§ 3. The novelty of this departure—as has been already intimated—consists in the fact that successful results have been obtained when the percipient was apparently in a perfectly normal state, and had been subjected to no mesmerising or hypnotising process. The dawn of the discovery must be referred to the years 1875 and 1876. It was in the autumn of the latter year that our colleague, Professor W. F. Barrett, brought under the notice of the British Association, at Glasgow, a cautious statement of some remarkable facts which he had encountered, and a suggestion of the expediency of ascertaining how far recognised physiological laws would account for them. The facts themselves were connected with mesmerism;1 1 Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, Vol. i., pp. 241–2. but the discussion in the Press to which the paper gave rise led to a considerable correspondence, in which Professor Barrett found his first hints of a faculty of thought-transference existing independently of the specific mesmeric rapport.
That these hints happened to be forthcoming, just at the right moment, was a piece of great good fortune, and was due {i-14} primarily to a circumstance quite unconnected with science, and from which serious results would scarcely have been anticipated—the invention of the “willing-game.” In some form or other this pastime is probably familiar to most of my readers, either through personal trials or through the exhibitions of platform performers. The ordinary process is this. A member of the party, who is to act as “thought-reader,” or percipient, leaves the room; the rest determine on some simple action which he, or she, is to perform, or hide some object which he is to find. The would-be percipient is then recalled, and his hand is taken or his shoulders are lightly touched by one or more of the willers. Under these conditions the action is often quickly performed or the object found. Nothing could at first sight look less like a promising starting-point for a new branch of inquiry. The “willer” usually asserts, with perfect good faith, and often perhaps quite correctly, that he did not push; but so little is it necessary for the guiding impression to be a push that it may be the very reverse—a slight release of tension when the “willed” performer, after various minute indications of a tendency to move in this, that, or the other wrong direction, at last hits on the right one. Even when the utmost care is used to maintain the light contact with absolute neutrality, it is impossible to lay down the limits of any given subject’s sensibility to such slight tactile and muscular hints. The experiments of Drs. Carpenter and Beard, and especially those of a member of our own Society, the Rev. E. H. Sugden, of Bradford,1 1 Proceedings of the S.P.R., Vol. i, p. 291; Vol. ii., p. 11. and other unpublished ones on which we can rely, have shown us that the difference between one person and another in this respect is very great, and that with some organisations a variation of pressure so slight that the supposed “willer” may be quite unaware of exercising it, but which he applies according as the movements of the other person are on the right track or not, may afford a kind of yes or no indication quite sufficient for a clue. This, indeed, is the one direct piece of instruction which the game has supplied. We might perhaps have been to some extent prepared for the result by observing the infinitesimal touches to which a horse will respond, or the extremely slight indications on which we ourselves often act in ordinary life. But till this game was played, probably no one fully realised that muscular hints, so slight as to be quite unconsciously given, could be equally unconsciously {i-15} taken; and that thus a definite course of action might be produced without the faintest idea of guidance on either side. In some cases it appeared that even contact could be dispensed with, and the guidance was presumably of an auditory kind—the “subject” extracting from the mere footsteps of the “willer”, who was following him about, hints of satisfaction or dissatisfaction at the course he was taking.1 1See the record of Mr. A. E. Outerbridge’s experiments, published by Dr. Beard in the American Popular Science Monthly for July, 1877. But though this remarkable susceptibility to a particular order of impressions was an interesting discovery, the results which could be thus explained clearly involved nothing new in kind. That recognised faculties may exhibit unsuspected degrees of refinement is a common enough conception. The more important point was that there were certain results which, apparently, could not be thus explained, at any rate, in any off-hand way. Occasionally the actions required of the “willed” performer were of so complicated a sort, and so rapidly carried out, as to cast considerable doubt on the adequacy of any muscular hints to evoke and guide them. Here, then, was the first indication of something new—of a hitherto unrecognised faculty; and by good fortune, as I have said, Professor Barrett’s appeal for further evidence as to transferred impressions came just at the time when the game had obtained a certain amount of popularity, and when its more delicate and unaccountable phenomena had attracted attention.
Meanwhile similar observations were being made in America. America, indeed, was the original home of the “willing” entertainment; and it is to an American, Dr. McGraw, that the credit belongs of having been the first (as far as I am aware) to detect in it the possible germ of something new to science. In the Detroit Review of Medicine for August, 1875, Dr. McGraw gave a clear account of the ordinary physiological process—“the perception by a trained operator of involuntary and unconscious muscular movements”; and then proceeded as follows:—
“It seemed to me that there were features in these exhibitions which could not be satisfactorily explained on the hypothesis of involuntary muscular action, for … we are required to believe a man could unwillingly, and in spite of himself, give information by unconscious and involuntary signs that he could not give under the same circumstances by voluntary and conscious action … It seems to me there is a hint towards the possibility of the nervous system of one individual being used by the active will of another to accomplish certain simple motions.”
{i-16}
But though there might be enough in the phenomena to justify cautious suggestions of this sort, the ground is at best very uncertain. Even where some nicety of selection is involved, as, for instance, when a particular note is to be struck on the piano, or a particular book to be taken out of a shelf, still, unless the subject’s hand moves with extreme rapidity, it will be perfectly possible for an involuntary and unconscious indication to be given by the “willer” at the instant that the right note or book is reached. In reports of such cases it is sometimes stated that there was no tentative process, and that the “subject’s” hand seemed to obey the other person’s will with almost the same directness as that person’s own hand would have done. But this is a question of degree as to which the confidence of an eye-witness cannot easily be imparted to others. It may be worth while, however, to give an instance of a less common type by which the theory of muscular guidance does undoubtedly seem to be somewhat strained.
The case was observed by Mr. Myers on October 31st, 1877. The performers were two sisters.
“I wrote the letters of the alphabet on scraps of paper. I then thought of the word CLARA and showed it to M. behind R.’s back, R. sitting at the table. M. put her hands on R.’s shoulders, and R. with shut eyes picked out the letters C L A R V—taking the V apparently for a second A, which was not in the pack—and laid them in a heap. She did not know, she said, what letters she had selected. No impulse had consciously passed through her mind, only she had felt her hands impelled to pick up certain bits of paper.
“This was a good case as apparently excluding pushing. The scraps were in a confused heap in front of R., who kept still further confusing them, picking them up and letting them drop with great rapidity. M.’s hands remained apparently motionless on R.’s shoulders, and one can hardly conceive that indications could be given by pressure, from the rapid and snatching manner in which R. collected the right letters, touching several letters in the course of a second. M., however, told me that it was always necessary that she, M., should see the letters which R. was to pick up.”
Such a case may not suggest thought-transference, but it at any rate tempts one to look deeper than crude sensory signs for the springs of action, and to conceive the governance of one organism by another through some sort of nervous induction. It at any rate differs greatly in its conditions from the famous bank-note trick, where a number is written on a board, so slowly, and in figures of so large a size, that at every point the “willer” may mark his {i-17} opinion of the direction the lines are taking by involuntary muscular hints.
It would be useless to accumulate further instances. The best of them could never be wholly conclusive, and mere multiplication adds nothing to their weight. By some of them, as I have said, the theory of muscular guidance is undoubtedly strained. But then the theory of muscular guidance ought to be strained, and strained to the very utmost, before being declared inadequate; and it would always be a matter of opinion whether the point of “utmost” strain had been overpassed. Dr. McGraw and Professor Barrett surmised that it had; Dr. Beard, of New York, was confident that it had not. The contention between “mind-reading” and “muscle-reading” could never reach a definite issue on this ground. But meanwhile the confident and exclusive adherents of the muscular hypothesis had a position of decided advantage over the doubters, for they could fairly enough represent themselves as the champions of science in its war with popular superstitions. The popular imagination more suoin its usual manner had fastened on the phenomena en bloc, and had decided that they were what they seemed to be—“thought-reading.” To the average sightseer a mysterious word is far more congenial than a physiological explanation; and it was, of course, the interest of the professional exhibitor to adopt and advertise a description which seemed to invest him with novel and magical powers. What more natural, therefore, than that those who saw the absurdity of these pretensions should regard further inquiry or suspension of judgment as a concession to ignorant credulity? “Irving Bishop,” it seemed fair to argue, “is a professed ‘thought-reader’; Irving Bishop’s tricks are, at best, mere feats of muscular and tactile sensibility; ergo whoever believes that there is such a thing as ‘thought-reading’ is on a par with the crowd who are mystified by Irving Bishop.”
§ 4. If, then, the ground of experiment had remained unchanged—if the old “willing-game” had merely continued to appear in various forms—no definite advance could have been made. But on the path of the old experiments, a quite new phenomenon now presented itself, which no one could have confidently anticipated, but for which the suggestions drawn from the most advanced phenomena of the “willing-game” had to some extent prepared the way. It was discovered that not only transferences of impression could take place without contact, but that there was no necessity for the result aimed {i-18} at to involve movements; the fact of the transference might be shown, not—as in the “willing-game”—by the subject’s ability to do something, but by his ability to discern and describe an object thought of by the “willer.” Both parties could thus remain perfectly still; which was really a more important condition than even the absence of contact. In this form of experiment, muscle-reading and all the subtler forms of unconscious guidance are completely excluded; and the dangers which remain are such as can, with sufficient care, be clearly defined and safely guarded against. Indications of a visual kind—for instance, by the involuntary direction of glances—have no scope if the object which the percipient is to name is not present or visible in the room. There is, of course, an obvious danger in low whispering, or even soundless movements of the lips; while the faintest accent of approval or disapproval in question or comment may give a hint as to whether the effort is tending in the right direction, and thus guide to the mark by successive approximations. Any exhibition of the kind before a promiscuous company is nearly sure to be vitiated by the latter source of error. But when the experiments are carried on in a limited circle of persons known to each other, and amenable to scientific control, it is not hard for those engaged to set a watch on their own and on each other’s lips; and questions and comments can be entirely forbidden.
