"In returning, next morning, on another steamer, we had raps on the hand-rail of the upper promenade deck, and also from within a small metal boat that was turned upside down, on the deck below.
"Notes of these experiments were taken immediately on my return to New York."--Owen's "Debatable Land," p. 345.
"It was during an evening session at Mr. Underhill's, February 22, 1860. Besides Mr. and Mrs. Underhill, Kate Fox, and myself, there were present Mr. Underhill's aged father and mother; venerable examples of the plain, primitive Quakers, both of whom took the deepest interest in the proceedings.
"By request, through the raps, the gas was extinguished and we joined hands.
"Very soon lights were seen floating about the room, apparently phosphorescent. At first they were small, just visible, but gradually they became larger, attaining the size and general outline of hands; but I could not distinguish any fingers. These lights usually showed themselves first behind and between Leah and Kate, near the floor. Then they rose; sometimes remaining near Leah's head, sometimes near her sister's. One of them was nearly as large as a human head. None of these touched me, though one approached within a few inches. Another made circles in the air just above our heads. After floating about for a brief space, they usually seemed to return either to Leah or Kate.
"While the hands of the circle remained joined, I looked under the table[15] and saw lights, as many as ten or twelve times, on or near the floor, and moving about. Once, while I was looking intently at such a light, about as large as a small fist, it rose and fell, as a hammer would with which one was striking against the floor. At each stroke a loud rap was heard in connection. It was exactly as if _an invisible hand held an illuminated hammer and pounded with it_. Then, desiring conscious proof of what I saw was not by human agency, I asked _mentally_, 'Will the Spirit strike with that light three times?' which was done forthwith; and then, after an interval, repeated.
[15] This is literally exact that Mr. Owen "looked under the table," but it omits to say _how_; and I the more readily supply that omission, because he himself, after his book was published, expressed regret that, in his cultivation of brevity, he had not explained himself more fully. To speak of having looked under a table rather suggests the idea of having stooped down for that purpose. The following was exactly the way in which it passed. Mr. Owen desired to look under it and thought of so doing, when the table, which was _an extension-table_, opened itself, its two halves being drawn apart, so as to enable him to see through as well as under it, through the wide opening thus made--evidently by the Spirits who had seen his thought. As this was a distinct phenomenal fact (and one not without its interest) Mr. Owen regretted afterward that he had not stated it precisely as it had occurred.