the Emperor included. Then the floor seemed to sink, all the doors of the house were slammed to and opened again, the gaslights became extinct, and when they as suddenly blazed up again, Home had disappeared without saying good-bye. The guests left the house quietly and in a state of great and painful excitement. At another exhibition in Prince Napoleon's house, a renowned juggler was present by invitation to watch Home, but he declared, soon, that there was no jugglery, such as he knew, in what he saw, and the meeting, during which the most startling phenomena were exhibited, ended by Home's falling into a state of fearful catalepsy. Perhaps nothing can speak more clearly of the deep interest felt in the modern magician by the highest in the land, than the fact that more than once private sessions were held at the Tuileries, at which, besides himself, the Emperor and the Empress, only one person was allowed to be present, the Duke of Montebello. It is said, though not by Home himself, that at one of these meetings the sad fate of the Empire was clearly predicted, and even the time of the Emperor's death ascertained. One achievement of modern magic in which Home is unique, is the raising of his body into the air; no other person having as yet even attempted the same exploit. He is lifted up in a horizontal position, sometimes only to a short distance from the floor, but not unfrequently, also, nearly to the ceiling; on one occasion, in Bordeaux, he remained thus suspended in the sight of several persons for five minutes. Another speciality of his, is the lengthening of his body. According to a statement deserving full credit ("Human Nature," Dec. 1868), he can, when in a state of trance, add four inches to his stature! Finally, he has been repeatedly seen passing in the air out of one window of the room in which his visitors were assembled, and returning through another window, an exhibition which almost always ended in the complete exhaustion and apparent illness of the magician.
Home himself maintains that he performs no miracles, and is not able to cause the laws of nature to be suspended for a moment, but that he is gifted with an exceptional power to employ faculties which he possesses in common with all his brethren. In him they are active; in the vast majority of men they lie dormant, because man is no longer conscious of the full and absolute control over Nature, with which he has been endowed by the Creator. He adds that it is faith alone, without the aid of spirits, which enables him to cause mysterious lights to be seen, or heavy pieces of furniture to move about in the air, and to produce strange sounds and peculiar visions in the mind of his friends. On the other hand, when he is lifted up into the air, or enabled to read the future, and to reveal what absent persons are doing at the moment, he professes to act as a willingless instrument of spirits, having neither the power to provoke his ability to perform these feats, nor to lay it aside at will. Occasionally he professes to be conscious of an electric current, which he is able to produce at certain times and in a certain state of mind; this emanation protects his body against influences fatal to others, and enables him, for instance, to hold live coals in his hand, and to thrust his whole head into the chimney fire. This "certain state of mind," as he calls it, is simply a state of trance. Hence the extremely variable nature of his performances, and his great reluctance to appear as a magician at the request of others. Nor is he himself always quite sure of his own condition; thus, in the winter of 1870, when he wished to exhibit some of the simplest phenomena in the presence of a number of savants in St. Petersburg, he failed so completely in every effort, that the committee reported him virtually, though not in terms, an impostor. The same happened to him at a first examination held by Mr. Crookes, a well-known professor of chemistry, in company with Messrs. Cox and Huggins; they did not abandon their purpose, however, and at the next meeting, when certain antipathic spectators were no longer present, Home displayed the most remarkable phenomena. The committee came to the conclusion that he was enabled to perform these feats by means of a new "psychic force," which it was all-important for men of science to investigate thoroughly.
The number of men and women who possess similar endowments, though generally in an inferior degree only, is very great, especially in the United States. Only one feature is common to them all—the state of trance in which they are enabled to produce such startling phenomena—in all other respects they differ widely, both as to the nature of their performances and as to their credibility. For, from the first appearance of media in spiritualistic circles, in fact, probably already in the exhibitions of the Fox family, delusion and willful deception have been mixed up with actual magic. Tables have been moved by clever legerdemain; spirit rappings have been produced by cunning efforts of muscles and sinews; ventriloquists have used their art to cause extraordinary noises in the air, and Pepper's famous ghosts have shown the facility with which the eye may be deceived and the other senses be taken captive. The most successful deception was practised by the so-called Davenport Brothers, whose well-known exhibitions excited universal interest, as long as the impression lasted that they were the work of invisible spirits, while they became even more popular and attractive when their true nature had been discovered, on account of the exquisite skill with which these juggling tricks were performed.
The masters of physical science have amply proved that table-moving is a simple mechanical art. Faraday and Babinet already called attention to the fact that the smallest muscles of the human body can produce great effects, when judiciously employed, and cited, among other instances, the so-called Electric Girl, exhibited in Paris, who hurled a chair on which she had been sitting, by muscular power alone, to a great distance. The same feat, it is well-known, has been repeatedly accomplished by other persons also. Like muscular efforts are made—no doubt often quite unconsciously—by persons whose will acts energetically, and when several men co-operate the force of vibrations produced in a kind of rhythmical tact, becomes truly astounding. We need only remember, that the rolling of a heavily laden cart in the streets may shake a vast, well-built edifice from roof to cellar, and that the regular tramp of a detachment of men has more than once caused suspension bridges, of great and well-tried strength, to break and to bury hundreds of men under their ruins. Thus a few children and delicate women alone can, by an hour's steady work and undivided attention, move tables of such weight that a number of strong men can lift them only with difficulty. The only really new force which has ever appeared in this branch of modern magic is the Od of Baron Reichenbach; its presence and efficacy cannot be denied, although the manner in which it operates is still a mystery. In the summer of 1861 the German baron found himself in a company of table-movers at the house of Lord William Cowper, the son-in-law of Lord Palmerston. To prove his faith he crept under the heavy dining-table, resting with his full weight on one of the three solid feet and grasping the other two firmly with his hands. The wood began to emit low, electric sounds, then came louder noises as when furniture cracks in extremely dry weather, and finally the table began to move. Reichenbach did his best to prevent the movement, but the table rushed down the room, dragging the unlucky baron with it, to the intense amusement of all the persons present. The German savant maintains that this power, possessed only by the privileged few who are peculiarly sensitive, emanates from the tips of the fingers, becomes luminous in the dark, and acts like a lever upon all obstacles that come in its way. As the existence of Od is established beyond all doubt, and its effects are admitted by all who have studied the subject, we are forced to look upon it as at least one of the mysterious elements of modern magic.
The Od is, as far as we know, a magnetic force; for as soon as certain persons are magnetized they become conscious of peculiar sensations, heat or cold, headache or other pains, and, if predisposed, of a startling increase of power in all their senses. They see lights of every kind, can distinguish even minute objects in a dark room, and behold beautiful white flames upon the poles of magnets. Reichenbach obtained, as he believed, two remarkable results from these first phenomena. He concluded that polar lights, aurora boreales, etc., were identical with the magnetic light of the earth, and he discovered that sensitive, sickly persons, who were peculiarly susceptible to magnetic influences, ought to lie with the head to the north, and the feet to the south in order to obtain refreshing sleep. The next step was an effort to identify the Od with animal magnetism; Reichenbach found that cataleptic patients who perceived the presence of magnets with exquisite accuracy, and followed them like mesmerized persons, were affected alike by his own hands or those of other perfectly sound, but strongly magnetic men. He could attract such unfortunate persons by his outstretched fingers, and force them to follow him in a state of unconsciousness wherever he led them. According to his theory, the two sides of man are of opposite electric nature and a magnetic current passes continually from one side to the other; sensitive persons though blind-folded, know perfectly well on which side they approach