I have been speaking of the danger of involuntary guidance. There is, of course, another danger to be considered—that of voluntary guidance—of actual collusion between the agent and percipient. Contact being excluded, such guidance would have to be by signals; and it is impossible to lay down any precise limit to the degree of perfection that a plan of signalling may reach. The long and short signs of the Morse code admit of many varieties of application; and though the channels of sight and touch may be cut off, it is difficult entirely to cut off that of hearing. Shufflings of the feet, coughs, irregularities of breathing, all offer available material. But though the precise line of possibilities in this direction cannot be drawn, we are at any rate able to suggest cases where the line would be clearly overpassed. For instance, if the idea to be transferred from the agent to the percipient is inexpressible in less than twenty words; and if hearing is the only sensory channel left open; and if it is carefully observed that there are no coughs or shufflings, and that the agent’s breathing appears regular, then one seems justified in saying that the necessary information could not be conveyed by a code {i-19} without a very considerable expenditure of time, and a very abnormally acute sense of hearing on the percipient’s part. There is no relation whatever between a private experiment performed under such conditions as these, and the feats of a conjurer, like Mr. Maskelyne, who commands secret apparatus, and whose every word and gesture may be observed and interpreted by a concealed confederate.
It would be rash, however, to represent as crucial any apparent transferences of thought between persons not absolutely separated, where the good faith of at least one of the two is not accepted as beyond question, and where the genuineness of the result is left to depend on the perfection with which third parties have arranged conditions and guarded against signs. The conditions of a crucial result, for one’s own mind, are either (1) that the agent or the percipient shall be oneself; or (2) that the agent or percipient shall be someone whose experience, as recorded by himself, is indistinguishable in certainty from one’s own; or (3) that there shall be several agents or percipients, in the case of each of whom the improbability of deceit, or of such imbecility as would take the place of deceit, is so great that the combination of improbabilities amounts to a moral impossibility. The third mode of attaining conviction is the most practically important. For it is not to be expected of most people that, within a short time, they will either themselves be, or have intimate friends who are, successful agents or percipients; and they are justified, therefore, in demanding that the evidence to which they might fairly refuse credence if it depended on the veracity and intelligence of one or two persons, of however unblemished a reputation, shall be multiplied for their benefit. Whatever be the experimenter’s assurance as to the perfection of his conditions, it is in the nature of things impossible that strangers, who only read and have not seen, should be infected by it. They cannot be absolutely certain that this, that, or the other stick might not break; then enough sticks must be collected and tied together to make a faggot of a strength which shall defy suspicion.1 1 In reference to the objection that the demand for quantity of evidence shows that we know the quality of each item to be bad, I may quote the following passage from a presidential address of Professor Sidgwick’s: “The quality of much of our evidence—when considered apart from the strangeness of the matters to which it refers—is not bad, but very good: it is such that one or two items of it would be held to establish the occurrence, at any particular time and place, of any phenomenon whose existence was generally accepted. Since, however, on this subject the best single testimony only yields an improbability of the testimony being false that is outweighed by the improbability of the fact being true, the only way to make the scale fall on the side of the testimony is to increase the quantity. If the testimony were not good, this increase of quantity would be of little value; but if it is such that the hypothesis of its falsity requires us to suppose abnormal motiveless deceit, or abnormal stupidity or carelessness, in a person hitherto reputed honest and intelligent, then an increase in the number of cases in which such a supposition is required adds importantly to the improbability of the general hypothesis. It
is sometimes said by loose thinkers that the ‘moral factor’ ought not to come in at all. But the least reflection shows that the moral factor must come in in all the reasonings of experimental science, except for those who have personally repeated all the experiments on which their conclusions are based. Any one who accepts the report of the experiments of another must rely, not only on his intelligence, but on his honesty: only ordinarily his honesty is so completely assumed that the assumption is not noticed.” As regards the experiments {i-20} of which I am about to present a sketch, it is not necessary to my argument that any individual’s honesty shall be completely assumed, in the sense of being used as a certain basis for conclusions. The proof must depend on the number of persons, reputed honest and intelligent, to whom dishonesty or imbecility must be attributed if the conclusions are wrong, i.e., it must be a cumulative proof. Not that my colleagues and I have any doubt as to the bona fides of every case here recorded. But even where our grounds of certainty are most obvious, they cannot be made entirely obvious to those to whom we and our more intimate associates are personally unknown; while outside this inner circle our confidence depends on points that can scarcely even be suggested to others—on views of character gradually built up out of a number of small and often indefinable items of conversation and demeanour. We may venture to say that a candid critic, present during the whole course of the experiments, would have carried away a far more vivid impression of their genuineness than any printed record can convey. But it must be distinctly understood that we discriminate our cases; and that even where the results are to our own minds crucial—in that they can only be impugned by impugning the honesty or sanity of members of our own investigating Committee—we do not demand their acceptance on this ground alone, or attempt accurately to define the number of reputations which should be staked before a fair mind ought to admit the proof as overwhelming. As observations are accumulated, different “fair minds” will give in at different points; and until the most exacting are satisfied, our task will be incomplete.
§ 5. I mentioned above the correspondence which followed Professor Barrett’s appeal for evidence. In this correspondence, among many instances of the higher aspects of the “willing-game,” there was a small residue which pointed to a genuine transference of impression without contact or movement. Of this residue the most important item was that supplied by our friend, the Rev. A. M. Creery, then {i-21} resident at Buxton, and now working in the diocese of Manchester. He had his attention called to the subject in October, 1880; and was early struck by the impossibility of deciding, in cases where contact was employed, how far the powers of unconscious muscular guidance might extend. He, therefore, instituted experiments with his daughters and with a young maid-servant, in which contact was altogether eschewed. He thus describes the early trials:—
“Each went out of the room in turn, while I and the others fixed on some object which the absent one was to name on returning to the room. After a few trials the successes preponderated so much over the failures that we were all convinced there was something very wonderful coming under our notice. Night after night, for several months, we spent an hour or two each evening in varying the conditions of the experiments, and choosing new subjects for thought-transference. We began by selecting the simplest objects in the room; then chose names of towns, names of people, dates, cards out of a pack, lines from different poems, &c., in fact any things or series of ideas that those present could keep steadily before their minds; and when the children were in good humour, and excited by the wonderful nature of their successful guessing, they very seldom made a mistake. I have seen seventeen cards, chosen by myself, named right in succession, without any mistake. We soon found that a great deal depended on the steadiness with which the ideas were kept before the minds of ‘the thinkers,’ and upon the energy with which they willed the ideas to pass. Our worst experiments before strangers have invariably been when the company was dull and undemonstrative; and we are all convinced that when mistakes are made, the fault rests, for the most part, with the thinkers, rather than with the thought-readers.”
In the course of the years 1881 and 1882, a large number of experiments were made with the Creery family, first by Professor Barrett, then by Mr. and Mrs. Sidgwick, by Professor Balfour Stewart, F.R.S., and Professor Alfred Hopkinson, of Owens College, Manchester, and, after the formation of the Society for Psychical Research, by the Thought-transference Committee of that body, of which Mr. Myers and myself were members. The children in turn acted as “percipients,” the other persons present being “agents,” i.e., concentrating their minds on the idea of some selected word or thing, with the intention that this idea should be transferred to the percipient’s mind. The thing selected was either a card, taken at random from a full pack; or a name chosen also at random; or a number, usually of two figures; or occasionally some domestic implement or other object in the house. The percipient was, of course, absent when the selection was made, and when recalled had no means of discovering through the exercise of the senses what it was, unless by signals, consciously or unconsciously {i-22} given by one or other of the agents. Strict silence was maintained throughout each experiment, and when the group of agents included any members of the Creery family, the closest watch was kept in order to detect any passage of signals; but in hundreds of trials nothing was observed which suggested any attempt of the sort. Still, such simple objects would not demand an elaborate code for their description; nor were any effective means taken to block the percipient’s channels of sense—it being thought expedient in these early trials not to disturb their minds by obtrusive precautions. We could not, therefore, regard the testimony of the investigators present as adding much weight to the experiments in which any members of the family were among the group of agents, unless the percipient was completely isolated from that group. Such a case was the following:—
“Easter, 1881. Present: Mr. and Mrs. Creery and family, and W. F. Barrett, the narrator. One of the children was sent into an adjoining room, the door of which I saw was closed. On returning to the sitting-room and closing its door also, I thought of some object in the house, fixed upon at random; writing the name down, I showed it to the family present, the strictest silence being preserved throughout. We then all silently thought of the name of the thing selected. In a few seconds the door of the adjoining room was heard to open, and after a very short interval the child would enter the sitting-room, generally with the object selected. No one was allowed to leave the sitting-room after the object had been fixed upon; no communication with the child was conceivable, as her place was often changed. Further, the only instructions given to the child were to fetch some object in the house that I would fix upon, and, together with the family, silently keep in mind, to the exclusion, as far as possible, of all other ideas. In this way I wrote down, among other things, a hair-brush; it was brought: an orange; it was brought: a wine glass; it was brought: an apple; it was brought: a toasting-fork; failed on the first attempt, a pair of tongs being brought, but on a second trial it was brought. With another child (among other trials not here mentioned) a cup was written down by me; it was brought: a saucer; this was a failure, a plate being brought; no second trial allowed. The child being told it was a saucer, replied, ‘That came into my head, but I hesitated as I thought it unlikely you would name saucer after cup, as being too easy.’”
