Eusapia Palladino

“ Nor can one understand any better how, unknown to us, she could have taken out this paper figure, mounted it upon a stick, or upon a wire, and so operated with it. Eusapia had not gone into a trance: she herself sometimes saw the profile which appeared, and, thoroughly awake and conscious, took pleasure in assisting in the phenomena which she was producing. The feeble light which the illumined window shed was sufficient to enable us to see her hands being carefully held by the controllers on the right and on the left. It would have been impossible for her to manipulate these objects. ”

“ Sometimes, as above indicated, the circumstances attaching to the feats are in themselves extremely suspicious. But if we can attach little weight to the records, it is impossible not to be impressed by the scientific standing and the obvious sincerity of the witnesses. Professor Richet, Dr. Maxwell, Professor Morselli, Professor Foa, and other Italian savants have no manner of doubt that they have witnessed in Eusapia's presence phenomena inexplicable by any known force. If they do not enable us to share their conviction, they at any rate compel us to hold our judgment in suspense. ”

“ He's the head of the Physiological Institute of the University of Naples; of his age and general character I am not precisely informed, but he writes delightfully of his experiments. Morselli, who preceded him in his study of Eusapia, is the Professor of Psychology in the University of Genoa. Foà and Herlitzka are of the same university. Within the last two years Eusapia has also been rigorously studied in Lombroso's clinical laboratory at Turin. All honor to her for breaking away from the traditions of mediumship! ”

“ It is generally admitted, however, that Eusapia will use physical means when the conditions permit of her doing so; and that the phenomena recognised as genuine give little support to the hypothesis of spirit intervention. If not wholly due to fraud and illusion, they can best be attributed to the operation of some force emanating from the medium's organism. ”

“ I soon distinctly perceive a dim silhouette passing before the red lantern, but I do not recognize any precise form. It is only an opaque shadow (the profile of a man) which advances as far as the light and retires.
In a moment, Eusapia says there is some one behind the curtain. After a slight pause she adds:
"There is a man by my side, on the right: he has a great soft forked beard." I ask if I may touch this beard. In [Pg 73] fact, while lifting my hand, I feel a rather soft beard brushing against it.
A block of paper is put on the table with a lead-pencil, with the hope of getting writing. ”

“ I called out, soothingly. "He writes: 'It took me twenty years to arrive at my present conviction—nay! to make one last confession. I am not yet absolutely and irremediably convinced. In spite of the astounding phenomena which I have witnessed during my sixty experiments with Eusapia, I have still a trace of doubt. [Pg 187] Certainty does not follow on demonstration; it follows on habit.' So don't blame Miller or myself for inability to believe in these theories, for our minds are the kind that accept the mystical with sore struggle."
"Go on with Eusapia's career," said Harris. ”

“ They are only calculated to create superstition and ignorance and it is a shame that they are permitted to circulate. Eusapia was one of the world’s greatest mountebanks. Her dupes were our foremost men of learning—they were not of the rabble. She was the greatest mountebank produced by modern Spiritism, and she duped more scientists than any other medium. ”

“ November 19.—Eusapia is a sly one. She is gifted with great sharpness of sight and has unusually sensitive ears. She is very intelligent and is a person of rare delicacy of feeling. She perceives and divines everything which concerns herself. Never reading, since she doesn't know how to read; never writing, since she doesn't know how to write; speaking little when here, since she rarely finds persons who understand and speak Italian, she remains always concentrated in herself and nothing turns her from permanent thought about her own personality. ”

“ Eusapia has no recollection of what has taken place during the séances, except for states of mind bordering close on those of her normal state; and, consequently, they only relate, as a general thing, to phenomena of slight intensity.
In order to aid in the manifestations, she frequently asks that her force be increased by putting one more person in the chain. It has frequently happened to her to address a sympathetic spectator, to take his fingers and press them as if to draw something out of them, then push them abruptly away, saying that she has enough force. ”

