Research source

My first tentative experiment, addressed to Leopold, had no appreciable influence on the course of the Martian…

Date of account: English edition published 1900
Source: From India to the planet Mars: A study of a case of somnambulism with glossolalia
Reference: From India to the planet Mars: A study of a case of somnambulism with glossolalia · selected passage 224
Rights: public_domain
Language: English translation from French
Translation: English translation of Théodore Flournoy
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

My first tentative experiment, addressed to Leopold, had no appreciable influence on the course of the Martian cycle

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

My first tentative experiment, addressed to Leopold, had no appreciable influence on the course of the Martian cycle. It was at the seance of February 13, 1898. Hélène was profoundly asleep, and Leopold was conversing with us by gestures of the arm and spelling on the fingers. I categorically informed him of my certainty that the Martian was of terrestrial fabrication, and that a comparison with the French proved it so to be. As Leopold responded by emphatic gestures of dissent, I detailed to him some evidences, among others the accord of the two languages as to their pronunciation of _ch_, as to the homonym of the pronoun and article _le_. He listened to me, and seemed to understand my arguments, but he refused to admit the force of these characteristic coincidences, and said: “There are some things more extraordinary,” and was unwilling to give up the authenticity of the Martian. We stood by our respective opinions, and the later texts do not show any trace of our interview.

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.

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