But, of course, the most satisfactory condition was that only the members of the investigating Committee should act as agents, so that signals could not possibly be given unless by one of them. This condition clearly makes it idle to represent the means by which the transferences took place as simply a trick which the members of the investigating Committee failed to detect. The trick, if trick there {i-23} was, must have been one in which they, or one of them, actively shared; the only alternative to collusion on their part being some piece of carelessness amounting almost to idiocy—such as uttering the required word aloud, or leaving the selected card exposed on the table. The following series of experiments was made on April 13th, 1882. The agents were Mr. Myers and the present writer, and two ladies of their acquaintance, the Misses Mason, of Morton Hall, Retford, who had become interested in the subject by the remarkable successes which one of them had obtained in experimenting among friends.1 1 See Miss Mason’s interesting paper on the subject in Macmillan’s Magazine for October, 1882. As neither of these ladies had ever seen any member of the Creery family till just before the experiments began, they had no opportunities for arranging a code of signals with the children; so that any hypothesis of collusion must in this case be confined to Mr. Myers or the present writer. As regards the hypothesis of want of intelligence, the degree of intelligent behaviour required of each of the four agents was simply this: (1) To keep silence on a particular subject; and (2) to avoid unconsciously displaying a particular card or piece of paper to a person situated at some yards’ distance. The first condition was realised by keeping silence altogether; the second by remaining quite still. The four observers were perfectly satisfied that the children had no means at any moment of seeing, either directly or by reflection, the selected card or the name of the selected object. The following is the list of trials:—
- Objects to be named. (These objects had been brought, and still remained, in the pocket of one of the visitors. The name of the object selected for trial was secretly written down, not spoken.)
- A White Penknife.—Correctly named, with the colour, the first trial.
- Box of Almonds.—Correctly named.
- Threepenny piece.—Failed.
- Box of Chocolate.—Button-box said; no second trial given.
- (A penknife was then hidden; but the place was not discovered.)
- Numbers to be named.
- Five.—Rightly given on the first trial.
- Fourteen.—Failed.
- Thirty-three.—54 (No). 34 (No). 33 (Right).
- Sixty-eight.—58 (No). 57 (No). 78 (No).
- Fictitious names to be guessed.
- Martha Billings.—“Biggis” was said.
{i-24}
- Catherine Smith.—“Catherine Shaw” was said.
- Henry Gowper.—Failed.
- Cards to be named.
- Two of clubs.—Right first time.
- Queen of diamonds.—Right first time.
- Four of spades.—Failed.
- Four of hearts.—Right first time.
- King of hearts.—Right first time.
- Two of diamonds.—Right first time.
- Ace of hearts.—Right first time.
- Nine of spades.—Right first time.
- Five of diamonds.—Four of diamonds (No). Four of hearts (No).
- Five of diamonds (Right).
- Two of spades.—Right first time.
- Eight of diamonds.—Ace of diamonds said; no second trial given.
- Three of hearts.—Right first time.
- Five of clubs.—Failed.
- Ace of spades.—Failed.
The chances against accidental success in the case of any one card are, of course, 51 to 1; yet out of fourteen successive trials nine were successful at the first guess, and only three trials can be said to have been complete failures. The odds against the occurrence of the five successes running, in the card series, are considerably over 1,000,000 to 1. On none of these occasions was it even remotely possible for the child to obtain by any ordinary means a knowledge of the object selected. Our own facial expression was the only index open to her; and even if we had not purposely looked as neutral as possible, it is difficult to imagine how we could have unconsciously carried, say, the two of diamonds written on our foreheads.
During the ensuing year, the Committee, consisting of Professor Barrett, Mr. Myers, and the present writer, made a number of experiments under similar conditions, which excluded contact and movement, and which confined the knowledge of the selected object—and, therefore, the chance of collusion with the percipient—to their own group. In some of these trials, conducted at Cambridge, Mrs. F. W. H. Myers and Miss Mason also took part. In a long series conducted at Dublin, Professor Barrett was alone with the percipient. Altogether these scrupulously guarded trials amounted to 497; and of this number 95 were completely successful at the first guess, and 45 at the second. The results may be clearer if arranged in a tabular form.
{i-25}
TABLE SHOWING THE SUCCESS OBTAINED WHEN THE SELECTED OBJECT WAS KNOWN TO ONE OR MORE OF THE INVESTIGATING COMMITTEE ONLY.
Place of Trial. |
Object Chosen. |
No. of Trials. |
Probability of success by mere chance at each 1st guess. |
Most probable number of successes at the 1st guess if chance alone acted. |
Number of successes obtained |
Number of successes reckoning both 1st and 2nd guesses. |
Probability of attaining by mere chance the amount of success which the first guesses gave. |
At the 1st guess. |
At the 2nd guess after the 1st had failed. |
* A full pack was used, from which a card was in each case drawn at random.
† This number is obtained by multiplying each figure of the third column by the corresponding figure in the fourth column (e.g., 216 × 1/52), and adding the products.
‡ This entry is calculated from the first three totals in the last horizontal row, in the same way that each other entry in the last column is calculated from the first three totals in the corresponding horizontal row. |
Buxton |
Playing Cards* |
14 |
1 ⁄ 52 |
0 |
9 |
0 |
9 |
·000,000,000,000,7 |
” |
Numbers, &c. |
15 |
1 ⁄ 90 |
0 |
4 |
0 |
4 |
·000,02 |
Cambridge |
Playing Cards* |
216 |
1 ⁄ 52 |
4 |
17 |
18 |
35 |
·000,000,1 |
” |
Numbers |
64 |
1 ⁄ 90 |
1 |
5 |
6 |
11 |
·007 |
Dublin |
Playing Cards* |
30 |
1 ⁄ 52 |
1 |
3 |
0 |
3 |
·02 |
” |
Numbers, &c. |
108 |
1 ⁄ 12 |
9 |
32 |
11 |
43 |
·000,000,000,2 |
” |
Words |
50 |
¼ |
13 |
25 |
10 |
35 |
·000,1 |
|
Totals |
497 |
|
27† |
95 |
45 |
140 |
·000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,01‡ |
{i-26}
Mr. F. Y. Edgeworth, to whom these results were submitted, and who calculated the final column of the Table, has kindly appended the following remarks:—
“These observations constitute a chain or rather coil of evidence, which at first sight and upon a general view is seen to be very strong, but of which the full strength cannot be appreciated until the concatenation of the parts is considered.
“Viewed as a whole the Table presents the following data. There are in all 497 trials. Out of these there are 95 successes at the first guess. The number of successes most probable on the hypothesis of mere chance is 27. The problem is one of the class which I have discussed in the Proceedings of the S. P. R., Vol. III., p. 190, &c. The approximative formula there given is not well suited to the present case,1 1 The formula is adequate to prove that an inferior limit of the sought probability is ·9999 in which the number of successes is very great, the probability of their being due to mere chance very small, in relation to the total number of trials. It is better to proceed directly according to the method employed in the paper referred to (p. 198) for the appreciation of M. Richet’s result EPJYEIOD [see below, p. 75]. By this method,2 2 Owing to the rapid convergency of the series which we have to sum, it will be found sufficient to evaluate two or three terms. with the aid of appropriate tables,3 3 Tables of Logarithms, and of the values of log Γ(x + 1). I find for the probability that the observed total of successes have resulted from some other agency than pure chance ·999, 999, 999, 999, 999, 999, 999, 999, 98
“Stupendous as is this probability it falls short of that which the complete solution of our problem yields. For, measuring and joining all the links of evidence according to the methods described in the paper referred to, I obtain a row of thirty-four nines following a decimal point. A fortiori, if we take account of the second guesses.
“These figures more impressively than any words proclaim the certainty that the recorded observations must have resulted either from collusion on the part of those concerned (the hypothesis of illusion being excluded by the simplicity of the experiments), or from thought-transference of the sort which the investigators vindicate.”
A large number of trials were also made in which the group of agents included one or more of the Creery family; and as bearing on the hypothesis of an ingenious family trick, it is worth noting that—except where Mr. Creery himself was thus included—the percentage of successes was, as a rule, not appreciably higher under these conditions than when the Committee alone were in the secret.4 4 Here, for instance, is Professor Barrett’s record of a casual trial made on August 4th, 1882—only he and Mrs. Myers knowing the card selected. Eight cards were successively drawn from a pack; of these, three were guessed completely right—two of them at the first attempt and the third at the second attempt; in this last case the first guess was the nine of clubs, and the second the nine of spades, that being the card chosen. In addition to these the suit was given rightly three out of the remaining five times, the pips or court card twice out of the five. Immediately after this experiment the two younger sisters of the guesser were called in and allowed to know the card chosen by Mrs. Myers and Professor Barrett. The results, compared with the preceding, were as follows:—
In the absence of the sisters. Eight experiments. Two complete successes on the first attempt and one on the second.
With the assistance of the sisters as agents. Seven experiments. Two complete successes on the first attempt and one on the second.
And to make the coincidence more curious, the partial successes were identical in number in the two series. When {i-27} Mr. Creery was among the agents, the average of success was far higher;1 1 Even the successes obtained when Mr. Creery was helping us were less remarkable than those which, according to his records, had been obtained in the earlier trials, when the whole affair was regarded as an evening’s amusement, and the children were without any sort of gêne or anxiety. Still, with his assistance, we have had such successes as the following. Out of 31 trials with cards (the chances against success by accident being in each case 51 to 1) 17 rightly guessed at the first attempt, 9 at the second, 4 at the third; 8 consecutive successes in naming cards drawn at random from a full pack; and the following series, where the names on the left hand, written down at random by one of ourselves, are what the agents silently concentrated their minds on, and the names on the right hand are what the percipient said, usually in two or three seconds after the experiment began:—
William Stubbs.—William Stubbs.
Eliza Holmes.—Eliza H——
Isaac Harding.—Isaac Harding.
Sophia Shaw.—Sophia Shaw.
Hester Willis.—Cassandra, then Hester Wilson.
John Jones.—John Jones.
Timothy Taylor.—Tom, then Timothy Taylor.
Esther Ogle.—Esther Ogle.
Arthur Higgins.—Arthur Higgins.
Alfred Henderson.—Alfred Henderson.
Amy Frogmore.—Amy Freemore. Amy Frogmore.
Albert Snelgrove.—Albert Singrore. Albert Grover. but his position in the affair was precisely the same as our own; and the most remarkable results were obtained while he was himself still in a state of doubt as to the genuineness of the phenomena which he was investigating.
