Table-turning
A form of psychic phenomena in which a table is made to rotate, tilt, or rise completely off the ground by the mere contact of the operator's finger-tips, and without the conscious exercise of muscular force. The modus operandi is exceedingly simple. The sitters take their places round a table, on which they lightly rest their finger-tips, thus forming a "chain." In a few moments the table begins to rotate, and may even move about the room, seemingly carrying the experimenters with it. It was, and is, in high favour among spiritualists as a means of communicating with the spiritual world. The alphabet was slowly repeated, or a pencil was run down the printed alphabet, the table tilting at the letter which the spirits desired to indicate. Thus were dictated sermons, poems, information regarding the spirit-world, and answers to questions put by the sitters. Table-turning, in common with most spiritualistic phenomena, originated in America. It rapidly spread to Europe, and early in 1853 reached Britain, where it soon became immensely popular, and for the time replaced the earlier method of communication by means of raps. It commended itself to the public mainly because the services of an expensive professional medium were not required. In all parts of the country and in every grade of society the popular craze was practised with enthusiasm, and in this case as in others the results increased proportionately with the credibility of the sitters. In these earlier stages of the proceedings the gyrations of the table were attributed entirely to spirit agencies. So serious did matters become at last that men of science could no longer ignore the manifestations," and were forced to turn the light of scientific knowledge on the phenomenon of table-turning and endeavour to explain it on rational grounds. Foremost among these distinguished investigators was the chemist Faraday, who showed by means of simple apparatus of his own devising that the movements of the table were due to unconscious muscular action on the part of the sitters, who were thus themselves the automatic authors of the messages purporting to come from the spirit world. Faraday's apparatus consisted of 66 Table-turning close of the eighteenth century in engraving, the engraver of a portrait almost always thinking it necessary to surround his sitter with allegorical accessories; and to choose a good example, in many prints of La Fontaine we find a scene from one of his fables introduced beneath the subject's visage. A few modern engravers have essayed something analogous, Mr. William Strange, for example, engraving a tiny portrait of a soldier in the corner of his familiar plate of Mr. Rudyard Kipling; while reverting to painting many of the great English masters of portraiture saw fit to figure, almost in juxtaposition to the sitter, various items symbolising his tastes or action. Raeburn was among the last to do this, several of his pictures of great lawyers being only embellished with bundles of briefs tied up with red tape; and, though this form of symbolism is practically dead now, the fact remains that most good portrait-painters still choose their repoussoir with a view to its aiding them in adumbrating more completely the sentiment of the subject in hand. Thus, doing a picture of a child, an artist will usually employ a high-pitched background, this being in some degree emblematic of youth; while delineating an old man, he will almost certainly place him in sombre surroundings. And so we see again, as we saw at the outset, that all art is in a sense symbolical; and that it is through symbols that it "Lives, works, and has its being." (See also Magical Diagrams.) W. G. B. M.
Sympathetic Magic: (See Magic.) two thin wooden boards with little glass rollers between, the whole bound together with rubber bands, and so contrived that the slightest lateral pressure on the upper board would cause it to slip a little way over the other. A haystalk or a scrap of paper served to indicate any motion of the upper board over the lower. The conclusion drawn from these experiments was that when the sitters believed themselves to be pressing downwards, they were really pressing obliquely, in the direction they expected the table to rotate. Other investigators also held that the expectation of the operators had a good deal to do with the motions of the table. Braid pointed out in the appendix to his Hypnotic Therapeutics that some one generally announced beforehand the direction in which the table would rotate, and so encouraged the expectation of the operators.
Another authority, Dr. W. B. Carpenter, shared the same view, as did a committee of four medical men who published their experiences of table-turning in the Medical Times and Gazette Among the earliest investigators of the phenomena of table-turning were count de Gasparin and Professor Thury of Geneva, who held séances, and were satisfied that the movements resulted from a force radiating from the operators, to which they gave the name of "ectenic force." There were others, however, who were less rational in their attempts to explain the phenomenon. The public were on the whole indisposed to accept the conclusions of Faraday and the rest. They preferred the more popular spiritualistic explanations or the pseudo-scientific theories of such men as Dr. Koch, who believed that the "chain" of operators formed a sort of electric battery which supplied. the table with vital energy or, as it was called, electroodyllic" force, and made it respond to the will as though it were a part of the human body. Other explanations offered were odic force, galvanism, animal magnetism, and, strangest notion of all, the rotation of the earth! In an anonymous pamphlet published during the tableturning epidemic and entitled Table-talking considered in connection with the dictates of reason and common sense, the conclusions of Faraday are ridiculed, and an electrical 66 theory advanced, in such a way, however, as to show that the writer is quite ignorant of his subject. Another pamphlet, also anonymous, entitled Table-turning by Animal Magnetism demonstrated ascribes the phenomenon to magnetism, and bases its suppositions on the results of some experiments in which the table was isolated by glass or gutta-percha. Dr. Elliotson and the other believers in a mesmeric "fluid" which would affect inanimate objects as well as living beings, saw in table-turning a support for their views. The Rev. G. Sandby and the Rev. C. H.
