At the séances of 10th May, 1920, four cameras were used, including a stereoscopic camera. One exposure showed 'a small hand on the left shoulder', another 'a flickering mass of light'. On 28th May Eva's head was sewn up in a veil and the audience 'realized that the object was forced out of her mouth through the veil'.
There were doubters and sceptics, but even they could not say how the phenomena connected with Eva C could be explained. The English Society published accounts of them, both in its periodical and in special reports.
In Paris Professor H. Clararede, Geneva, and Professor de Fontenay of the Sorbonne, as well as leading doctors from Paris hospitals attended Eva's demonstrations. Dr. Bourbon, who took the notes, writes: Everything that I saw at numerous séances was more than enough to convince me that we were faced with apparitions which originate from an as yet quite unknown field of biology. ...
The Nobel Prizewinner Charles Richet wrote to Dr. von Schrenck-Notzing: As far as my former experiments are concerned, I do not wish to retract a word. And I refer to that great and noble scholar William Crookes, who only recently said: 'I take nothing of what I have said back.' Criticism must be exercised, that is a condition of science. In due course the truth will come to light in all its beauty, but it will not be brought to light by incompetents and ignoramuses, who have seen nothing, checked nothing, examined nothing, indeed have not even read the record carefully, but rather by the scholars who have really worked and experimented without cease, who prefer truth to probability .... It is surely not our fault if the metaphysical field offers so many improbabilities and contradictions. ...
To the extent that the documentation of Eva C's case is available, it can be objectively stated that the theory of cheating is not tenable, that Eva C complied with the requirements of the scientific boards, that well over a hundred people observed and confirmed the materializations. One of Dr. Schenck- Notzing's arguments seems convincing to me. Why should Eva C have exposed herself to the gruesome tests described without getting any material benefits from them? There are large numbers of cases of materialization for which validity is claimed, but Eva C's case has kept its special position to the present day, because none of the others was so painstakingly recorded and documented. For that reason it constantly reappears as an example in the scientific literature of parapsychology.
There remains the final comment on Eva C's case by Professor Mikuska, University of Genoa: So it is reserved for an occult biology of the future to research into the mystery of life, the connection between spirit and matter, soul and body, the living and the lifeless. Already today we are shown that the spirit, the idea, the will is the driving agent behind teleplastic manifestations and we hope that in the not too distant future it will bring us closer to the great mystery of how the universe in its totality, and cosmic processes in the infinity of their development and perfection, originate through creative acts of will by the universal spirit.
Materializations of the kind so common with Eva C have nothing to do with spiritualism (*) and very little to do with the occult, (+) for the phenomenal apparitions were visible, tangible and could be photographed. What happened and was checked in the case described is certainly not a unique case. I do not doubt the documentary reports of Dr. von Schrenck-Notzing and his fellow-scientists. Instead I ask a question which was not yet topical at that time: what form of energy was involved?
----
[*] Spiritualism says that reported phenomena ate traceable to the intervention of the spirit world in this world.
[+] Latin, occultum, the hidden. The doctrine that there are natural and psychic facts which cannot be incorporated into the existing scheme of science. Today attempts are made to investigate occult apparitions by scientific methods.
---- Eva C was in a hypnotic trance during the séances, i.e. in a state of consciousness that precludes the use of free will. The subconscious as a form of energy (for the production of materializations) is conceivable, even though not yet proved. But could converted forms of the energy of dead people perhaps be involved? That supposition is not so absurd as it may seem; if anything it is a logical continuation of the 'energy principle' into virtually virgin territory. If all forms of energy are convertible into one another - one of the few completely accepted and indisputable laws of nature! - the conscious energies of dead people must also be convertible.
For thousands of years we knew nothing about what happened to consciousness after death, apart from vague philosophical and religious speculations. (The 'soul' goes up to heaven. Thus immortality was already ascribed to the consciousness = soul!) Modern research is on the point of carefully removing the dark cloths which were spread over a supposedly inexplicable mystery, and what it has already brought to light appears to show that the consciousness (ergo, conscious energy) of the dead is by no means 'dead'! Might the conscious energies of dead people have been active during the 'host miracle' at Carabandal on the night of 18th July, 1962, when a host-like object materialized on the tongue of the girl Conchita? What stage has the exploitation of these phenomena reached today?