One further evidential point should be noted. Supposing such a thing as a genuine faculty of thought-transference to exist, and to be capable, for example, of evoking in one mind the idea of a card on which other minds are concentrated, we might naturally expect that the card-pictures conveyed to the percipient would present various degrees of distinctness, and that there would be a considerable number of approximate guesses, as they might be given by a person who was allowed one fleeting glimpse at a card in an imperfect light. Such a person might often fail to name the card correctly, but his failures would be apt to be far more nearly right than those of another person who was simply guessing without any sort of guidance. This expectation was abundantly confirmed in our experiments. Thus, in a series of 32 trials, where only 5 first guesses were completely right, the suit was 14 times running named correctly on the first trial, and reiterated on the second. Knave was very frequently guessed as King, and vice versâ, the suit being given correctly.
{i-28}
The number of pips named was in many cases only one off the right number, this sort of failure being specially frequent when the number was over six. Again, the correct answer was often given, as it were, piecemeal—in two partially incorrect guesses—the pips or picture being rightly given at the first attempt, and the suit at the second; and in the same way with numbers of two figures, one of them would appear in the first guess and the other in the second.1 1 To illustrate these various points, I will give one series where the success was below the average.
Cambridge, August 3rd, 1882.
Miss Mary Creery was outside the closed and locked door,—a thick and well-fitting one—and a yard or two from it, under the close observation of a member of the Committee, who observed her attentively. A card was chosen by one of the Committee cutting a pack; the fact that the card had been selected was indicated to the guesser by a single tap on the door. The selected card was placed in view of all the agents, who regarded it intently. After the guesser had named a card loudly enough to be heard through the door, the word “No” or “Right,” as the case might be, was said by one of the Committee; otherwise complete silence preserved.
The cards chosen are printed on the left, the guesses on the right. Two guesses only were allowed.
1. Three of hearts.—Ten of spades (No). King of clubs (No).
2. Seven of clubs.—Nine of diamonds (No). Seven of hearts (No).
3. Ten of diamonds.—Queen of spades (No). Ten of diamonds (Right).
4. Eight of spades.—King of clubs (No). Ten of spades (No).
5. Nine of hearts.—Nine of clubs (No). Ace of hearts (No).
6. Three of diamonds.—Six of diamonds (No). Ten of diamonds (No).
7. Knave of spades.—King of spades (No). Queen of clubs (No).
8. Six of spades.—Six of spades (Right).
9. Queen of clubs.—Queen of diamonds (No). Ten of clubs (No).
10. Two of clubs.— Ten of diamonds (No). Ace of diamonds (No).
Here there were only two complete successes; and in tabulating results and computing averages we should of course count all the trials except the third and eighth as complete failures. But the result numbered 7 was on the verge of complete success; in 5 and 9 the correct description was given piecemeal; and in 2 the number of pips was correctly given.
Before we leave these early experiments, one interesting question presents itself, which has an important bearing on the wider subject of this book. In what form was the impression flashed on the percipient’s mind? What were the respective parts in the phenomena played by the mental eye and the mental ear? The points just noticed in connection with the partial guessing of cards seem distinctly in favour of the mental eye. A king looks like a knave, but the names have no similarity. So with numbers. 35 is guessed piecemeal, the answers being 45 and 43; so 57 is attempted as 47 and 45. Now the similarity in sound between three and thirty in 43 and 35, or between five and fifty in 45 and 57, is not extremely strong; while the picture of the 3 or the 5 is identical in either pair. On the other hand, names of approximate sound were often given instead of the true ones; as “Chester” for Leicester, “Biggis” for {i-29} Billings, “Freemore” for Frogmore. Snelgrove was reproduced as “Singrore”; the last part of the name was soon given as “Grover,” and the attempt was then abandoned—the child remarking afterwards that she thought of “Snail” as the first syllable, but it had seemed to her too ridiculous. Professor Barrett, moreover, successfully obtained a German word of which the percipient could have formed no visual image.1 1 In an account of some experiments with words, which we have received from a correspondent, it is stated that success was decidedly more marked in cases where there was a broad vowel sound. The children’s own account was usually to the effect that they “seemed to see” the thing; but this, perhaps, does not come to much; as a known object, however suggested, is likely to be instantly visualised. On the whole, then, the conclusion seems to be that, with these “subjects,” both modes of transference were possible; and that they prevailed in turn, according as this or that was better adapted to the particular case.
§ 6. I have dwelt at some length on our series of trials with the members of the Creery family, as it is to those trials that we owe our own conviction of the possibility of genuine thought-transference between persons in a normal state. I have sufficiently explained that we do not expect the results to be as crucial for persons who were not present, and to whom we are ourselves unknown, as they were for us; and that it cannot be “in the mouth of two or three witnesses” only that such a stupendous fact as the transmission of ideas otherwise than through the recognised sensory channels will be established. The testimony must be multiplied; the responsibility must be spread; and I shall immediately proceed to describe further results obtained with other agents and other percipients. But first it may perhaps be asked of us why we did not exploiterwork with this remarkable family further. It was certainly our intention to do what we could in this direction, and by degrees to procure for our friends an opportunity of judging for themselves. This point, however, was one which could only be cautiously pressed. Mr. Creery was certainly justified in regarding his daughters as something more than mere subjects of experiments, and in hesitating to make a show of them to persons who might, or rather who reasonably must, begin by entertaining grave doubts as to their good faith. It must be remembered that we were dealing, not with chemical substances, but with youthful minds, liable to be reduced to confusion by anything in the demeanour of visitors which inspired distaste or alarm; and even with the best intentions, “a childly way {i-30} with children” is not easy to adopt where the children concerned are objects of suspicious curiosity. More especially might these considerations have weight, when failure was anticipated for the first attempts made under new conditions. And this suggests another difficulty, which has more than once recurred in the experimental branches of our work. The would-be spectators themselves may be unable or unwilling to fulfil the necessary conditions. Before introducing them, it is indispensable to obtain some guarantee that they on their part will exercise patience, make repeated trials, and give the “subjects” a fair opportunity of getting used to their presence. Questions of mood, of goodwill, of familiarity, may hold the same place in psychical investigation as questions of temperature in a physical laboratory; and till this is fully realised, it will not be easy to multiply testimony to the extent that we should desire.
In the case of the Creery family, however, we met with a difficulty of another kind. Had the faculty of whose existence we assured ourselves continued in full force, it would doubtless have been possible in time to bring the phenomena under the notice of a sufficient number of painstaking and impartial observers. But the faculty did not continue in full force; on the contrary, the average of successes gradually declined, and the children regretfully acknowledged that their capacity and confidence were deserting them. The decline was equally observed even in the trials which they held amongst themselves; and it had nothing whatever to do with any increased stringency in the precautions adopted. No precautions, indeed, could be stricter than that confinement to our own investigating group of the knowledge of the idea to be transferred, which was, from the very first, a condition of the experiments on which we absolutely relied. The fact has just to be accepted, as an illustration of the fleeting character which seems to attach to this and other forms of abnormal sensitiveness. It seems probable that the telepathic faculty, if I may so name it, is not an inborn, or lifelong possession; or, at any rate, that very slight disturbances may suffice to paralyse it. The Creerys had their most startling successes at first, when the affair was a surprise and an amusement, or later, at short and seemingly casual trials; the decline set in with their sense that the experiments had become matters of weighty importance to us, and of somewhat prolonged strain and tediousness to them. So, on a minor scale, in trials among our own friends, we have seen a fortunate evening, when the spectators were interested and the percipient {i-31} excited and confident, succeeded by a series of failures when the results were more anxiously awaited. It is almost inevitable that a percipient who has aroused interest by a marked success on several occasions, should feel in a way responsible for further results; and yet any real pre-occupation with such an idea seems likely to be fatal. The conditions are clearly unstable. But of course the first question for science is not whether the phenomena can be produced to order, but whether in a sufficient number of series the proportion of success to failure is markedly above the probable result of chance.
§ 7. Before leaving this class of experiments, I may mention an interesting development which it has lately received. In the Revue Philosophique for December, 1884, M. Ch. Richet, the well-known savant and editor of the Revue Scientifique, published a paper, entitled “La Suggestion Mentale et le Calcul des Probabilités,” in the first part of which an account is given of some experiments with cards precisely similar in plan to those above described. A card being drawn at random out of a pack, the “agent” fixed his attention on it, and the “percipient” endeavoured to name it. But M. Richet’s method contained this important novelty—that though the success, as judged by the results of any particular series of trials, seemed slight (showing that he was not experimenting with what we should consider “good subjects”), he made the trials on a sufficiently extended scale to bring out the fact that the right guesses were on the whole, though not strikingly, above the number that pure accident would account for, and that their total was considerably above that number.
This observation involves a new and striking application of the calculus of probabilities. Advantage is taken of the fact that the larger the number of trials made under conditions where success is purely accidental, the more nearly will the total number of successes attained conform to the figure which the formula of probabilities gives. For instance, if some one draws a card at random out of a full pack, and before it has been looked at by anyone present I make a guess at its suit, my chance of being right is, of course, 1 in 4. Similarly, if the process is repeated 52 times, the most probable number of successes, according to the strict calculus of probabilities, is 13; in 520 trials the most probable number of successes is 130. Now, if we consider only a short series of 52 guesses, I may be accidentally right many more times than 13 or many less times. But if the series be {i-32} prolonged—if 520 guesses be allowed instead of 52—the actual number of successes will vary from the probable number within much smaller limits; and if we suppose an indefinite prolongation, the proportional divergence between the actual and the probable number will become infinitely small. This being so, it is clear that if, in a very short series of trials, we find a considerable difference between the actual number of successes and the probable number, there is no reason for regarding this difference as anything but purely accidental; but if we find a similar difference in a very long series, we are justified in surmising that some condition beyond mere accident has been at work. If cards be drawn in succession from a pack, and I guess the suit rightly in 3 out of 4 trials, I shall be foolish to be surprised; but if I guess the suit rightly in 3,000 out of 4,000 trials, I shall be equally foolish not to be surprised.
