at B---- in 1896 were there with Miss Freer. This bars one type of
fraud being alleged. Sanders, besides hearing thumping, groans, and the
rustling of a lady's dress, had his bedclothes lifted up and let fall
again--"first at the foot of my bed, but gradually coming towards the
head." He held the clothes round his neck with his hands, but they were
"gently lifted in spite of my efforts to hold them."

This simply means that he had cramps, resulting from the effect of
hypnotism on the muscles of his legs. The writer believes that the force
always acts from the feet, or rather one foot, upwards; obviously a man
sitting or standing up must be approached that way, and habit causes the
electric stream to flow in that direction. But this cramp is not felt so
keenly as is the case when cramp arises from a constrained position. The
consequence is that the kicks given to relieve it are not so violent and
decisive. They are repeated automatically, until the bedclothes fly up
finally near the head, as is described. The intervals between the
flights of the clothes seem shorter than they are; this is again due to
hypnotic influence, as in spiritistic performances and in conjuring,
where, as M. Binet has recently remarked, a little hypnotism always comes
in.

Thus in Mr. Austin Podmore's account of Mr. Davey's seance, his attention
was called away for two or three minutes without his noting it. We may
take it for granted that the kickings up of the bedclothes during which
Sanders became weak and faint, lasted ten minutes or more. "Being fanned
as though some bird were flying round my head," arose from his own breath
after his efforts; he felt it the more as he had got warm.[29] The sound
of breathing may have been of his own, but is not unlikely to have been
the transferred sound of the breathing of one of two people hypnotising
him. The feeling of the bed being carried round (or moved) towards the
window is a feeling of reaction: a man sticks his back against the bed to
resist the material and mental pressure, and the relief felt as the
effort ceases gives him the impression that the bed has been swung
towards the window, towards which he naturally looks, since the slight
draught refreshes him and diverts the attack. That he actually felt some
one making passes over him is not an error; he had two antagonists; one
of whom, like the young engineer Cleave,[30] was hypnotised by the other,
both willing the hypnotism of Sanders.

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