925 A. An instance of a supposed telekinetic phenomenon which was probably to be attributed to motor automatism is that mentioned in the case of Mme. X. (see 833) when, as she was standing on a chair, "the chair was violently snatched from under her feet and pushed to a distance" by - as she believed - some "invisible force." Some incidents of a similar kind are described in Professor Flournoy's history of Mdlle. Smith (but not referred to in my account of this sensitive in 834-842).

Raps are mentioned in the case of Professor Rossi-Pagnoni (864 A); in the Pereliguine case (868 A) raps and the movement of a heavy untouched table are described; and in the case of Mr. F. Hodgson (868 B) there seem to have been various telekinetic movements besides raps. In these last two cases the telekinetic phenomena were apparently connected with a recent death, and it will be remembered that many of the better evidenced groups of supernormal phenomena seemed to cluster about the point of death, some occurring shortly before and some shortly after it, while others more closely coincide with the death itself. I quote here a simple case of an isolated movement, occurring shortly before a death under circumstances which seem to give it a kind of coincidental or purposive character. The reader should compare with this the account of the "Woodd knockings" to which I have briefly referred in 868 C.

From Proceedings S.P.R., vol. vii. p. 154. The account is given by the Rev. Edward T. Vaughan, of Langleybury Vicarage, King's Langley, who writes:-

August 25th, 1884.

Some three or four years back, I had occasion to visit a parishioner who was seriously ill, one afternoon in the winter time as it was growing dark. I had seen him several times before since his illness commenced, and had always found him in the same bedroom. On this occasion I had been praying with him, and his wife was kneeling at the opposite side of the bed to myself. As I was saying the last words of the prayer, we (the woman and myself) distinctly saw a small table, which stood about a yard from the foot of the bed, rise two or three inches from the ground and come down with a violent thump upon the floor, so loudly that the man, who was lying with his eyes closed, started up and asked, with some terror, what had occasioned it. On examining the table, I found that a glass with medicine in it, which stood upon the table with several other articles, had been so shaken that some of the contents were spilt. My first idea was that something had been thrown down in the room below, where my wife, a sister of the woman's, and an aged uncle were sitting. On going downstairs and inquiring, I found that this was not so; that they had been all sitting perfectly quiet in the room, and thought we had thrown down something in the bedroom. There was no one else in the house.

The man died about a week after this took place.

E. T. Vaughan, Vicar of Langleybury.

Mr. Vaughan writes later:-

June 27th, 1888.

I enclose according to your wish a statement from Mrs. Vaughan of what she remembers of the curious incident. I am sorry to say the widow, though she still lives in this village, is not capable of writing down a statement of what she saw and heard that evening, though she can give a very clear account of the circumstances to any one who examines her orally. The man's name was John Wilson, a bricklayer in the employ of the Earl of Clarendon. He died on December 7th, 1881, about a week after the strange occurrence. I have never since experienced any similar phenomenon.

Edward T. Vaughan.

Mrs. Vaughan writes under the same date as follows:-

In confirmation of the story of Wilson's deathbed, I can say I was sitting in the room below the sick man's with two other people (his sister-in-law and uncle), in perfect silence, as every word read in the room above could be dis-tinctly heard by us. Just as the last words of the prayer were being said, we were startled by a loud and sudden noise, as if some heavy piece of furniture had fallen in the room above. My first impression was that the man was taken worse, and that his wife, moving hastily to him, had knocked over a table. None of us spoke, though we started and looked at each other, and expected to hear some one called; but almost the next minute I heard Mr. Vaughan address the man on leaving, and come downstairs with the wife. I went to meet them with her sister, and though nothing more was said by any of us than "good-bye," I saw by all the faces that something unusual had happened. As soon as we were out of the house I said to Mr. Vaughan, "What was that noise just as you were reading the prayers?" and he told me the story you have heard, and it formed the principal topic of our long walk home, wondering what it was, and trying to explain it, without in the least coming to any conclusion but greater wonder.

E. L. Vaughan.

This is a brief and simple incident; but it is particularly hard to explain by ordinary causes - such as an earthquake or a mistaken memory.

926 A. Scheme of Vital Faculty.

The following scheme is not put forth as expressing deliberate convictions, supported by adequate evidence. Its speculative character has, in fact, excluded it from my text, yet I hope that it may not be without its use. For many men the difficulty of belief is not so much in defect of trustworthy evidence as in the unintelligibility, the incoherence of the phenomena described, which prevents them from being retained in the mind or assimilated with previous knowledge.

I have myself felt the full force of this objection, and I believe that some effort to meet it has become absolutely needful. Undoubtedly a record of facts without theories is the first essential. But the facts individually are like "stones that fall down from Jupiter," - isolated marvels, each of which seems incredible until we have made shift to colligate them all.

"Truth," as we have in this research constant need to remember, "emerges more readily from error than from confusion;" and it is in the place of absolute confusion - wandering as we are per incertam lunam, sub luce maligna - that I point to pathways which may lead somewhither, though it be with much of error by the way.

With this apology, made once for all, I enter upon a task whose provisional and hazardous character no one can feel more strongly than myself.

Let us begin, then, by taking the most generalised view possible of all these phenomena. They appear, at any rate, to depend upon the presence of living human beings; and they are therefore in some sense phenomena of life. If, then, they are phenomena of life, they must be in some way derived from, or must bear some analogy to, the vital phenomena, the faculties and functions with which we are familiar in the experience of every day. Yet to say this brings us little nearer to our aim. Spirits may have ruled Mr. Moses' mind and body just as truly as our own conscious will rules our mind and body.1 But the results which they produced were so different from any results which we can produce that it is hard to know where to begin the comparison. Is there not some middle term, some intermediate series, with which both these extreme series may have points of resemblance?

1 This Appendix was written originally with a special view to the phenomena alleged to occur in the case of Mr. W. Stainton Moses. - Editors.

It is here that we ought to feel the advantage of previous discussions on man's own supernormal faculties, - on the powers of the Self below the threshold of ordinary consciousness. We have traced these powers in detail; we have noted the extension of the normal spectrum of consciousness beyond both red and violet ends, in response to subliminal control. Perhaps the profounder conception of the Self thus gained may help us to bridge over that gulf between the performances of the ordinary man and those of the so-called medium which heretofore has involved so difficult a leap. We may find that the spirit's power over the organism which it controls or "possesses," - while possibly going much further than any subliminal power in the organism itself, as known to us, - may yet advance along similar lines, and receive explanation from hypnotic or telepathic phenomena. I will endeavour, then, to set side by side, in tabular form, the main heads of vital process or faculty as exercised (I) under normal or supraliminal control; (2) under subliminal and telepathic control; (3) under what is claimed as disembodied or spiritual control.

In arranging this scheme my first object is to bring all such phenomena as we actually have before us into intelligible connection; introducing by the way a few of the explanations given to Mr. Moses by his guides. Those explanations, however, are for the most part slight and vague, and our experimental knowledge of the phenomena is, of course, merely nascent and fragmentary. My scheme, therefore, cannot aim at complete logical arrangement. It - must involve both repetitions and lacunae; nor can it be such as the physiologist would care to sanction. But it will, at least, be a first attempt at a connected schedule or rational index of phenomena apparently so disparate that the very possibility of their interdependence is even now constantly denied.