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their own house, where their hats and boots contracted a habit of floating dreamily about in the air. Things
were hurled at them, practical jokes were played, and in September these monstrous annoyances gradually
ceased. The most obvious explanation is that Mme. L. demoralised by turning tables, took, consciously or
unconsciously, to imitating the tricks of which history and legend are full. Her modus, operandi, in some
phenomena, is difficult to conjecture.
While opinion was agitated by these violent events, and contending hypotheses, while La Table Parlante took
a Catholic view, and Science a negative view, M. Agénor de Gasparin, a Protestant, chose a via media.
M. de Gasparin, the husband of the well-known author of The Near and the Heavenly Horizons, was a
table-turner, without being a spiritualist. His experiments were made in Switzerland, in 1853; he published a
book on them, as we said; M. Figuier attacked it in Les Mystéres de la Science, after M. de Gasparin's death,
and the widow of the author replied by republishing part of the original work. M. de Gasparin, in the early
Empire, was a Liberal, an anti-Radical, an opponent of negro slavery, a Christian, an energetic honest man,
absolu et ardent, as he confesses.
His purpose was to demonstrate that tables turn, that the phenomenon is purely physical, that it cannot be
explained by the mechanical action of the muscles, nor by that of 'spirits'. His allies were his personal friends,
and it is pretty clear that two ladies were the chief 'agents'. The process was conducted thus: a 'chain' of eight
or ten people surrounded a table, lightly resting their fingers, all in contact, on its surface. It revolved, and, by
request, would raise one of its legs, and tap the floor. All this, of course, can be explained either by cheating,
or by the unconscious pushes administered. If any one will place his hands on a light table, he will find that
the mere come and go of pulse and breath have a tendency to agitate the object. It moves a little,
accompanying it you unconsciously move it more. The experiment is curious because, on some days, the
table will not budge, on others it instantly sets up a peculiar gliding movement, in which it almost seems to
escape from the superimposed hands, while the most wakeful attention cannot detect any conscious action of
the muscles. If you try the opposite experiment, namely conscious pushing of the most gradual kind, you find
that the exertion is very distinctly sensible. The author has made the following simple experiment.
Two persons for whom the table would not move laid their hands on it firmly and flatly. Two others (for
whom it danced) just touched the hands of the former pair. Any pressure or push from the upper hands would
be felt, of course, by the under hands. No such pressure was felt, yet the table began to rotate. In another
experiment with another subject, the pressure was felt (indeed the owner of the upper hands was conscious of
pressing), yet the table did not move. These experiments are, physiologically, curious, but, of course, they
demonstrate nothing. Muscles can move the table, muscles can apparently act without the consciousness of
THE LOGIC OF TABLE-TURNING 104
Cock Lane and Common-Sense
their owner, therefore the movement is caused, or may be irrefutably said to be caused, by unconscious
muscular action.
M. de Gasparin, of course, was aware of all this; he therefore aimed at producing movement without contact.
In his early experiments the table was first set agoing by contact; all hands were then lifted at a signal, to half
an inch above the table, and still the table revolved. Of course it will not do this, if it is set agoing by
conscious muscular action, as any one may prove by trying. As it was possible that some one might still be
touching the table, and escaping in the crowd the notice of the observers outside the circle, two ladies tried
alone. The observer, Mr. Thury, saw the daylight between their hands and the table, which revolved four or
five times. To make assurance doubly sure, a thin coating of flour was scattered over the whole table, and still
it moved, while the flour was unmarked. M. de Gasparin was therefore convinced that the phenomena of
movement without mechanical agency were real. His experiments got rid of Mr. Faraday's theory of
unconscious pressure and pushing, because you cannot push with your muscles what you do not touch with
any portion of your body, and De Gasparin had assured himself that there was no physical contact between his
friends and this table.
M. de Gasparin now turned upon Dr. Carpenter, to whom an article in the Quarterly Review, dealing with the
whole topic of abnormal occurrences, was attributed. Dr. Carpenter, at this time, had admitted the existence
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