Research source

The bench was believed, by the credulous Mongols, to carry the Lama!

Date of account: Published 1894
Source: Cock Lane and Common-Sense
Reference: Cock Lane and Common-Sense · selected passage 41
Rights: public_domain
Language: English
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

Published source text

Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.

Source passage

Source text · mention only

The bench was believed, by the credulous Mongols, to carry the Lama! Among the Manyanja of Africa thefts are detected by young men holding sticks in their hands. After a sufficient amount of incantation, dancing, and convulsions, the sticks became possessed, the men 'can hardly hold them,' and are dragged after them in the required directions. {50a} These examples are analogous to the use of the Divining Rod, which is probably moved unconsciously by honest 'dowsers'; 'sometimes they believe that they can hardly hold it'. These are cases of movement of objects in contact with human muscles, and are therefore not at all mysterious in origin. A regular case of movement _without_ contact was reported from Thibet, by M. Tscherepanoff, in 1855. The modern epidemic of table-turning had set in, when M. Tscherepanoff wrote thus to the Abeille Russe: {50b} 'The Lama can find stolen objects by following a table which flies before him'. But the Lama, after being asked to trace an object, requires an interval of some days, before he sets about finding it.

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

This comes from historical psychical research. Methods, witness handling and standards of evidence differ from present-day research and should be assessed from the cited passage and edition.

Modern context

Contextual commentary · mention only

The passage can support a history of claims and recurring descriptions. It does not establish a paranormal mechanism, and competing psychological, social and physical explanations remain relevant.

Investigate related details with Anomaly Graph’s account-based search, or read how matching and provenance work.