11. The Magic Chaine

Superstitions are instinctive and all that is instinctive is founded in the very nature of things, to which fact the sceptics of all times have given insufficient attention. It follows that we attribute the strange phenomena of table-turning to the Universal Magnetic Agent in search of a chain of enthusiasms with a view to the formation of fresh currents. The force of itself is blind, but can be directed by the will of man and is influenced by prevailing opinions. This universal fluid - if we decide to regard it as a fluid - being the common medium of all nervous organisms and the vehicle of all sensitive vibrations, establishes an actual physical solidarity between impressionable persons, and transmits from one to another the impressions of imagination and of thought. The movement of inert objects, determined by undulations of the Universal Agent, obeys the ruling impression and reproduces in its revelations at one time all the lucidity of the most wonderful visions, but at another all the eccentricity and falsehood of the most vague and incoherent dreams. The blows resounding on furniture, the clattering of dishes, the auto-playing of musical instruments, are illusions produced by the same cause. The miracles of the convulsionaries of Saint Medard were of the same order, and seemed frequently to suspend the laws of Nature. On the one hand, exaggeration produced by fascination, which is the special quality of delirium occasioned by congestions of the Astral Light; on the other, actual oscillations of movements impressed upon inert matter by the subtle and Universal Agent of motion and life. Such is the sole basis of these occurrences which look so marvellous, as we may demonstrate easily at will by reproducing, in accordance with rules laid down in the “Ritual”, the most astounding of such phenomena, and ascertaining, as can be done quite simply, the absence of trickery, hallucination or error. It has occurred to me frequently after experiments in the Magic Chain, performed with persons devoid of good intention or sympathy, that I have been awakened with a start in the night by truly alarming impressions and sensations. On one such occasion I felt vividly the pressure of an unknown hand attempting to strangle me. I rose up, lighted my lamp, and set calmly to work, seeking to profit by my wakefulness and to drive away the phantoms of sleep. The books about me were moved with considerable noise, papers were disturbed and rustled one against another, timber creaked, as if on the point of splitting, and heavy blows resounded on the ceiling. With curiosity but also with tranquillity I observed all these phenomena, which would not have been less wonderful had they been only the product of my imagination, so real did they seem. For the rest, I may state that I was in no sense frightened, and during their occurrence I was engaged upon something quite foreign to the occult sciences. By the repetition of similar phenomena I was led to attempt an experience of evocation, assisted by the magical ceremonies of the ancients, when I obtained truly astounding results which will be set forth in the thirteenth chapter of this work.