The Weird Adventures of Professor Delapine of the Sorbonne

When travelling in France a few years ago during the summer vacation, I made the acquaintance of a professor of world-wide fame, which acquaintance soon ripened into a lasting friendship. Among the various subjects which we dealt with in our conversation, I happened to mention spiritualism. I told him how bitterly disappointed I had been at the various séances I had attended. Either the séance had passed off without any phenomena at all, or if anything did occur, it had turned out invariably to be a palpable fraud, and had left me more sceptical than ever--besides, I added, the oracular utterances delivered by the medium when in an hysterical condition, which is palmed off to the audience as a trance, were so nonsensical and meaningless as to leave me in doubt whether to be amused at the gullibility of the public, or disgusted at the time I had thrown away in listening to such nonsense.

"Yes," replied the Professor thoughtfully, "that always used to be my view of spiritualism, but since I have seriously examined the subject for myself I have entirely changed my views on the subject. So far from scoffing at it, as I confess I used to, I am now convinced that the real phenomena are far and away more astonishing than are these which these charlatans profess to exhibit or actually produce by conjuring and fraud. Now, if you wish to be convinced that there are genuine phenomena, come with me to Paris and we will investigate the subject together at the great S.... Hospital. Here we found indeed a rich field for our studies. We witnessed there all the phenomena of suggestion, second-sight, clair-audience, hypnotism, dual-consciousness, telepathy, the movement of objects without contact, and many other occurrences of such a surprising nature that in our present state of ignorance they appeared to be altogether outside the laws of Nature as we understand them; and I went away entirely convinced that certain people possess powers such as we ordinary mortals have never even dreamt of."

While I was staying at his hotel, the Professor narrated to me the extraordinary history of Professor Delapine, which he assured me was true, and which with his permission I committed to writing, and worked up into a novel. Observing the intense interest which I exhibited in his narrative, he was kind enough to introduce me to the Professor himself as well as to several of the other characters, and thereby enabled me to fill up the gaps. What I heard certainly bore out the adage that "truth is stranger than fiction." For obvious reasons I have not given the real names to the characters referred to in the novel, since Delapine, Madame Delapine, (Renée), Marcel, and Dr. Riche are still hale and hearty, and very distinguished and popular members of society.

It is needless to say that the coup at the tables related as taking place at Monte Carlo, as well as other events mentioned in these chapters, have been disguised so as to prevent identification of the parties concerned by the general public, although the actors themselves will doubtless recognise and appreciate the details of the narrative.

Should any of our readers be sceptical as to the ability of a person to move objects without contact, and to stop a ball at will on a roulette table, I can only refer them to the experiments of Dr. Ochorowicz[1] which will be found in the June Number of the Annals of Psychical Research for the year 1905, wherein will be found an exhausted series of experiments made with a Polish medium named "Julie." In this paper the doctor demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that "Julie" could cause the ball to fall into any of the compartments of the roulette table which the doctor selected in a large percentage of the trials, and, when it failed to tumble into the right compartment, it usually fell into one or other on either side of it.

As regards the trance, I have purposely prolonged its duration to fit in with the plot of the novel, and I have also introduced certain alterations and additions in order to make the story more complete.

I may remark further that the phantom scene of Renée's mother may possibly have been an hallucination on the girl's part, as I have no direct proof of its occurrence, and have only the testimony of a highly emotional girl wearied out with vigils to rely upon. Of course there is the evidence of the lock of hair, which may be seen even to-day, but to my mind that is not sufficiently convincing, and would certainly not be allowed as evidence in a court of law.

Still others who were present assured me that they saw the same phantom (or materialized form) at the séance, and the evidence of such materialization has the great support of one of our most eminent scientists who has a well-deserved reputation for extreme accuracy of statement and cautiousness, and who has assured me personally that he has both seen, handled, and conversed with such an apparition, which was just as real and clothed with the same flesh and blood as any other human being, and he is as certain of its genuineness as he is of his own existence. Moreover, he has repeatedly photographed both the medium and the spirit-form singly and together, which photographs I have seen. Personally I have never witnessed a materialized form, and can only reserve my judgment as to the reality of the phenomenon.

But I feel sure all interpolations and additions will be pardoned by the reader; since the object aimed at was to clothe the real facts with a halo of romance, and thus, without detracting too much from the truth, to render the story much more interesting to the reader.