Now M. Richet continued his trials until he had obtained a considerable total; and the results were such as at any rate to suggest that accident had not ruled undisturbed—that a guiding condition had been introduced, which affected in the right direction a certain small percentage of the guesses made. That condition, if it existed, could be nothing else than the fact that, prior to the guess being made, a person in the neighbourhood of the guesser had concentrated his attention on the card drawn. Hence the results, so far as they go, make for the reality of the faculty of “mental suggestion.” The faculty, if present, was clearly only slightly developed; whence the necessity of experimenting on a very large scale before its genuine influence on the numbers could be even surmised.
Out of 2,927 trials at guessing the suit of a card, drawn at random, and steadily looked at by another person, the actual number of successes was 789; the most probable number, had pure accident ruled, was 732. The total was made up of thirty-nine series of different lengths, in which eleven persons took part, M. Richet himself being in some cases the guesser, and in others the person who looked at the card. He observed that when a large number of trials were made at one sitting, the aptitude of both persons concerned seemed to be affected; it became harder for the “agent” to visualise, and the proportion of successes on the guesser’s part decreased. If we agree to reject from the above total all the series in which over 100 trials were consecutively made, the numbers become more striking.1 1 It should be remarked, however, that the introduction of any principle of selection, after one experiment, is always objectionable. For some more or less plausible reason could probably always be found for setting aside the less favourable results. Out of {i-33} 1,833 trials, he then got 510 successes, the most probable number being only 458; that is to say, the actual number exceeds the most probable number by about 1/10.
Clearly no definite conclusion could be based on such figures as the above. They at most contained a hint for more extended trials, but a hint, fortunately, which can be easily followed up. We are often asked by acquaintances what they can do to aid the progress of psychical research. These experiments suggest a most convenient answer; for they can be repeated, and a valuable contribution made to the great aggregate, by any two persons who have a pack of cards and a little perseverance.1 1 The rules to observe are these: (1) The number of trials contemplated (1,000, 2,000, or whatever it may be) should be specified beforehand. (2) Not more than 50 trials should be made on any one occasion. (3) The agent should draw the card at random, and cut the pack between each draw. (4) The success or failure of each guess should be silently recorded, and the percipient should be kept in ignorance of the results until the whole series is completed. The results should be sent to me at 14, Dean’s Yard, S.W.
Up to the time that I write, we have received, in all, the results of 17 batches of trials in the guessing of suits. In 11 of the batches one person acted as agent and another as percipient throughout: the other 6 batches are the collective results of trials made by as many groups of friends. The total number of trials was 17,653, and the total number of successes was 4,760; which exceeds by 347 the number which was the most probable if chance alone acted. The probability afforded by this result for the action of a cause other than chance is ·999,999,98[☼]—or practical certainty.2 2 For these calculations we have again to thank Mr. F. Y. Edgeworth. For an explanation of the methods employed, see his article in Vol. iii. of the Proceedings of the S.P.R., already referred to, and also his paper on “Methods of Statistics” (sub. fin.) in the Journal of the Statistical Society for 1885. I need hardly say that there has been here no selection of results; all who undertook the trials were specially requested to send in their report, whatever the degree of success or unsuccess; and we have no reason to suppose that this direction has been ignored. It is thus an additional point of interest that in only one of the batches did the result fall below the number which was the most probable one for mere chance to give. And if we take only those batches, 10 in number, in which a couple of experimenters made as many as 1,000 trials and over, the probability of a cause other than chance which the group of results yields is estimated by one method to be ·999,999,999,96, and by another to be ·999,999,999,999,2.
To this record must be added another, not less striking, of experiments which, (though part of the same effort to obtain large collective results,) differed in form from the above, and could not, {i-34} therefore, figure in the aggregate. Thus, in a set of 976 trials, carried out by Miss B. Lindsay (late of Girton College), and a group of friends, where the choice was between 6 uncoloured forms—9 specimens of each being combined in a pack from which the agent drew at random—the total of right guesses was 198, the odds against obtaining that degree of success by chance being 1,000 to 1.[☼] In another case, the choice lay between 4 things, but these were not suits, but simple colours—red, blue, green, and yellow. The percipient throughout was Mr. A. J. Shilton, of 40, Paradise Street, Birmingham; the agent (except in one small group, when Professor Poynting, of Mason College, acted) was Mr. G. T Cashmore, of Albert Road, Handsworth. Out of 505 trials, 261 were successes. The probability here afforded of a cause other than chance is considerably more than a trillion trillions to 1. And still more remarkable is the result obtained by the Misses Wingfield, of The Redings, Totteridge, in some trials where the object to be guessed was a number of two digits—i.e., one of the 90 numbers included in the series from 10 to 99—chosen at random by the agent. Out of 2,624 trials, where the most probable number of successes was 29, the actual number obtained was no less than 275—to say nothing of 78 other cases in which the right digits were guessed in the reverse order. In the last 506 trials the agent (who sat some 6 feet behind the percipient) drew the numbers at random out of a bowl; the odds against the accidental occurrence of the degree of success—21 right guesses—obtained in this batch are over 2,000,000 to 1. The argument for thought-transference afforded by the total of 275 cannot be expressed here in figures, as it requires 167 nines—that is, the probability is far more than the ninth power of a trillion to 1.
Card-experiments of the above type offer special conveniences for the very extended trials which we wish to see carried out: they are easily made and rapidly recorded. At the same time it must not be assumed that the limitation of the field of choice to a very small number of known objects is a favourable condition; it is probably the reverse. For from the descriptions which intelligent percipients have given it would seem that the best condition is a sort of inward blankness, on which the image of the object,
sometimes suddenly but often only gradually, takes shape. And this inward blankness is hard to ensure when the objects for choice are both few and known. For their images are then apt to importune the mind, and to lead to guessing; the little procession of them marches so
{i-35} readily across the mental stage that it is difficult to drive it off, and wait for a single image to present itself independently. Moreover idiosyncrasies on the guesser’s part have the opportunity of obtruding themselves—as an inclination, or a disinclination, to repeat the same guess several times in succession. These objections of course reach their maximum if the field of choice be narrowed down to
two things—as where not the suit but the
colour of the cards is to be guessed. And in fact some French trials of this type, and an aggregate of 5,500 carried out by the American Society for Psychical Research,
1 1 Report by Professors J. M. Peirce and E. C. Pickering, in the Proceedings of the American Society for Psychical Research, Vol. i., p. 19. This Society has also carried out 12,130 trials with the 10 digits—which similarly gave a result only slightly in excess of theoretic probability. But here the digits to be thought of by the agent were not taken throughout in a purely accidental order, but in regularly recurring decads, in each of which each digit occurred once; and consequently the later guesses (both within the same decad and in successive decads) might easily be biassed by the earlier ones. This system may lead to interesting statistics in other ways; but to give thought-transference fair play in experiments with a limited number of objects, it seems essential that the order of selection shall be entirely haphazard, and that the guesser’s mind shall be quite unembarrassed by the notion of a scheme. give a result only very slightly in excess of the most probable number.
§ 8. I may now pass to another class of experiments, in which the impression transferred was almost certainly of the visual sort, inasmuch as any verbal description of the object would require a group of words too numerous to present any clear and compact auditory character. An object of this kind is supplied by any irregular figure or arrangement of lines which suggests nothing in particular. We have had two remarkably successful series of experiments, extending over many days, in which the idea of such a figure has been telepathically transferred from one mind to another. A rough diagram being first drawn by one of the investigating Committee, the agent proceeded to concentrate his attention on it, or on the memory which he retained of it; and in a period varying from a few seconds to a few minutes the percipient was able to reproduce the diagram, or a close approximation to it, on paper. No contact was permitted, except on a few occasions, which, on that very account, we should not present as crucial; and in order to preclude the agent from giving unconscious hints—e.g., by drawing with his finger on the table or making movements suggestive of the figure in the air—he was kept out of the percipient’s sight.
Of the two series mentioned, the second is evidentially to be preferred. For in the first series the agent, as well as the percipient, was always the same person; and we recognise this as pro tantoto that extent an objection. Not indeed that the simple hypothesis of collusion would {i-36} at all meet the difficulties of the case. Faith in the power of a secret code must be carried to the verge of superstition, before it will be easy to believe that auditory signals, the material for which (as I pointed out above) is limited to the faintest variations in the signaller’s method of breathing, can fully and faithfully describe a complicated diagram; especially when the variations, imperceptible to the closest observation of the bystanders, would have to penetrate to the intelligence of a percipient whose head was enveloped in bandage, bolster-case, and blanket. But in spite of all, suspicion will, reasonably or unreasonably, attach to results which are, so to speak, a monopoly of two particular performers. In our second series of experiments this objection was obviated. There were two percipients, and a considerable group of agents, each of whom, when alone with one or other of the percipients, was successful in transferring his impression. It is this series, therefore, that I select for fuller description.
We owe these remarkable experiments to the sagacity and energy of Mr. Malcolm Guthrie, J.P., of Liverpool. At the beginning of 1883, Mr. Guthrie happened to read an article on thought-transference in a magazine, and though completely sceptical, he determined to make some trials on his own account. He was then at the head of an establishment which gives employment to many hundreds of persons; and he was informed by a relative who occupied a position of responsibility in this establishment that she had witnessed remarkable results in some casual trials made by a group of his employées after business hours. He at once took the matter into his own hands, and went steadily, but cautiously, to work. He restricted the practice of the novel accomplishment to weekly meetings; and he arranged with his friend, Mr. James Birchall, the hon. secretary of the Liverpool Literary and Philosophical Society, that the latter should make a full and complete record of every experiment made. Mr. Guthrie thus describes the proceedings:—
“I have had the advantage of studying a series of experiments ab ovo.from the beginning I have witnessed the genuine surprise which the operators and the ‘subjects’ have alike exhibited at their increasing successes, and at the results of our excursions into novel lines of experiment. The affair has not been the discovery of the possession of special powers, first made and then worked up by the parties themselves for gain or glory. The experimenters in this case were disposed to pass the matter over altogether as one of no moment, and only put themselves at my disposal in regard to experiments in order to oblige me. The experiments have all been devised and conducted by myself and Mr. Birchall, without any previous intimation of their nature, and could not possibly have been foreseen. In fact they {i-37} have been to the young ladies a succession of surprises. No set of experiments of a similar nature has ever been more completely known from its origin, or more completely under the control of the scientific observer.”
