When People and Tables Flew

My more complete article on levitations appears in the current issue of Atlantis Rising Magazine.   See http://www.atlantisrising.com/

In his 1918 book, On the Threshold of the Unseen, Sir William Barrett, professor of physics at Royal College in Dublin, tells of joining Dr. William J. Crawford, a lecturer in mechanical engineering at Queen's University of Belfast, in one of Crawford's many sittings with a group known as the Goligher circle.  The medium was 16-year-old Kathleen Goligher. 

At first, they heard knocks, and messages were spelled out as one of the sitters recited the alphabet, i.e., the communicating entity would knock at a particular letter.  Barrett then observed a floating trumpet, which he tried unsuccessfully to catch. "Then the table began to rise from the floor some 18 inches and remained suspended and quite level," Barrett wrote.  "I was allowed to go up to the table and saw clearly no one was touching it, a clear space separating the sitters from the table."

Barrett was not someone to be easily duped.  In 1912, he was knighted for his scientific work, which included the development of a silicon-iron alloy known as stalloy, used in the commercial development of the telephone and transformers.  He also did pioneering research on entoptic vision, leading to the invention of the entoptiscope and a new optometer.   He was a Fellow of the Royal Society, Philosophical Society, Royal Society of Literature as well as a member of the Institute of Electrical Engineers and the Royal Irish Academy.   

Barrett put pressure on the table to try to force it back to the floor.  He exerted all his strength but was unable to budge it.  "Then I climbed on the table and sat on it, my feet off the floor, when I was swayed to and fro and finally tipped off," Barrett continued the story.  "The table of its own accord now turned upside down, no one touching it, and I tried to lift it off the ground, but it could not be stirred; it appeared screwed down to the floor."

When Barrett stopped trying to right the table, it righted itself on its own accord.  Apparently, some spirits were having a bit of fun with Barrett as he then heard "numerous sounds displaying an amused intelligence."

Somewhat similar folly had been observed by Professor William Crookes on April 12, 1871, during a sitting with Daniel Dunglas Home, when sitter Frank Herne was carried out of his chair, floated across the room, and then dropped at the other end of the room.  On one occasion, Ellen Crookes, his wife, was levitated while sitting in her chair.  When Crookes asked the spirits why such foolishness, it was explained that they were experimenting on their side just as Crookes was on his side.    Crookes had insisted that all sitting take place in his own home in order to further rule out fraud.

Nor was Crookes someone to be easily duped.  He was also knighted for his scientific work, including the discovery of the element thallium and the radiometer, the spinthariscope, and the Crookes tube, a high-vacuum tube which contributed to the discovery of the X-ray.  He was founder and editor of Chemical News and later served as editor of the Quarterly Journal of Science.   Crookes, who insisted upon having all the sittings with Home in his own home to further rule out fraud, reported seeing Home levitated on three different occasions.  His arms were rigid over his head, as if he were grasping invisible hands. 

Crookes used a spring balance to record the variations in weight of the levitating tables.  At one sitting, Crookes and Darwin collaborator Alfred Russel Wallace, two of the world's foremost scientists, were crawling around under a levitating table searching for some kind of explanation.   

Crookes and other researchers had recognized that mediums were exuding a strange foamy substance from various orifices of the body that seemed to be responsible for producing different physical phenomena.  With some mediums, it was very apparent and could even be photographed.  With others, however, it was more of a vapory aura around the medium's body.  This substance came to be called ectoplasm.  Through much experimentation Crawford discovered that "psychic rods" emanating from the medium and made up of this ectoplasm were responsible for the levitations.  These psychic rods were apparently used as levers by the spirits.  

During his experiments with the Goligher circle, Crawford began communicating with spirit entities, one of whom said he was a medical man when on earth and that his primary function was to look after the health of the young medium. This spirit explained to Crawford that two types of substances were used in the production of the phenomena. One was taken in large quantities from both the medium and the sitters, then returned to them at the close of the séance.  The other substance, apparently the ectoplasm, called "psychic force" by Crawford, was taken exclusively from the medium in minute quantities and could not be returned to her as its structure was broken up. It was pointed out that it came from the interior of the medium's nerve cells and if too much were taken she could suffer serious injury.

On one occasion, a clairvoyant joined in the circle and told Crawford that she could see "a whitish vapory substance, somewhat like smoke," forming under the surface of the table and increasing in density as it was levitated.  She could see it flowing from the medium in sort of a rotary motion.  From other sitters, she could see thin bands joining into the much larger amount coming from the medium.  She also saw various spirit forms and spirit hands manipulating the "psychic stuff."

Crawford brought in a scale large enough to hold the medium while she was sitting in her chair.  He discovered that when a table was being levitated, the weight of the table, usually around 16 pounds, was transferred to the medium through the "psychic rods."  Most of the time, the transfer of weight would be a few ounces short of the weight of the table.  Further experimentation revealed that the extra weight was being transferred to the sitters in the room, who might have had furnished small amounts of the "psychic force."

Crawford pointed out that he continually worked under the levitated table and between the levitated table and the medium and conducted many of his experiments in adequate light, although it became obvious to him that light affected the rigidity of the rapping rods, i.e., the rods could not be made stiff if strong light was playing upon them.

During his 87 sittings with Kathleen Goligher and the Goligher circle, Crawford made a number of other observations, including that the psychic rods could extend only about five feet from the medium's body and that it often took a half hour for the psychic energy to build up.  He further observed that the psychic energy often caused the medium to make slight involuntary motions with her feet - motions which might suggest fraud to a careless observer.

When Crawford reported his findings to his fellow scientists, they laughed. When, nearly 50 years earlier, Crookes  reported his observations in scientific journals, he was met with similar scoffs and snickers.  To which Crookes responded, "I never said it was possible.  I only said it was true."