Phenomena of Materialisation - A Contribution to the Investigation of Mediumistic Teleplastics #271786

Hypnotism, which encountered more opposition than anything else, is now the common property of psychology, and the cure of nervous disease. At all times new discoveries have encountered Violent opposi tion. Facts were denied because they did not fit into the theories prevailing at the time, or because fantastic people drew unwarrantable conclusions from them. A particularly instructive example of this kind is furnished by meteoric stones, whose actuality struggled long for recognition. Thus Chladni1 complains in his work on Fiery Meteors of the treatment accorded to him by his colleagues: When my work appeared, the majority of them declared the whole contents to be foolishness, as indeed I had expected. It was said in the General German Library that my assertions were unworthy of refutation. J. A. Du Luc expressed himself in this sense, that if he had seen such a stone fall at his feet he would have said, I have seen it, and yet I do not believe it.