The Weird Adventures of Professor Delapine of the Sorbonne

The narrator records the strange experiences of a university scholar whose inquiries into spiritualism lead him and acquaintances through séances, hypnotic trances, clairvoyant experiences, telepathy, dual consciousness, and alleged materializations. Investigations mix scientific experiments with personal drama: a mysterious visitation tied to a young woman's grief, demonstrations of moving objects without contact and controlling a roulette ball, and a prolonged trance whose reality remains debated. The episodes culminate in gambling exploits, discoveries by a physician friend, a vigil against a looming danger, and changing fortunes that bring public notoriety, moral reckonings, and the dissolution of the social circle.