I must pass over the record of the earlier experiments, where the ideas transferred were of colours, geometrical figures, cards, and visible objects of all sorts, which the percipient was to name—these being similar in kind, though on the whole superior in the proportion of successes, to those already described.1 1 The full record of the experiments will be found in the Proceedings of the S.P.R., Vol. i., p. 264, &c., and Vol. ii., p. 24, &c. There is one point of novelty which is thus described by Mr. Guthrie: “We tried also the perception of motion, and found that the movements of objects exhibited could be discerned. The idea was suggested by an experiment tried with a card, which in order that all present should see, I moved about, and was informed by the percipient that it was a card, but she could not tell which one because it seemed to be moving about. On a subsequent occasion, in order to test this perception of motion, I bought a toy monkey, which worked up and down on a stick by means of a string drawing the arms and legs together. The answer was: ‘I see red and yellow, and it is darker at one end than the other. It is like a flag moving about—it is moving. … Now it is opening and shutting like a pair of scissors.’” The reproduction of diagrams was introduced in October, 1883, and in that and the following month about 150 trials were made. The whole series has been carefully mounted and preserved by Mr. Guthrie. No one could look through them without perceiving that the hypothesis of chance or guess-work is out of the question; that in most instances some idea, and in many a complete idea, of the original must, by whatever means, have been present in the mind of the person who made the reproduction. In Mr. Guthrie’s words,—
“It is difficult to classify them. A great number of them are decided successes; another large number give part of the drawing; others exhibit the general idea, and others again manifest a kind of composition of form. Others, such as the drawings of flowers, have been described and named, but have been too difficult to draw. A good many are perfect failures. The drawings generally run in lots. A number of successful copies will be produced very quickly, and again a number of failures—indicating, I think, faultiness on the part of the agent, or growing fatigue on the part of the ‘subject.’ Every experiment, whether successful or a failure, is given in the order of trial, with the conditions, name of ‘subject’ and agent, and any remarks made by the ‘subject’ specified at the bottom. Some of the reproductions exhibit the curious phenomenon of inversion. These drawings must speak for themselves. The principal facts to be borne in mind regarding them are that they have been executed through the instrumentality, as agents, of persons of unquestioned probity, and that the responsibility for them is spread over a considerable group of such persons; while the conditions to be observed were so simple—for they amounted really to nothing more than taking care that the original should not be seen by the ‘subject’—that it is extremely difficult to suppose them to have been eluded.”
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I give a few specimens—not unduly favourable ones, but illustrating the “spreading of responsibility” to which Mr. Guthrie refers. The agents concerned were Mr. Guthrie; Mr. Steel, the President of the Liverpool Literary and Philosophical Society; Mr. Birchall, mentioned above; Mr. Hughes, B.A., of St. John’s College, Cambridge; and myself. The names of the percipients were Miss Relph and Miss Edwards. The conditions which I shall describe were those of the experiments in which I myself took part; and I have Mr. Guthrie’s authority for stating that they were uniformly observed in the other cases. The originals were for the most part drawn in another room from that in which the percipient was placed. The few executed in the same room were drawn while the percipient was blindfolded, at a distance from her, and in such a way that the process would have been wholly invisible to her or anyone else, even had an attempt been made to observe it. During the process of transference, the agent looked steadily and in perfect silence at the original drawing, which was placed upon an intervening wooden stand; the percipient sitting opposite to him, and behind the stand, blindfolded and quite still. The agent ceased looking at the drawing, and the blindfolding was removed, only when the percipient professed herself ready to make the reproduction, which happened usually in times varying from half-a-minute to two or three minutes. Her position rendered it absolutely impossible that she should obtain a glimpse of the original. Apart from the blindfolding, she could not have done so without rising from her seat and advancing her head several feet; and as she was very nearly in the same line of sight as the drawing, and so very nearly in the centre of the agent’s field of vision, the slightest approach to such a movement must have been instantly detected. The reproductions were made in perfect silence, the agent forbearing to follow the actual process of the drawing with his eyes, though he was, of course, able to keep the percipient under the closest observation.
In the case of all the diagrams, except those numbered 7 and 8, the agent and the percipient were the only two persons in the room during the experiment. In the case of numbers 7 and 8, the agent and Miss Relph were sitting quite apart in a corner of the room, while Mr. Guthrie and Miss Edwards were talking in another part of it. Numbers 1–6 are specially interesting as being the complete and consecutive series of a single sitting.
{i-39}
No. 11. ORIGINAL DRAWING. |
![[Drawing]](pl_images/p44b.png) |
No. 11. REPRODUCTION. |
Mr. Birchall and Miss Edwards. No contact. |
{i-45}
No. 12. ORIGINAL DRAWING. |
![[Drawing]](pl_images/p45a.png) |
Mr. Steel and Miss Relph. No contact. |
No. 12. REPRODUCTION. |
![[Drawing]](pl_images/p45b.png) |
{i-46}
No. 13. ORIGINAL DRAWING. | No. 13. REPRODUCTION. |
![[Drawing]](pl_images/p46a.png) | ![[Drawing]](pl_images/p46b.png) |
Mr. Steel and Miss Edwards. Contact before the reproduction was made. | |
No. 14. ORIGINAL DRAWING. | No. 14. REPRODUCTION. |
![[Drawing]](pl_images/p46c.png) | ![[Drawing]](pl_images/p46d.png) |
Mr. Hughes and Miss Edwards. Contact before the reproduction was made. | Miss Edwards said, “A box or chair badly shaped”—then drew as above. |
{i-47}
No. 15. ORIGINAL DRAWING. |
![[Drawing]](pl_images/p47a.png) |
Mr. Hughes and Miss Edwards. No contact. |
No. 15. REPRODUCTION. |
![[Drawing]](pl_images/p47b.png) |
Miss Edwards said, “It is like a mask at a pantomime,” and immediately drew as above. |
{i-48}
No. 16. ORIGINAL DRAWING. |
![[Drawing]](pl_images/p48a.png) |
Mr. Hughes and Miss Edwards. No. contact. |
No. 16. REPRODUCTION. |
![[Drawing]](pl_images/p48b.png) |
{i-49}
§ 9. Soon after the publication of these results, Mr. Guthrie was fortunate enough to obtain the active co-operation of Dr. Oliver J. Lodge, Professor of Physics in University College, Liverpool, who carried out a long and independent series of experiments with the same two percipients, and completely convinced himself of the genuineness of the phenomena. In his report1 1 Proceedings of the S.P.R., Vol. ii., p. 189, &c. he says:—
“As regards collusion and trickery, no one who has witnessed the absolutely genuine and artless manner in which the impressions are described, but has been perfectly convinced of the transparent honesty of purpose of all concerned. This, however, is not evidence to persons who have not been present, and to them I can only say that to the best of my scientific belief no collusion or trickery was possible under the varied circumstances of the experiments. … When one has the control of the circumstances, can change them at will and arrange one’s own experiments, one gradually acquires a belief in the phenomena observed quite comparable to that induced by the repetition of ordinary physical experiments. … We have many times succeeded with agents quite disconnected from the percipient in ordinary life, and sometimes complete strangers to them. Mr. Birchall, the head-master of the Birkdale Industrial School, frequently acted; and the house physician at the Eye and Ear Hospital, Dr. Shears, had a successful experiment, acting alone, on his first and only visit. All suspicion of a pre-arranged code is thus rendered impossible even to outsiders who are unable to witness the obvious fairness of all the experiments.”
The objects of which the idea was transferred were sometimes things with names (cards, key, teapot, flag, locket, picture of donkey, and so on), sometimes irregular drawings with no name. Professor Lodge satisfied himself that auditory as well as visual impressions played a part—that in some cases the idea transferred was that of the object itself, and in others, that of its name; thus confirming the conclusion which we had come to in the experiments with the Creery family. Of the two percipients one seemed more susceptible to the visual, and the other to the auditory impressions. A case where the auditory element seems clearly to have come in is the following. The object was a tetrahedron rudely drawn in projection, thus—

The percipient said: “Is it another triangle?” No answer was given, but Professor Lodge silently passed round to the agents a scribbled message, “Think of a pyramid.” The percipient then said, “I only {i-50} see a triangle “—then hastily, “Pyramids of Egypt. No, I shan’t do this.” Asked to draw, she only drew a triangle.
I will give only one other case from this series, which is important as showing that the percipient may be simultaneously influenced by two minds, which are concentrated on two different things. The two agents being seated opposite to one another, Professor Lodge placed between them a piece of paper, on one side of which was drawn a square, and on the other a cross. They thus had different objects to
contemplate, and neither knew what the other was looking at; nor did the percipient know that anything unusual was being tried. There was no contact. Very soon the percipient said, “I see things moving about … I seem to see two things … I see first one up there and then one down there … I don’t know which to draw … I can’t see either distinctly.” Professor Lodge said: “Well, anyhow, draw what you have seen.” She took off the bandage and drew first a square, and then said, “Then there was the other thing as well … afterwards they seemed to go into one,”—and she drew a cross inside the square from corner to corner, adding afterwards, “I don’t know what made me put it inside.” The significance of this experimental proof of joint agency will be more fully realised in connection with some of the spontaneous cases.
The following passage from the close of Professor Lodge’s report has a special interest for us, confirming, as it does, the accounts which we had received from our own former “subjects,” and the views above expressed as to the conditions of success and failure:—
“With regard to the feelings of the percipients when receiving an impression, they seem to have some sort of consciousness of the action of other minds on them; and once or twice, when not so conscious, have complained that there seemed to be ‘no power’ or anything acting, and that they not only received no impression, but did not feel as if they were going to.
