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 of the hypnotic state, and the amenability of the hypnotised person to the wildest suggestions.  He had also begun to develop his doctrine of ‘unconscious cerebration,’ that is, the existence of mental processes beneath, or apart from our consciousness. {312} An ‘ideational change’ may take place in the cerebrum.  The sensorium is ‘unreceptive,’ so the idea does not reach consciousness.  Sometimes, however, the idea oozes out from the fingers, through muscular action, also unconscious.  This moves the table to the appropriate tilts.  These two ideas are capable, if we admit them, of explaining many singular psychological facts, but they certainly do not explain the movements of tables which nobody is touching.  In face of M. de Gasparin’s evidence, which probably was not before him, Dr. Carpenter could only have denied the facts, or alleged that the witnesses, including observers outside the chaine, or circle, were all self-hypnotised, all under the influence of self-suggestion, and all honestly asserting the occurrence of events which did not occur.  His essay touched but lightly on this particular marvel.  He remarked that ’the turning of tables, and the supposed communications of spirits through their agency’ are due ’to the mental state of the performers themselves’.  Now M. de Gasparin, in his via media, repudiated ‘spirits’ energetically.  Dr. Carpenter then explained witchcraft, and the vagaries of ‘camp-meetings’ by the ‘dominant idea’.  But M. de Gasparin could reply that persons whose ‘dominant