THE FOURTH DIMENSION. 



101 



cited the Chinese as much as it has aroused, during the last few 

 decades, the European and American worlds ; or of the divining- 

 rod, by whose help our forefathers sought for water, in fact, as we 

 do now in parts of Europe and America. 



Cranz, in his essay on the subject, divides spiritualistic phe- 

 nomena into physical and intellectual. Of the first class he enume- 

 rates the following : the moving of chairs and tables ; the animation 

 of walking-sticks, slippers, and broomsticks ; the miraculous throw- 

 ing of objects; spirit-rappings (Luther heard a sound in the Wart- 

 burg, " as if three score casks were hurled down the stairs") ; the 

 ecstatic suspension of persons above the floor ; the diminution of 

 the forces of gravity ; the ordeals of witches ; the fetching of wished- 

 for objects ; the declination of the magnetic needle by persons at a 

 distance ; the untying of knots in a closed string ; insensibility to 

 injury and exemption therefrom when tortured, as in handling red- 

 hot coals, carrying hot irons, etc. ; the music of invisible spirits ; 

 the materialisations of spirits or of individual parts of spirits (the 

 footprints in the experiments of Slade, photographed by Zollner) ; 

 the double appearance of the same person ; the penetration of mat- 

 ter (of closed doors, windows, and so forth). As numerous also is 

 the selection presented by Cranz of intellectual phenomena, namely: 

 spirit-writing (Have's instrument for the facilitation of intercourse 

 with spirits), the clairvoyance and divination of somnambulists, of 

 visionary, ecstatic, and hypnotised persons, prompted or controlled 

 by narcotic medicines, by sleeping in temples, by music and dancing, 

 by ascetic modes of life and residence in barren localities, by the ex- 

 udations of the soil and of water, by the contemplation of jewels, 

 mirrors, and crystal-pure water, and by anointing the finger-nails 

 with consecrated oil. Also the following additional intellectual phe- 

 nomena are cited : increased eloquence or suddenly acquired power 

 of speaking in foreign languages ; spirit-effects at a distance ; in- 

 ability to move, transferences of the will, and so forth. 



All these phenomena, presented with the aspect of truth, and 

 associated more or less with trickery, self-deception, and humbug, 

 are adduced by the spiritualists to substantiate the belief in a world 

 of spirits which intentionally and consciously take part in the events 