“I asked one of them what she felt when impressions were coming freely, and she said she felt a sort of influence or thrill. They both say that several objects appear to them sometimes, but that one among them persistently recurs and they have a feeling when they fix upon one that it is the right one.
“One serious failure rather depresses them, and after a success others often follow. It is because of these rather delicate psychological conditions {i-51} that one cannot press the variations of an experiment as far as one would do if dealing with inert and more dependable matter. Usually the presence of a stranger spoils the phenomena, though in some cases a stranger has proved a good agent straight off.
“The percipients complain of no fatigue as induced by the experiments, and I have no reason to suppose that any harm is done them.”
It is the “delicate psychological conditions” of which Professor Lodge here speaks that are in danger of being ignored, just because they cannot be measured and handled. The man who first hears of thought-transference very naturally imagines that, if it is a reality, it ought to be demonstrated to him at a moment’s notice. He forgets that the experiment being essentially a mental one, his own presence—so far as he has a mind—may be a factor in it; that he is demanding that a delicate weighing operation shall be carried out, while he himself, a person of unknown weight, sits judicially in one of the scales. After a time he will learn to allow for the conditions of his instruments, and will not expect in the operations of an obscure vital influence the rigorous certainty of a chemical reaction.
I cannot conclude this division of the subject without a reference to a remarkable set of diagrams which appeared in Science for July, 1885—the first-fruits of the investigation of thought-transference set on foot by the American Society for Psychical Research. Most of the trials were carried out by Mr. W. H. Pickering (brother of the eminent astronomer at Harvard), and his sister-in-law. Though the success is far less striking to the eye than in the several English series, the evidence for some agency beyond chance seems, on examination, irresistible.
§ 10. So far the present sketch has included transference of impressions of the visual and auditory sorts only—impressions, moreover, which for the most part represented formed objects or definite groups of sensations, not sensations pure and simple. These are not only by far the most important forms of the phenomenon, in relation to the wider spontaneous operations of telepathy which we shall consider in the sequel; but are also the most convenient forms for experiment. Moreover, I have been tracing the development of the subject historically; and it was in connection with ideas belonging to the higher forms of sense that the transferences to percipients who were in a normal state were first obtained. But the existence of such cases would {i-52} prepare us for transferences of a more elementary type,—transferences of a simple formless sensation and nothing more, which should impress the percipient not as an idea, but in its direct sensational character; and if the phenomena be arranged in a logical scale from the less to the more complex, such cases would have the priority. For their exhibition, it is naturally to the lower senses that we should look—taste, smell, and touch—which last (since a certain intensity of experience seems necessary) we should hardly expect to prove effective till it reached the degree of pain. These lower forms are, in fact, those which preponderate in the earlier observations of mesmeric rapport in this country; and our own experiments in mesmerism have included several instances of this sort.1 1 It is impossible here to give more than a selection of cases. I must refer the reader to Chap. i of the Supplement, and to the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, Vol. i. p. 225, &c., Vol. ii., p. 17, &c., and p. 205, &c.; and Mr. Guthrie’s “Further Report” in Vol. iii. Thus the discovery that a similar “community of sensation” might exist between persons in a normal state, and without any resort to mesmeric or hypnotic processes, not only filled up an obvious lacuna, but gave a fresh proof of the fundamental unity of our many-sided subject.
In the case of taste, we owe the discovery to Mr. Guthrie—the phenomenon having been, we believe, first observed by him on August 30th, 1883, and first fully examined in the course of a visit which Mr. Myers and the present writer paid to him in the following week. Failing to obtain very marked success in other lines of experiment, it occurred to us to introduce this novel form; but the superiority of the results was probably due simply to the fact that they were obtained on the later days of our visit, when the “subjects” had become accustomed to our presence.
I will quote the report made at the time:—
“The taste to be discerned was known only to one or more of the three actual experimenters; and the sensations experienced were verbally described by the ‘subjects’ (not written down), so that all danger of involuntary muscular guidance was eliminated.
“A selection of about twenty strongly-tasting substances was made. These substances were enclosed in small bottles and small parcels, precisely similar to one another, and kept carefully out of the range of vision of the ‘subjects,’ who were, moreover, blindfolded, so that no grimaces made by the tasters could be seen. The ‘subjects,’ in fact, had no means whatever of knowing, through the sense of sight, what was the substance tasted.
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“Smell had to be guarded against with still greater care. When the substance was odoriferous the packet or bottle was opened outside the room, or at such a distance, and so cautiously as to prevent any sensible smell from escaping. The experiments, moreover, were conducted in the close vicinity of a very large kitchen, from whence a strong odour of beefsteak and onions proceeded during almost all the time occupied. The tasters took pains to keep their heads high above the ‘subjects,’ and to avoid breathing with open mouth. One substance (coffee) tried was found to give off a slight smell, in spite of all precautions, and an experiment made with this has been omitted.
“The tasters were Mr. Guthrie (M.G.), Mr. Gurney (E.G.), and Mr. Myers (M.). The percipients may be called R. and E. The tasters lightly placed a hand on one of the shoulders or hands of the percipients—there not being the same objection to contact in trials of this type as where lines and figures are concerned, and the ‘subjects’ themselves seeming to have some faith in it. During the first experiments (September 3rd and 4th) there were one or two other persons in the room, who, however, were kept entirely ignorant of the substance tasted. During the experiments silence was preserved. The last fifteen of them (September 5th) were made when only M. G., E. G., and M., with the two percipients, were present. On this evening E. was, unfortunately, suffering from sore throat, which seemed to blunt her susceptibility. On this occasion none of the substances were allowed even to enter the room where the percipients were. They were kept in a dark lobby outside, and taken by the investigators at random, so that often one investigator did not even know what the other took. Still less could any spy have discerned what was chosen, had such spy been there, which he certainly was not.
“A very small portion of each substance used was found to be enough. The difficulty lies in keeping the mean between the massive impression of a large quantity of a salt, spice, bitter, or acid, which confounds the specific differences under each general head, and the fading impression which is apt to give merely a residual pungency, from which the characteristic flavour has escaped. It is necessary to allow some minutes to elapse between each experiment, as the imaginary taste seems to be fully as persistent as the real one.
September 3rd, 1883. |
TASTER. | PERCIPIENT. | SUBSTANCE. | ANSWERS GIVEN. |
1.—M. | E | Vinegar | “A sharp and nasty taste.” |
2.—M. | E | Mustard | “Mustard.” |
3.—M. | R | Do. | “Ammonia.” |
4.—M. | E | Sugar | “I still taste the hot taste of the mustard.” | | | |
September 4th. | | | |
5.—E. G. & M | E | Worcestershire sauce. | “Worcestershire sauce.” |
6.—M. G. | E | Do. | “Vinegar.” |
7.—E. G. & M | E | Port wine | “Between eau de Cologne and beer.” |
8.—M. G. | R | Do. | “Raspberry vinegar.” |
9.—E. G. & M | E | Bitter aloes | “Horrible and bitter.” |
10.—M. G. | R | Alum | “A taste of ink—of iron—of vinegar. I feel it on my lips—it is as if I had been eating alum.” |
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11.—M. G. | E | Alum | (E. perceived that M. G. was not tasting bitter aloes, as E. G. and M. supposed, but something different. No distinct perception on account of the persistence of the bitter taste.) |
12.—E. G. & M | E | Nutmeg | “Peppermint—no—what you put in puddings—nutmeg.” |
13.—M. G. | R | Do. | “Nutmeg.”1 1 In some cases two experiments were carried on simultaneously with the same substance; and when this was done, the first percipient was of course not told whether her answer was right or wrong. But it will perhaps be suggested that, when her answer was right, the agent who was touching her unconsciously gave her an intimation of the fact by the pressure of his hand; and that she then coughed or made some audible signal to her companion, who followed suit. Whatever the theory may be worth, it will, we think, be seen that the success of the second percipient with the nutmeg was the only occasion, throughout the series, to which it can be applied. |
14.—E. G. & M | E | Sugar | Nothing perceived. |
15.—M. G. | R | Do. | Nothing perceived. (Sugar should be tried at an earlier stage in the series, as, after the aloes, we could scarcely taste it ourselves.) |
16.—E. G. & M | E | Cayenne pepper | “Mustard.” |
17.—M. G. | R | Do. | “Cayenne pepper.” (After the cayenne we were unable to taste anything further that evening. |
September 5th. |
18.—E. G. & M | E | Carbonate of soda | Nothing perceived. |
19.—M. G. | R | Carraway seeds | “It feels like meal—like a seed loaf—carraway seeds.” (The substance of the seeds seemed to be perceived before their taste. ) |
20.—E. G. & M | E | Cloves | “Cloves.” |
21.—E. G. & M | E | Citric acid | Nothing perceived. |
22.—M. G. | R | Do. | “Salt.” |
23.—E. G. & M | E | Liquorice | “Cloves.” |
24.—M. G | R | Cloves | “Cinnamon.” |
25.—E. G. & M | E | Acid jujube | “Pear drop.” |
26.—M. G. | R | Do. | “Something hard, which is giving way—acid jujube.” |
27.—E. G. & M | E | Candied ginger | “Something sweet and hot.” |
28.—M. G. | R | Do. | “Almond toffy.” (M. G. took his ginger in the dark, and was some time before he realised that it was ginger.) |
29.—E. G. & M | E | Home-made Noyau | “Salt.” |
30.—M. G. | R | Do. | “Port wine.” (This was by far the most strongly smelling of the substances tried, the scent of kernels being hard to conceal. Yet it was named by E. as salt.) |
31.—E. G. & M | E | Bitter aloes | “Bitter.” |
32.—M. G. | R | Do. | Nothing perceived. |
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“We should have preferred in these experiments to use only substances which were wholly inodorous. But in order to get any description of tastes from the percipients, it was necessary that the tastes should be either very decided or very familiar. It would be desirable, before entering on a series of experiments of this kind, to educate the palates of the percipients by accustoming them to a variety of chemical substances, and also by training them to distinguish, with shut eyes, between the more ordinary flavours. It is well known how much taste is helped by sight and determined by expectation; and when it is considered that the percipients in these cases were judging blindfold of the mere shadow of a savour, it will perhaps be thought that even some of their mistakes are not much wider of the mark than they might have been had a trace of the substance been actually placed upon their tongues.”
