Stone-throwing by spirits in Paris.
Out of the hundred and one cases of stone-throwing by spirits, the following, which has lately taken place in Paris, may be worthy of attention, principally because the manner in which th estones come has been scientifically investigated by your correspondent, Mr O’Sullivan, and at the same time, also, by two prominent members of the Society for Psychological Studies in Paris. SCRUTATOR.
From the “Independent”, June 18th, 1881.
“The inhabitants of Folie Mericourt Street have been, for some days, in great consternation. No. 18 of that street is haunted by rapping spirits. Strange clamours and extraordinary noises are heard from the attics to the cellars, and this night and day; the window panes are shattered by a mysterious hand, and a legion of workmen seem to be sapping [tapping?] the foundations of the house.
“It was with great surprise that the inhabitants of the quarter, the day before yesterday, perceived, when they arose, a gigantic cross, painted red, on the outside door of the above named house. A good woman who affirmed that, by sprinkling the inside and outside of the house with holy water, the spirits would take their flight to a better place, received, when she was putting her project into practice, a stone against her head which made a deep wound, and this was done, in all probability, by an agent of Satan.
“The landlord no longer knows to which saint to turn, for one of his tenants threatens to throw up his lease, under the pretext that the row, the bits of broken glass, and all the mischief of this diablery, hinders his workmen in their business.
“Dame Justice, who is no great believer in sorcery, has given charge to the Commissary of Police of the quarter to make an inquiry into the matter. So an active watch has been organised around the house, and it is probable that the authors of this story of a smoky chimney will soon be found out.”
This is the general tone of the press. In the face of events of this description: to sneer at and to misconstrue facts, is to shun argument.
We went with Mr Munier and Mr O’Sullivan, formerly minister of the United States to Portugal, to see the master joiner, at whose house the stones had broken the windows, and caused this real panic. After having heard the account given by the joiner and others, we came to the following conclusion:
No one, not even the police, sees the stones fall; if they were cast by persons on the other side of the houses of this street, which is not a thoroughfare, these stones, thrown by hand, would form a curve, which rising above the houses would, attracted as they would be by a centrifugal force, fall at the foot of the bombarded house and not enter the house horizontally.
But here, the little street is but six yards wide, or less, and the stones came horizontally, as though they were thrown from the houses right in face of the bombarded house; they penetrated right up the further end of the rooms and struck against the walls. These hundreds of stones never hurt the master joiner, who was otherwise the sufferer; they either just touched his face, or fell at his feet; a single one was sufficient to have killed him.
We must come, then, to this conclusion; these stones so carefully watched, and concerning the source from whence they are projected all are so ignorant, must be brought by an invisible power that casts them horizontally from the street into the house.
Never (by the theory of projectiles, as regards stones or bullets thrown by the hand, and following a given projection according to the force of the impulsion) can these missiles on coming to the ground, disobey the law of attraction which draws them towards the centre of the earth, or deviate from that law by going horizontally towards a given point.
Once only, the wife of the master joiner, going out at a side door, unexpectedly, had her forehead grazed by a stone that the invisible force had hurled, not counting on her leaving the house. The skin, thus grazed, bled, but with no further result; once, then, only, the power was at fault.
It is plain, from all that has been said, that there is a problem here to be solved, but the Spiritualists will have no voice in the matter; they are too reasonable to suppose that their advice will be taken. The question will be quashed.
The Revue Spirite has often given details of these stone-throwings on previous occasions, but it will go on doing so till the day comes when investigators, who call themselves scientists, will cease to be silent. Those very learned men, the infallibles, are mute in the presence of the incomprehensible.
Spiritualist, 26th August 1881.