Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1924-12-25
UNKNOWN FORCES
by H. Addington Bruce

J :
II OR months, as newspaper readers in
n New York and Boston aware there
has been raging a controversy anent
alleged occult phenomena produced through
the wife of a Boston physician. At the mo-
ment of writing, the dispute wakes as Wig
orously as ever.
The phenomena in question are Of many
kinds, ranging from the appearance of spirit
lights to the ringing of electrical bell
that lacks electrical contact. Sitters at the
seances report touches, even blows by in
visible hands, mysterious movements Of flow
ers, and strange gyrations by certain pole.
For the most part these wierd manifesto
lions occur only in total darkness, obviously
i'm posing a severe handicap scientific
investigators. Nevertheless sundry investi-
gators have been busily at work, with the
net result of developing marked differences
of opinion.
At the one extreme, fraud is charged At
the other, the genuineneSs of the phenomena
is accepted and they attributed to the
action of a dead brother of the medium"
Then, again, third possibility is recognized
namely, that the happenings in the dark
ened room may be displays of an unknown
force WnconsciOusly generated by the medium
herself, or by the medium plus the sitters.
Whether this last explanation is
actually the correct one in this particular
case, it is indeed a possibility that cannot
be left out of account by probers of the
physical phenomena of occultism And re-
cehC ScleHClllC pTOSreSS-parLlcularly IN the
field of wireless transmission of energy
has Enthusiastically served to stress the de-
STABILITY of taking it into account
Certainly the old-time faith in the impos-
sibility of acting on objects without tangible
contact has been shattered by, for example,
! the feat of wireless control of boats from
land. Quite concevably it may be that in
human beings there are similar Centres"
whence energy may be dispatched to affect
objects at "a distance.
Some most competent students, not of the
occult but of physical science already in
cline to regard this as something more than
a cOnceivability. To reinforce their attitude
comes now the declaration by the famous
Marconi, world-renowned experimental with
natural forces
+ There exists in nature a means for prop
agating energy which is still unknown to
u.s."
Or course, as far as mediumistic phenom-
ena are concerned it cannot be ignored that
the history of supposed contactless action is
| largely history of repeated detection in
fraud. But also it is a fact that even me-
diums caught cheating have in numerous in
stances put to their credit phenomena baf-
| fling the understanding Of their investiga-
tors.
# may be that in these other instances
they have simply been too clever for those
watching them. Also, however side by side
with their proclivity to cheat, they may
truly have been generators of the unknown
force Marconi has in mind. 1t is only Judi
cious to recognize that this alternative ex-
lists
Which is one of the reasons for the con-
| tinued interest of many scientsts-including
some OF the worlds foremost-in physical
mediumship despite its tainted record
Copyright, 1920