Observations et experiences sur Eusapia
Paladino, by Professor Bottazzi, Director of the Physiological
Institute of the University of Naples.[2] Seldom have experiments
in the domain of mediums or spirits been conducted with more
distrustful suspicion or with more implacable scientific
strictness. Nevertheless, scattered limbs, pale, diaphanous but
capable hands, suddenly appeared in the little physiological
laboratory of Naples University, with its doors heavily padlocked
and sealed, as it were, mathematically excluding any possibility
of fraud; these same hands worked apparatus specially intended to
register their touches; lastly, the outline of something black,
of a head, uprose between the curtains of the mediumistic
cabinet, remained visible for several seconds and did not retire
until itself apparently frightened by the exclamations of
surprise drawn from a group of scientists who, after all, were
prepared for anything; and Professor Bottazzi confesses that it
was then that, to quote his own words--measured words, as beseems
a votary of science, but expressive--he felt "a shiver all
through his body."
[1] On the same grounds, we will also leave on one side the
theosophical hypothesis, which, like the others, begins by
calling for an act of adherence, of blind faith. Its
explanations, though often ingenious, are no more than forcible
but gratuitous asservations and, as I said in Our Eternity, do
not give us the shadow of the commencement of a proof.
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