The Unknown Guest | Page 5

of the impostor and that even the most
powerful mediums, those possessing the most genuine and undeniable
gifts, such as the celebrated Eusapia Paladino, are upon occasion--and
the occasion occurs but too often--incorrigible cheats. But, when we
have made every allowance for fraud, there nevertheless remains a
considerable number of incidents so rigorously attested that we most
needs accept them or else abandon all human certainty.
The case is not quite the same with levitation and the wonders
performed, so travelers tell us, by certain Indian jugglers. Though the
prolonged burial of a living being is very nearly proved and can
doubtless be physiologically explained, there are many other tricks on
which we have so far no authoritative pronouncement. I will not speak
of the "mango-tree" and the "basket-trick," which are mere conjuring;
but the "fire-walk" and the famous "rope-climbing trick" remain more
of a mystery.
The fire-walk, or walk on red-hot bricks or glowing coals, is a sort of
religious ceremony practiced in the Indies, in some of the Polynesian
islands, in Mauritius and elsewhere. As the result of incantations
uttered by the high priest, the bare feet of the faithful who follow him
upon the bed of burning pebbles or brands seem to become almost
insensible to the touch of fire. Travelers are anything but agreed
whether the heat of the surface traversed is really intolerable, whether
the extraordinary power of endurance is explained by the thickness of
the horny substance which protects the soles of the natives' feet,
whether the feet are burnt or whether the skin remains untouched; and,

under present conditions, the question is too uncertain to make it worth
while to linger over it.
"Rope-climbing" is more extraordinary. The juggler takes his stand in
an open space, far from any tree or house. He is accompanied by a
child; and his only impedimenta are a bundle of ropes and an old
canvas sack. The juggler throws one end of the rope up in the air; and
the rope, as though drawn by an invisible hook, uncoils and rises
straight into the sky until the end disappears; and, soon after, there
come tumbling from the blue two arms, two legs, a head and so on, all
of which the wizard picks up and crams into the sack. He next utters a
few magic words over it and opens it; and the child steps out, bowing
and smiling to the spectators.
This is the usual form taken by this particular sorcery. It is pretty rare
and seems to be practised only by one sect which originated in the
North-West Provinces. It has not yet perhaps been sufficiently
investigated to take its place among the evidence mentioned show. If it
were really as I have described, it could hardly be explained save by
some strange hallucinatory power emanating from the juggler or
illusionist, who influences the audience by suggestion and makes it see
what he wishes. In that case the suggestion or hallucination covers a
very extensive area. In point of fact, onlookers, Europeans, on the
balconies of houses at some distance from the crowd of natives, have
been known to experience the same influence. This would be one of the
most curious manifestations of that "unknown guest" of which we shall
speak again later when, after enumerating its acts and deeds, we try to
investigate and note down the eccentricities of its character.
Levitation in the proper sense of the word, that is to say, the raising,
without contact, and floating of an inanimate object or even of a person,
might possibly be due to the same hallucinatory power; but hitherto the
instances have not been sufficiently numerous or authentic to allow us
to draw any conclusions. Also we shall meet with it again when we
come to the chapter treating of the materializations of which it forms
part.
THE UNKNOWN GUEST
CHAPTER I
. PHANTASMS OF THE LIVING AND THE DEAD

1
This brings us without any break to the consideration of veridical
apparitions and hallucinations and finally to haunted houses. We all
know that the phantasms of the living and the dead have now a whole
literature of their own, a literature which owes its birth to the numerous
and conscientious enquiries conducted in England, France, Belgium
and the United States at the instance of the Society for Psychical
Research. In the presence of the mass of evidence collected, it would be
absurd to persist in denying the reality of the phenomena themselves. It
is by this time incontestable that a violent or deep emotion can be
transmitted instantaneously from one mind to another, however great
the distance that separates the mind experiencing the emotion from the
mind receiving the communication. It is most often manifested by a
visual hallucination, more rarely by an auditory hallucination;