no purpose. The bits of wood sometimes
danced along the floor, more commonly sailed gently along, or "moved as if
borne on gently heaving waves." This sort of thing was repeated during six
weeks. One piece of wood "came from a distant corner of the room towards
me, describing what may be likened to a geometrical square, or corkscrew
of about eighteen inches diameter.... Never was a piece seen to come in
at the doorway." Mr. Bristow deems this period 'the most remarkable
episode in my life.' (June 27, 1891.) The phenomena 'did not depend on the
presence of any one person or number of persons.'

Going to Swanland, in 1891, Mr. Sidgwick found one surviving witness of
these occurrences, who averred that the objects could not have been thrown
because of the eccentricities of their course, which he described in the
same way as Mr. Bristow. The thrower must certainly have had a native
genius for 'pitching' at base-ball. This witness, named Andrews, was
mentioned by Mr. Bristow in his report, but not referred to by him for
confirmation. Those to whom he referred were found to be dead, or had
emigrated. The villagers had a superstitious theory about the phenomena
being provoked by a dead man, whose affairs had not been settled to his
liking. So Mr. Darwin's spoon danced--on a grave.[5]

This case has a certain interest _a propos_ of Mr. Podmore's surmise that
all such phenomena arise in trickery, which produces excitement in the
spectators, while excitement begets hallucination, and hallucination
takes the form of seeing the thrown objects move in a non-natural way.
Thus, I keep throwing things about. You, not detecting this stratagem, get
excited, consequently hallucinated, and you believe you see the things
move in spirals, or undulate as if on waves, or hop, or float, or glide
in an impossible way. So close is the uniformity of hallucination
that these phenomena are described, in similar terms, by witnesses
(hallucinated, of course) in times old and new, as in cases cited by
Glanvil, Increase Mather, Telfer (of Rerrick), and, generally, in works of
the seventeenth century. Nor is this uniform hallucination confined to
England. Mr. Podmore quotes a German example, and I received a similar
testimony (to the flight of an object round a corner) from a gentleman who
employed Esther Teed, 'the Amherst Mystery,' in his service. _He_ was not
excited, for he was normally engaged in his normal stable, when the
incident occurred unexpe