“ He demonstrated that the invisible limbs of the psychic cannot only move objects at a distance, but that they can feel at a distance. 'Eusapia's attitude was that of a blindfolded person exploring space with her hands to find a lost object!' he exclaims, at one point. 'Eusapia opened my right hand, stretched out my three middle fingers, and, bending them on the table, tips downward, said, in a whisper: "How hard it is! What is it?" I did not understand,' says Bottazzi. 'She continued: "There, on the chair." "It is the clay," I said, quickly; "will you make the impression of a face?" ”

“ One afternoon, Sunday, 11th October, all the sitters, even those furthest away from the medium, were touched.
But it was at Bordeaux, perhaps, in 1897 that the phenomena were most intense. I find in my notes—which are not, and make no claim to be, reports—the following recital:—
‘P. is vigorously touched. Eusapia gives him the control of her hands and feet. P. receives slaps in the back every time Eusapia presses his foot. The noise is distinctly heard. P.’s chair is shaken and drawn from under him. Eusapia rubs her feet on the floor, to give fluid, she says. ”

“ With Eusapia, the sitters’ chairs were frequently displaced, shaken, raised, and even carried on to the table. I cannot conceive how Eusapia could have obtained such results normally, considering the strict test conditions exacted at l’Agnélas. We had been courteously acquainted with the results of the Cambridge seances, and our attention had been very specially drawn to the fraudulent practices of this medium. One of us held her feet and her waist, while the mission of two others, seated on either side of her, was to observe her hands. ”

“ The reason for this is that Eusapia, knowing that the production of genuine phenomena will exhaust her nervous forces, resorts to this simpler method, if her sitters are sufficiently credulous to allow it, in order to save herself from the painful after effects of a genuine seance. Nearly every investigator has at one time or another discovered this fraud, which is petty, and more or less obvious to any careful investigator, and consists in the substitution of one hand for two, and in the production of phenomena with the remaining free hand. ”

“ The plot of Euphues is extremely simple. The hero, whose name may very possibly have been suggested by a passage in Ascham’s Schoolmaster, is introduced to us as still in bondage to the follies of youth, “preferring fancy before friends, and this present humour before honour to come.” His travels bring him to Naples, where he falls in love with Lucilla, the governor’s light-minded daughter. Lucilla is already pledged to Euphues’s friend Philautus, but Euphues’s passion betrays his friendship, and the old lover finds himself thrown over by both friend and mistress. ”

“ Travelling with Eusabio was like travelling with the landscape made human. He accepted chance and weather as the country did, with a sort of grave enjoyment. He talked little, ate little, slept anywhere, preserved a countenance open and warm, and like Jacinto he had unfailing good manners. The Bishop was rather surprised that he stopped so often by the way to gather flowers. One morning he came back with the mules, holding a bunch of crimson flowers—long, tube-shaped bells, that hung lightly from one side of a naked stem and trembled in the wind. ”

“ But the people of Seleucia had reason to commend the wisdom of Aesop's fable of the wallet, seeing their general Surena carrying a bag full of loose Milesian stories before him, but keeping behind him a whole Parthian Sybaris in his many wagons full of concubines; like the vipers and asps people talk of, all the foremost and more visible parts fierce and terrible with spears and arrows and horsemen, but the rear terminating in loose women and castanets, music of the lute, and midnight revellings. ”

“ Now Eusebia, the subject of my speech, was the daughter of a consul, and is the consort of an Emperor who is brave, temperate, wise, just, virtuous, mild and high-souled, who, when he acquired the throne that had belonged to his ancestors, and had won it back from him who had usurped it by violence, and desired to wed that he might beget sons to inherit his honour and power, deemed this lady worthy of his alliance, when he had already become master of almost the whole world. ”

