glamour, of hypnotic illusion, is the most specious. Thus, when Ibn
Batuta, the old Arabian traveller, tells us that he saw the famous
rope-trick performed in India--men climbing a rope thrown into the
air, and cutting each other up, while the bodies revive and reunite--
he very candidly adds that his companion, standing by, saw nothing
out of the way, and declared that nothing occurred. {107a} This
clearly implies that Ibn Batuta was hypnotised, and that his
companion was not. But Dr. Carpenter's attempt to prove that one
witness saw nothing, while Lord Lindsay and Lord Adare saw Home
float out of one window, and in by another, turns out to be
erroneous. The third witness, Captain Wynne, confirmed the
statement of the other gentlemen.

We now approach the second class of marvels which regaled the circle
at Ragley, namely, 'Alleged movements of objects without contact,
occurring _not_ in the presence of a paid medium,' and with these we
shall examine rappings and mysterious noises. The topic began to
attract modern attention when table-turning was fashionable. But in
common table-turning there _was_ contact, and Faraday easily
demonstrated that there was conscious or unconscious pushing and
muscular exertion. In 1871 Mr. Crookes made laboratory experiments
with Home, using mechanical tests. {107b} He demonstrated, to his
own satisfaction, that in the presence of Home, even when he was not
in physical contact with the object, the object moved: e pur si
muove. He published a reply to Dr. Carpenter's criticism, and the
common-sense of ordinary readers, at least, sees no flaw in Mr.
Crookes's method and none in his argument. The experiments of the
modern Psychical Society, with paid mediums, produced results, in
Mr. Myers's opinion, 'not wholly unsatisfactory,' but far from
leading to an affirmative conclusion, if by 'satisfactory' Mr. Myers