so slight and so insignificant, that I did not hesitate for a moment at that time to take it for something subjective. It seemed to me then that every series of spiritual seances, as a rule, began by objective phenomena, perfectly real, manifested more or less distinctly by raps and table-moving; after which, when on the one hand the Spiritualists were pretty well tired out with a long sitting, and, on the other, their nervous systems began to feel over excited, there came in at that time a long procession {{Style S-HPB SB. Lost|a}} delusive phenomena, which are all accepted as real by the Spiritualists. | |||
But what is the cause that provokes those ''real'' spiritual manifestations ? This question has remained and remains till now a dark puzzle to me. My greatest desire was to investigate them, but I had no opportunity for it as I became convinced that for such an object as this what is of the first necessity is to have a medium, namely, a person whose nervous system presents perhaps a very slight difference with the nervous systems of the average of us mortals ; but which is still strong enough to call out phenomena, that it seems to me might be named psycho-dynamical ones. I blamed very strongly Prof. Boutleroff and A. N. Aksakoff—both of whom took a constant and prominent part in Home's seances—for not conducting the latter under strictly scientific tests, and for not changing them into a series of psycho-physical experiments and investigations. In answer to my complaints I generally received such excuses as, for instance, that these manifestations were very whimsical and uncertain, that they varied, and could be subjected with great difficulty to the conditions of tests and experiments, and that long years of patient investigation were required, sometimes, in order to see something satisfactory. As a proof of that, they brought forward the investigations of the subject by the eminent chemist Crookes. I follow the progress of the letter attentively in a pamphlet called “Spiritualism and Science,” in 1872, edited by M. Aksakoff for the purpose of benefiting, by them, the Russian public. | But what is the cause that provokes those ''real'' spiritual manifestations ? This question has remained and remains till now a dark puzzle to me. My greatest desire was to investigate them, but I had no opportunity for it as I became convinced that for such an object as this what is of the first necessity is to have a medium, namely, a person whose nervous system presents perhaps a very slight difference with the nervous systems of the average of us mortals ; but which is still strong enough to call out phenomena, that it seems to me might be named psycho-dynamical ones. I blamed very strongly Prof. Boutleroff and A. N. Aksakoff—both of whom took a constant and prominent part in Home's seances—for not conducting the latter under strictly scientific tests, and for not changing them into a series of psycho-physical experiments and investigations. In answer to my complaints I generally received such excuses as, for instance, that these manifestations were very whimsical and uncertain, that they varied, and could be subjected with great difficulty to the conditions of tests and experiments, and that long years of patient investigation were required, sometimes, in order to see something satisfactory. As a proof of that, they brought forward the investigations of the subject by the eminent chemist Crookes. I follow the progress of the letter attentively in a pamphlet called “Spiritualism and Science,” in 1872, edited by M. Aksakoff for the purpose of benefiting, by them, the Russian public. | ||