THE PHILOSOPHY OF TABLE-TURNING.

Lyttelton Times, Volume III, Issue 147, 29 October 1853, Page 4

THE PHILOSOPHY OF TABLE-TURNING.

£From the " Home News."]

The chief facts of " table-turning" are now authenticated beyond the reach of scepticism. Respecting their causes, the conclusions arrived at show a wide and wonderful divergence. Sir Michael Faraday has now, however, stepped forward to rescue us from the bewilderment in which we have hitherto remained between the extremes of doubt and credulity—between the necessity of disbelieving the evidences of our senses and the alternative of attributing the effects thus revealed to the interference of agents from the spiritual world. Complying at first, it would appear, with the requests voluminously showered upon him at the Royal Society, Sir M. Faraday began a series of experiments on the subject, simply on the principle that anything, however utterly delusive or fraudulent in character, which had attracted the interest and puzzled the judgment of many thousand persons, was worth investigation, if only on that account. Afterwards it would seem that the developed phenomena assumed a character which justified their elucidation, by an elaborate scientific process, for their own sakes. In an interesting paper he has now made public the results of his experiments. First he remarks upon the various explanations heretofore given:—

"The effect produced by table-turners has been referred to electricity, to magnetism, to attraction, to some unknown or hitherto unrecognized physical power able to affect inanimate bodies—-:to the revolution of the earth, and even to diabolical or supernatural agency. The natural philosopher can investigate all these supposed causes but the last; that must, to him, be too much connected with credulity or superstition to require any attention on his part."

In order to test the accuracy of these several solutions, Faraday then describes a variety of apparatus employed and experiments tried. The results led him to the conclusion that, among the many hypotheses suggested, the most feasible was that which assigned some involuntary, or quasi involuntary, muscular action as the sole source of the observed motions. Upon

this point he multiplied and diversified his experiments considerably:—

"The first point was to prevent the mind of the turner having an undue influence over the effects produced in relation to the nature of the substances employed. A bundle of plates, consisting of sandpaper, millboards, glue, glass, plastic clayj tinfoil, cardboard, gutta-percha, vulcanised caoutchouc, wood, and resinous cement, was therefore made up and tied together, and being placed on a table, under the hand of a turner, did not prevent the transmission of the power; the table turned or moved exactly as if the bundle had been away, to the full satisfaction of all present. The experiment was repeated, with various substances and persons, and at various times, with constant success."

The ground being thus cleared, and the fact proved that there was nothing in the nature of the body acted on or interposed in the action, or in its magnetic, electric, &c, condition, which affected the result, the next point could be safely attacked, viz., whether in the general phenomena of table-moving it was the imposed hands which moved the table or the table which moved the hands, after being itself set in motion by some distinct influence. To decide this question a simple arrangement of levers was contrived, by which, if the hands moved first, or even pressed in any direction laterally, an index would traverse from right to left; if, on the other hand, the motion originated in the table itself, the index movement would be reversed. On applying this apparatus the singular result was manifested that, while the parties operating saw the index it remained very steady ; when it was hidden from them, or they looked away from it, it wavered about, though they believed that they always pressed directly downward; and when the table did not move there was still a resultant of hand-force in the direction in which it was wished the table should move, which, however, was exercised quite umvittingly by the persons operating. The apparatus contrived by . Sir M. Faraday, not only tests the stealthy, involuntary action of the muscles, but also annihilates it:—

"The most valuable effect of this test apparatus is the corrective power it possesses over the mind of the table-turner. As soon as the index is placed before the most earnest, and they perceive—as in my presence they have always done—that it tells truly whether they are pressing downwards only or obliquely, then all effects of table-turning cease, even though the parties persevere, earnestly desiring motion, till they become weary and worn out. No prompting or checking of the hands is needed — the poiver is gone ; and this only because the parties are made conscious of what they are really doing mechanically, and so are unable unwittingly to deceive themselves."

Sir Michael concludes his paper with some timely remarks on the melancholy lack of knowledge and judgment which the affair has shown to exist among a public calling itself educated and enlightened. The few who have eitlier formed a right conclusion or used a certain reserve, he remarks, are as nothing compared with the mass of those who, rather than acknowledge their incompetence to decide the question, have adopted the wildest theories or taken refuge in the belief of diabolical agencies. " I think," he observes, " that the system of education which could leave the mental condition of the public body in the state in which this subject has found it must have been grossly deficient in some very important principle." These statements have been answered by a very temperate letter in the Times, the writer showing, or asserting, that Faraday has not exhausted the subject, and that his reasoning is illogical. In this letter this curious fact is stated, that tables have been touched so lightly as to disprove the possibility of the motion of the table having been produced by muscular force ; also that it is not necessary for the persons touching the table to follow its motions, but that once set in movement, they may retain their seats, and the table will still move, the persons seated "" round it merely tapping it with the points of their fingers. All this appears very extraordinary, and is so; and although the cause of table moving has not as yet been referred to any intelligible source other than that of involuntary muscular pressure, the fact that very heavy tables have been moved by a pressure ut- 1 terly inadequate to produce the effect, according to our present knowledge, remains to be explained.