I will close by giving some particulars about a case which came under my own observation (M.A.J. Riko, of the Hague, a well-known gentleman of great education, whose name is familiar to many people in London and Paris. M. Riko is an esteemed correspondent of ours, and we believe his personal experience in various phenomena has been great. – Ed. Theos.) at the Hague, in 1871.
In the Van Hogendorp Street, there lived the family of Captain O.E.K. who occupied the second floor of a house in which one of the back rooms confronted other houses of an adjacent street. The family had been there but a few weeks, when, on one afternoon, a stone dropped on the window-sill of the said room. The phenomenon was repeated during several days, generally between two and four p.m. Besides stones, there also fell pieces of bricks, coals, lime, fragments of crockery, and even dung carefully wrapped up in paper.
I visited the house in company with a sceptical investigator, a surgeon, Mr H.G. Becht, and the Captain’s wife showed us a heap of rubbish. The room had been absolutely ruined. The mirrors, windows, ornaments, all were in bits and rags. The stones flew with such a force that the window curtains had been all torn into shreds. The missiles coming from a great distance were seen in their flight to fall from far higher than the roofs of the adjoining houses.
The police investigated the case for several days with the utmost activity; placed some men from the police force upon every roof — but could discover nothing to explain the cause of it. Stones coming from nowhere, and directing themselves toward the windows of the room, were continually flying before the noses of the policemen, and that was all that could be ascertained.
It would certainly be worth the trouble of trying to find out and accept some definite opinion, as to the nature of the invisible beings who cause such showers of stone to come down. What do they do it for? Is it to amuse themselves? A strange pastime! …For a revenge? … But the uniformity of that phenomenon in various countries forbids such a supposition. Must we believe in other beings (than human spirits) as believed in by the Theosophists? I would like to learn the opinion of your readers upon this subject. A. J. Riko.
The Theosophist, August 1881.