INTRODUCTION.

...certain circumstances, or some other unknown agent, were the cause of this movement. The gathering of several people, increasing the power of action, seemed to support this theory, for one could consider this ensemble as a multiple batteryThe original term "pile multiple" refers to a galvanic pile or early battery; the author suggests that a group of people might generate a collective energy similar to linked electrical cells. whose power is in proportion to the number of elements.

The circular movement was nothing extraordinary: it is in nature; all the stars move circularly; we might therefore have in miniature a reflection of the general movement of the universe, or, more accurately, a cause until then unknown could accidentally produce, for small objects and in given circumstances, a current analogous to that which carries the worlds along.

But the movement was not always circular; it was often jerky, disordered, the object violently shaken, overturned, carried in any direction whatsoever, and, contrary to all the laws of statics, lifted from the ground and held in space. There was nothing yet in these facts that could not be explained by the power of an invisible physical agent. Do we not see electricity toppling buildings, uprooting trees, throwing heavy bodies to a distance, or attracting and repelling them?

The unusual noises, the rapsoriginal: "coups frappés." These percussive sounds were a hallmark of early mediumistic phenomena, often interpreted as a form of telegraphy from the beyond., assuming they were not one of the ordinary effects of the expansion of the wood or some other accidental cause, could very well be produced by the accumulation of the occult fluidIn 19th-century science and pseudoscience, "fluids" were often invoked to explain invisible forces like magnetism, heat, or electricity.: does electricity not produce the most violent noises?

Up to this point, as one can see, everything can fall within the domain of purely physical and physiological facts. Without leaving this circle of ideas, there was matter for serious study, worthy of capturing the attention of scientists. Why was this not the case? It is painful to say, but this is due to causes that prove, among a thousand similar facts, the levity of the human spirit. First, the vulgarity of the principal object that served as the basis for the first experiments is perhaps not foreign to this. What influence a word has often had on the gravest things! Without considering that the movement could be imparted to any object whatsoever, the idea of tables prevailed, doubtless because it was the most convenient object, and because one sits more naturally around a table than around any other piece of furniture. Now, the...