THE EQUINOX
science and reason broader horizons than those of a bourgeois
criticism, which denies everything which it does not yet know
how to explain to itself. Facts are inexorable, and genuine
good faith should never fear to examine them.
The explanation of these facts, which all traditions obsti-
nately affirm, and which are reproduced before our eyes with
tiresome publicity, this explanation, ancient as the facts
themselves, rigorous as mathematics, but drawn for the first
time from the shadows in which the hierophants of all
ages have hidden it, would be a great scientific event if it
could obtain sufficient light and publicity. This event we are
perhaps about to prepare, for one would not permit us the
audacious hope of accomplishing it.
Here, in the first place, are the facts, in all their
singularity. We have verified them, and we have established
them with a rigorous exactitude, abstaining in the first place
from all explanation and all commentary.
Mr. Home is subject to trances which put him, according
to his own account, in direct communication with the soul of
his mother, and, through her, with the entire world of spirits.
He describes, like the sleep-wakers of Cahagnet, persons
whom he has never seen, and who are recognized by those
who evoke them; he will tell you even their names, and will
reply, on their behalf, to questions which can be understood
only by the soul evoked and yourselves.
When he is ina room, inexplicable noises make themselves
heard. Violent blows resound upon the furniture, and in the
walls; sometimes doors and windows open by themselves, as
if they were blown open by a storm; one even hears the wind
and the rain, though when one goes out of doors, the sky
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