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HOME :: PARANORMAL :: SPIRITUALISM |
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Table Turning |
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A form of psychic
phenomena in which a table is made to rotate, tilt, or
rise completely off the ground by the mere contact of the
operator's finger-tips, and without the conscious exercise
of muscular force. The modus operandi is exceedingly
simple. The sitters take their places round a table, on
which they lightly rest their finger-tips, thus forming a
" chain." In a few moments the table begins to rotate, and
may even move about the room, seemingly carrying the
experimenters with it. It was, and is, in high favour
among spiritualists as a means of communicating with the
spiritual world. The alphabet was slowly repeated, or a
pencil was run down the printed alphabet, the table
tilting at the letter which the spirits desired to
indicate. Thus were dictated sermons, poems, information
regarding the spirit-world, and answers to questions put
by the sitters. Table-turning, in common with most
spiritualistic phenomena, originated in America. It
rapidly spread to Europe, and early in 1853 reached
Britain, where it soon became immensely popular, and for
the time replaced the earlier method of communication by
means of raps. It commended itself to the public mainly
because the services of an expensive professional medium
were not required. In all parts of the country and in
every grade of society the popular craze was practised
with enthusiasm, and in this case as in others the results
increased proportionately with the credibility of the
sitters. In these earlier stages of the proceedings the
gyrations of the table were attributed entirely to spirit
agencies. So serious did matters become at last that men
of science could no longer ignore the " manifestations,"
and were forced to turn the light of scientific knowledge
on the phenomenon of table-turning and endeavour to
explain it on rational grounds. Foremost among these
distinguished investigators was the chemist Faraday, who
showed by means of simple apparatus of his own devising
that the movements of the table were due to unconscious
muscular action on the part of the sitters, who were thus
themselves the automatic authors of the messages
purporting to come from the spirit world. Faraday's
apparatus consisted of two thin wooden boards with little
glass rollers between, the whole bound together with
rubber bands, and so contrived that the slightest lateral
pressure on the upper board would cause it to slip a
little way over the other. A haystalk or a scrap of paper
served to indicate any motion of the upper board over the
lower. The conclusion drawn from these experiments was
that when the sitters believed themselves to be pressing
downwards, they were really pressing obliquely, in the
direction they expected the table-to rotate. Other
investigators also held that the expectation of the
operators had a good deal to do with the motions of the
table. Braid pointed out in the appendix to his Hypnotic
Therapeutics that some one generally announced beforehand
the direction in which the table would rotate, and so
encouraged the expectation of the operators. Another
authority, Dr. W. B. Carpenter, shared the same-view, as
did a committee of four medical men who published their
experiences of table-turning in the Medical Times and
Gazette Among the earliest investigators of the phenomena
of table-turning were count de Gasparin and Professor
Thury of Geneva, who held seances, and were satisfied that
the movements resulted from a force radiating from the
operators, to which they gave the name of" ectenic force."
There were others, however, who were less rational in
their attempts to explain the phenomenon. The public were
on the whole indisposed to accept the conclusions of
Faraday and the rest. They preferred the more popular
spiritualistic explanations or the pseudo-scientific
theories of such men as Dr. Koch, who believed that the "
chain "" of operators formed a sort of electric battery
which supplied the table with vital energy or, as it was
called, " electro-odyllic " force, and made it respond to
the will as though it were a part of the human body. Other
explanations offered were odic force, galvanism, animal
magnetism, and,.strangest notion of all, the rotation of
the earth ! In an anonymous pamphlet published during the
table-turning epidemic and entitled Table-talking
considered in connection with the dictates of reason and
common sense, the conclusions of Faraday are ridiculed,
and an electrical theory advanced, in such a way, however,
as to show that the writer is quite ignorant of his
subject. Another pamphlet, also anonymous, entitled
Table-turning by Animal Magnetism demonstrated ascribes
the phenomenon to magnetism, and bases its suppositions on
the results of some experiments in which the table was
isolated by glass or gutta-percha. Dr. Elliotson and the
other believers in a mesmeric "fluid " which would affect
inanimate objects as well as living beings, saw in
table-turning a support for their views. The Rev. G.
Sandby and the Rev. C. H. Townshend, claimed to have
experienced a feeling of fatigue after a table-turning
seance as though they had been hypnotising someone. They
also felt a tingling sensation in their finger-tips, and
Townshend suggested that spirit rappings may be caused by
a " disengagement of Zoogen from the System." Dr.
Elliotson himself followed with an admission that the
phenomenon was not explicable within the bounds of
muscular force. There was another set, mainly composed of
Evangelical clergymen, who credited the whole business to
Satanic agency. The Rev. N. S. Godfrey, the Rev. E.
Gillson, and others held seances in which the " spirits "
confessed themeslves to be either the spirits of worthless
persons of evil inclination, or devils, both of which
confessions caused the reverend gentlemen to denounce the
whole practice of table-turning. One of them remarks,
apropos of, Faraday's experiments, that the phenomena "
appear to be whatever the investigator supposes them to
be," a saying which aptly characterises their own
attitude. Home | Alternative
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