Townshend, claimed to have experienced a feeling of fatigue after a table-turning séance as though they had been hypnotising someone. They also felt a tingling sensation in their finger-tips, and Townshend suggested that spirit rappings may be caused by a "disengagement of Zoogen from the System." Dr. Elliotson himself followed with an admission that the phenomenon was not explicable within the bounds of muscular force. There was another set, mainly composed of Evangelical clergymen, who credited the whole business to Satanic agency. The Rev. N. S. Godfrey, the Rev. E. Gillson, and others held séances in which the spirits confessed themeslves to be either the spirits of worthless persons of evil inclination, or devils, both of which confessions caused the reverend gentlemen to denounce the whole practice of table-turning. One of them remarks, apropos of Faraday's experiments, that the phenomena "appear to be whatever the investigator supposes them to be," a saying which aptly characterises their own attitude. 66 "
Camille Flammarion, whose exhaustive experiments and scientific attainments give to his opinion considerable weight, has offered an explanation of the various phases of table-turning phenomena. Simple rotation of the table he ascribes to an unconscious impulse given by the operators and other movements of the table while the fingers of the sitters rest upon it are ascribed to similar causes. The tilting of the table on the side furthest away from the operator can also be explained by muscular action. But vibrations in the wood of the table, or its levitation under the fingers, or, to a still greater extent, its rotation without contact of the operator's hands, he attributes to a force emanating from the body, and, in the latter case, capable of acting at a distance by means of ether-waves. This force, the result of a cerebral disturbance, is greater than that of the muscles, as is seen by the levitation of tables so weighted that the combined muscular strength of the operators would not suffice to lift it. To the dictating of messages and other intelligent manifestations he would also give an origin in this psychic force, which is perhaps identical with Thury's ectenic force, or psychode," and which is obedient to the will and desires, or even, in some cases, the sub-conscious will of the operator. The hypothesis of spirits he does not consider necessary. is possible, however, that fraud may have crept into the séances of M. Flammarion, as it has done in so many other cases. And there are those among the most profound students of psychic research who find in unconscious muscular action and deliberate fraud a satisfactory explanation of the phenomena. 66 دو 66 It Taboo, Tabu or Tapu: A Polynesian word meaning “prohibited" and signifying a prohibition enforced by religious or magical power, which has come to be applied to similar usages among savage peoples all over the world. Taboo, or prohibition is enforced in the cases of sacred things and unclean things. In the first instance, the taboo is placed on the object because of the possession by it of inherent mysterious power. But, taboo may be imposed by a chief or priest. It aims at the protection of important individuals; the safeguarding of the weak, women, children and slaves from the magical influence of more highly-placed Taigheirm individuals; against danger incurred by handling or coming in contact with corpses; or eating certain foods; and the securing of human beings against the power of supernatural agencies, or the depredations of thieves. Taboo may also be sanctioned by social use or instinct. The violation of a taboo makes the offender himself taboo, for it is characteristic of the taboo that it is transmissible, but can be thrown off by magical or purificatory ceremonies. It may last for a short period, or be imposed in perpetuity. It may be said, generally speaking, that the practice of taboo was instituted through human instinct for human convenience. This applies of course merely to the most simple type of taboo. It is, for example, forbidden to reap or steal the patch of corn dedicated to an agricultural deity, for the simple reason that his wrath would be incurred by so doing. Similarly it is taboo to devour the flesh of the totem animal of the tribe, except in special circumstances with the object of achieving communion with him. It is taboo to interfere in any manner with the affairs of the shamans or medicine-men: this again is a type of the imposed taboo for the convenience of a certain caste. It is prohibited to marry a woman of the same totem as oneself, as all the members of a totemic band are supposed to be consanguineous, and such a union might incur the wrath of the patron deity. A very strict taboo is put upon the beholding of certain ritual instruments belonging to some barbarian tribes, but this only applies to women and uninitiated men: the reason for such taboo would be that it was considered degradation for women to behold sacred implements. Taboo, if it does not spring directly from the system known as totemism, was strongly influenced by it-that is, many intricate taboos arose from the totemic system. We have also the taboo of the sorcerer, which in effect is merely a spell placed upon a certain object, which makes it become useless to others. Taboo, or its remains, is still to be found in strong force even in the most civilised communities, and from its use the feeling of reverence for ancient institutions and those who represent them is undoubtedly derived.