“ Then indeed I prayed first, as is meet, for the Emperor, and next for Eusebia, that God would grant them many blessings, because when I longed and desired to behold my true fatherland, they made it possible. For we who dwell in Thrace and Ionia are the sons of Hellas, and all of us who are not devoid of feeling long to greet our ancestors and to embrace the very soil of Hellas. ”

“ Shall I not forthwith imitate that wise and inspired poet and go on to praise the noble Eusebia, eager as I am to compose an encomium worthy of her, though I shall be thankful if, even in a moderate degree, I succeed in describing accomplishments so many and so admirable? And I shall be thankful if I succeed in describing also those noble qualities of hers, her temperance, justice, mildness and goodness, or her affection for her husband, or her generosity about money, or the honour that she pays to her own people and her kinsfolk. ”

“ Nevertheless, the old gentleman has the righteous energy which prompts him to say to the departing Euphues, already out of hearing, ‘Seeing thou wilt not buy counsel at the first hand good cheap, thou shalt buy repentance at the second hand, at such unreasonable rate, that thou wilt curse thy hard pennyworth, and ban thy hard heart.’ Euphues takes to himself a new sworn brother, one Philautus, who carries him to visit his lady-love, Lucilla. ”

“ Euphues is a young Athenian, a contemporary not of Pericles, but of Lyly, who goes to Naples, thence to England, to study men and governments. Grave with that gravity peculiar to lay preachers, well-informed on every subject, even on his own merits, assured by his conscience that in making mankind sharer in his illumination, he will assure their salvation, he addresses moral epistles to his fellow men to guide them through life. ”

“ He lived in that great city a perfect model of meekness, patience, mortification, and prayer. He frequently burst into tears at table, saying: "I who am a rational creature, and made to enjoy God, eat the food of brutes, instead of feeding on the bread of angels." Palladius, afterwards bishop of Helenopolis, on going to Egypt to embrace an ascetic life, addressed himself first to our saint for advice: the skilful director bade him go and exercise himself for some time in mortification and self-denial, and then return for further instructions. ”

“ And she said unto him, “This man is a magician. He came to me when I was alone, and he asked me [to do] what is unseemly to mention, and when I refused him, he smote me with pains.” And the king commanded the soldiers to take Eusebius down from the tree and to bring him to him. And when they had brought him, the king said unto Eusebius, “Why didst thou meditate evilly the doing of a thing which it is not seemly to do against my wife?” And Eusebius said unto the king, “O my lord, dost thou imagine that these words are true? It is unnecessary to talk about it.” ”

“ He drew Minardi closer to him and drew up a plan.
The young Italian inside the Café Del Mare, having partaken of his fourth bottle of wine and glanced at his watch, was preparing to depart when the proprietor, looking very unctuous and important, approached and whispered into his ear, for several minutes. The young man smiled and nodded. The smile approached a sneer as his eyes followed the back of Palladino lumbering over to the side door of the café, which led down steps to the sea-wall, and opening it. Palladino peered back at his patron and indicated that he might use this exit. ”

“ Thus hoary Aesop's beasts did mildly tame Fierce man, and moralize him into shame; Thus brave romances, while they seem to lay Great trains of lust, platonic love display; Thus would old Sparta, if a seldom chance Show'd a drunk slave, teach children temperance ”

“ The little girl grew day by day more beautiful, graceful and clever, and was soon an object of love and admiration to all who knew her. AEsop, the fable-writer, who was at that time also in bondage to Iadmon, took an especial pleasure in the growing amiability and talent of the child, taught her and cared for her in the same way as the tutors whom we keep to educate our Athenian boys. ”

“ But know that both he and thy sister have entered into religion like thyself. Thy father will live seven years longer. Think no more of returning to thy home, for it is broken up. He that putteth his hand to the plough, and looketh back, is not fit for the kingdom of God."
These words consoled and encouraged Palladius; and the saint having asked him with a smile whether he wished to be a bishop, Palladius answered in the same bantering style, that he was one already, as his name implied. "And prithee what is thy diocese?" asked the hermit. ”