But, on the other hand, I noticed one thing which would tend to show that the revelations of these mediums rest on an objective reality. At Voiron, one of the regular attendants at my demonstrations is a young girl, Louise----. She possesses a very sedate and thoughtful cast of mind, not at all open to hypnotic suggestion; and she has in a very high degree the capacity, which is comparatively common in a lesser degree, of perceiving the magnetic effluvia of human beings and, consequently, the fluidic body. When Joséphine revives the memory of her past, a luminous aura is observed around her, and is perceived by Louise. Now, to the eyes of Louise, this aura becomes dark when Joséphine is in the phase separating two existences. In every instance there is a strong reaction in Joséphine when I touch points where Louise tells me that she perceives the aura, whether it be dark or light.
I thought it well to give the report of one of these experiments almost in extenso, because those who maintain the palingenesic theory find in these the only appreciable argument which they possess. Colonel de Rochas renewed them more than once with different subjects. Among these, I will mention only one, a girl called Marie Mayo, whose history is more complicated than Joséphine’s, and whose successive reincarnations take us back to the seventeenth century and carry us suddenly to Versailles, among the historical personages moving about Louis XIV.
Let us add that Colonel de Rochas is not the only mesmerizer who has obtained revelations of this kind, which may henceforth be classed among the incontestable facts of hypnotism. I have mentioned his alone because they offer the most substantial guaranties from every point of view.
What do they prove? We must begin, as in all questions of this kind, by entertaining a certain distrust of the medium. It goes without saying that all mediums, by the very nature of their faculties, are inclined to imposture, to trickery. I know that Colonel de Rochas, like Dr. Richet and like Professor Lombroso, was occasionally hoaxed. That is the inherent defect of the machinery which we must perforce employ; and experiments of this sort will never possess the scientific value of those made in a physical or chemical laboratory. But this is not an a priori reason for denying them any sort of interest. As a question of fact, are imposture and trickery possible here? Obviously, even though the experiments be conducted under the strictest supervision. However complicated it may be, the subject can have learned his lesson, and can cleverly avoid the traps laid for him. The best guaranty, when all is said, lies in his good faith and his moral sense, which the experimenters alone are in a position to test and to know; and for that we must trust to them. Besides, they neglect no precaution necessary to make imposture extremely difficult. After taking the subject, by means of transverse passes, up the stream of his life, they make him come down the same stream; and the same events pass in the reverse order. Repeated tests and countertests always yield identical results; and the medium never hesitates or goes astray in the labyrinth of names, dates, and incidents.[5]