The Ghost Hunters - Deborah Blum [122]
Almost every poltergeist case in Podmore’s inventory involved a female in apparent need of attention. As he reported in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, there was no reason to invoke the mysterious powers of telekinesis: “Naughty little girls” provided a perfectly good answer, and no one needed to invent a new kind of spiritual energy to explain them.
Yet that was precisely the power that Richet hoped he could demonstrate in Eusapia Palladino. Goaded, he began a new series of experiments, joined by Ochorowicz, a new colleague, a cautious Swiss psychologist named Theodore Flournoy, and a trio of Italian scientists. They were aided by Eusapia herself, who also felt humiliated by the Cambridge experiments and was willing to submit to extreme measures if they would remove the shadows from her name.
In one brutal series of tests, devised by physiologists from the University of Naples, the experimenters bound Eusapia’s hands and arms with cords. They tied the cords onto iron rings in the floor and dripped lead seals onto the knots. As Richet reported, even after being bound for hours, she was able to summon those odd ectoplasmic hands—“some frail and diaphanous, some thick and strong”—all of which dissolved like mist when touched.
In a letter to Lodge in the fall of 1898, Richet repeated his conviction that Eusapia possessed some kind of power. It was erratic, yes; uncontrollable, even by her, yes; complicated by her devious nature, yes; but real. Lodge replied apologetically that it sounded intriguing, but he was at the moment overwhelmed by his work in wireless communication. But Fred Myers decided that he was weary of his overcautious colleagues.
To Richet’s pleasure, Myers agreed to sail to Paris and meet once more with the controversial medium. Enthused, Richet again enlisted the help of Theodore Flournoy. A kindly man and a thoughtful scientist, Flournoy had become more deeply involved in psychical research after striking up a friendship with William James at the experimental psychology meetings. It was Flournoy who wrote to James, describing the Paris sittings. Myers’s presence, he informed his friend, “gave much zest to the first séance because Eusapia was obviously bent on convincing him, after the unfortunate seances in Cambridge two years ago.”
Richet kept the lights bright, using both an unscreened lamp and a blazing fire to illuminate the room. Flournoy could see “every finger of Eusapia; every feature; every detail of her dress.” The seance was quiet throughout. Again the curtains blew with that odd, invisible wind. Again cloud shapes formed in the room, touching, brushing by, and dissolving like mist around them. By the end of the sittings, “Mr. Myers declared himself convinced,” Flournoy wrote, “and I don’t hesitate to agree with him.”
Myers returned to England fizzing with enthusiasm, eager to tell the story of the striking sittings in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research. Unfortunately, at least from his perspective, Richard Hodgson currently served as editor of the organization’s journal. Hodgson flatly rejected Myers’s article. In fact, Hodgson told Myers smugly, he’d commissioned an article evaluating mediums of the day; it was scheduled to list Eusapia “amongst the ranks of tricksters.”
Myers stormed over to visit Henry Sidgwick, demanding that he overrule Hodgson. Typically-and Myers considered this an irritating trait—Sidgwick instead sought a compromise. He told Hodgson to drop his listing of fraudulent mediums. Such a list, Sidgwick thought, was unnecessarily combative. But he also rejected any article supporting Eusapia Palladino. She might impress Myers and Richet and Flournoy, but Sidgwick thought them too easily won over: “I cannot see any reason for departing from our deliberate decision to have nothing further to do with any medium whom we might find guilty of intentional and systematic fraud.