In later experiments, Mr. Guthrie endeavoured to meet the difficulty caused by odorous substances, and even succeeded in obtaining what appeared to be transferences of smell-impressions. The “subjects” and the agents were placed in different rooms. An opening, 10½ inches square, had been made in the wooden partition between the two rooms; and this had been filled in with a frame, covered with india-rubber and fitting tightly. Through a slit in this frame the agent (Mr. Guthrie or his relative, Miss Redmond) passed a hand, which both the “subjects” could then touch. Under these conditions, as far as could be judged, it was impossible for any scent to pass; and, certainly, if any did pass, it would have needed extreme hyperæsthesia to detect it. The following results were obtained on December 5th, 1883:—
1.—Miss Redmond tasted powdered nutmeg.
E. said “Ginger.”
R. said “Nutmeg.”
2.—Mr. G. tasted powder of dry celery.
E.: “A bitter herb.”
R.: “Something like camomile.”
3.—Miss Redmond tasted coffee.
At the same time, without any previous intimation, Mr. G., with two pins, pricked the front of the right wrist of Miss Redmond.
E. said: “Is it a taste at all?” Mr. G.: “Why do you ask?”
“Because I feel a sort of pricking in the left wrist.” She was told it was the right wrist, but said she felt it in the left.
R.: “Is it cocoa or chocolate?” Answer given in the negative.
E.: “Is it coffee?”
4.—Mr. G. tasted Worcestershire sauce.
R.: “Something sweet . . also acid . . a curious taste.”
E.: “Is it vinegar?”
5.—Miss Redmond smelt eau de Cologne.
R.: “Is it eau de Cologne?”
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6.—Miss Redmond smelt camphor.
E.: “Don’t taste anything.”
R.: Nothing perceived.
7.—Mr. G. smelt carbolic acid.
R.: “What you use for toothache … creosote.”
E. afterwards said she thought of pitch.
8.—Mr. G. Right instep pricked with pins.
E. guessed first the face, then the left shoulder; then R. localised the pain on the right foot.
The pain was then silently transferred to the left foot. E. localised it on the left foot. Both maintained their opinions.
I will quote one more taste-series, for the sake of illustrating a special point—namely, the deferment of the percipient’s consciousness of the sensation until a time when the agent had himself ceased to feel it. This fact is of great interest, on account of the marked analogy to it which we shall encounter in many of the spontaneous telepathic cases. The instances below are too few to be conclusive; but we used to notice the same thing in our experiments with the Creery family—the object on which the attention of the agents had been concentrated being sometimes correctly named after the experiment had been completely abandoned as a failure. (Cf., Vol. II., p. 327.)
June 11th, 1885.
Dr. Hyla Greves was in contact with Miss Relph, having tasted salad oil.
Miss Relph said: “I feel a cool sensation in my mouth, something like that produced by sal prunelle.”
Mr. R. C. Johnson in contact, having tasted Worcestershire sauce in another room.
“I taste something oily; it is very like salad oil.” Then, a few minutes after contact with Mr. Johnson had ceased, “My mouth seems getting hot after the oil.” (N.B.—Nothing at all had been said about the substances tasted either by Dr. Greves or Mr. Johnson.)
Dr. Greves in contact, having tasted bitter aloes.
“I taste something frightfully hot … something like vinegar and pepper … Is it Worcestershire sauce?”
Mr. Guthrie in contact, also having tasted bitter aloes.
“I taste something extremely bitter, but don’t know what it is, and do not remember tasting it before … It is a very horrid taste.”
The possibility of the transference of pain, to a percipient in the normal state, is also a recent discovery. In December, 1882, we obtained some results which—with our well-tried knowledge of the percipient’s character—we regard as completely satisfactory; but our more striking successes in this line happen to have been with {i-57} hypnotic subjects.1 1 See Proceedings of the S.P.R., Vol. i., pp. 225–6; Vol. ii., p. 250. The form of experiment has difficulties of its own. For, in mercy to the agent, the pain which it is hoped to transfer cannot be very severely inflicted; and, moreover, in such circumstances of investigation as Mr. Guthrie’s, it is only a very limited amount of the area of the body that can practically be used—a fact which of course increases the percipient’s chances of accidental success. Still, the amount of success obtained with Mr. Guthrie’s “subjects,” in a normal state, is such as certainly excludes the hypothesis of accident. In some of the most remarkable series, contact has been permitted, it being difficult to suppose that unconscious pressure of the hand could convey information as to the exact locality of a pain.2 2 See, for instance, the record of Mr. Hughes’s series in Mr. Guthrie’s “Further Report,” above referred to. But complete isolation of the percipient is, no doubt, a more satisfactory condition; and at seven of the Liverpool meetings, which took place at intervals from November, 1884, to July, 1885, the experiment was arranged in the following way. The percipient being seated blindfolded, and with her back to the rest of the party, all the other persons present inflicted on themselves the same pain on the same part of the body. Those who took part in this collective agency were three or more of the following: Mr. Guthrie, Professor Herdman, Dr. Hicks, Dr. Hyla Greves, Mr. R. C. Johnson, F.R.A.S., Mr. Birchall, Miss Redmond, and on one occasion another lady. The percipient throughout was Miss Relph.
In all, 20 trials were made. The parts pained were—
1.—Back of left hand pricked. Rightly localised.
2.—Lobe of left ear pricked. Rightly localised.
3.—Left wrist pricked. “Is it in the left hand?”—pointing to the
back near the little finger.
4.—Third finger of left hand tightly bound round with wire. A lower joint of that finger was guessed.
5.—Left wrist scratched with pins. “It is in the left wrist, like being scratched.”
6.—Left ankle pricked. Rightly localised.
7.—Spot behind left ear pricked. No result.
8.—Right knee pricked. Rightly localised.
9.—Right shoulder pricked. Rightly localised.
10.—Hands burned over gas. “Like a pulling pain . . then tingling,
like cold and hot alternately——localised by gesture only.
11.—End of tongue bitten. “It is in the lip or the tongue.”
12.—Palm of left hand pricked. “Is it a tingling pain in the hand,
here?”—placing her finger on the palm of the left hand.
13.—Back of neck pricked. “Is it a pricking of the neck?”
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14.—Front of left arm above elbow pricked. Rightly localised.
15.—Spot just above left ankle pricked. Rightly localised.
16.—Spot just above right wrist pricked. “I am not quite sure, but I feel a pain in the right arm, from the thumb upwards, to above the wrist.”
17.—Inside of left ankle pricked. Outside of left ankle guessed.
18.—Spot beneath right collarbone pricked. The exactly corresponding spot on the left side was guessed.
19.—Back hair pulled. No result.
20.—Inside of right wrist pricked. Right foot guessed.
Thus in 10 out of the 20 cases, the percipient localised the pain with great precision; in 6 the localisation was nearly exact, and with these we may include No. 10, where the pain was probably not confined to a single well-defined area in the hands of all the agents; in 2 no local impression was produced; and in 1, the last, the answer was wholly wrong.
§ 11. We may pass now to a totally new division of experimental cases. So far the effect of thought-transference on the receiving mind has been an effect in consciousness—the actual emergence of an image or sensation which the percipient has recognised and described. But it is not necessary that the effect should be thus recognised by the percipient; his witness to it may be unconscious, instead of conscious, and yet may be quite unmistakeable. The simplest example of this is when some effect is produced on his motor system—when the impression received causes him to perform some action which proves to have distinct reference to the thought in the agent’s mind.1 1 Even an effect on the sensory system may bear witness to an unconscious impression, if it is an indirect effect, led up to by certain hidden processes. In the Proceedings of the S.P.R., Vol. i., pp. 257–60, Vol. ii., pp. 203–4, and Vol. iii., pp. 453–9, a case in point is given. A young man’s fingers having been concealed from him by a paper screen, anæsthesia and rigidity were repeatedly produced in one or another of them, by a process in which the concentrated attention of the “agent” on the particular finger proved to be an indispensable element. A psychical account of this result seems possible, if thought-transference can work, so to speak, underground. Such a case, however, may possibly indicate something beyond simple thought-transference—some sort of specific physical influence; and it should be noted that the “subject,” though at the time he was wide awake and in a perfectly normal state, had frequently on former occasions been hypnotised by the agent.
It is only in connection with hypnotism, again, that we find authentic cases of the direct effect of volition in producing the identical movement willed—such as raising the hand, dropping a book, &c. Some of these will be given in the next chapter.
The cases fall into two classes. In one class the actions are purely automatic: in the other some conscious idea of what was to be done has preceded and accompanied the muscular effect; so that that effect would be at most semi-automatic. To begin with this semi-automatic class; it might be thought that examples would be found in those rarer cases of the “willing-game” where contact, and {i-59} movement on the agent’s part, are avoided. But we have received no records of such cases where it is certain that the precautions necessary to exclude the barest possibility of slight unconscious physical signs were rigidly enforced; and it will be preferable to describe some experiments made by members of our own group, where this point was kept steadily in view. We have had several interesting series in which the “subject’s” power of utterance has been inhibited by the silent determination of the operator. Our first experiments of this sort were made in January, 1883. The “subject” was our friend, Mr. Sidney Beard, who had been thrown into a light hypnotic trance by Mr. G. A. Smith. A list of twelve Yeses and Noes in arbitrary order was written by one of ourselves and put into Mr. Smith’s hand, with directions that he should successively “will”; the “subject” to respond or not to respond, in accordance with the order of the list. Mr. Beard was lying back with closed eyes; and a tuning-fork was struck and held at his ear, with the question, “Do you hear?” asked by one of ourselves. This was done twelve times with a completely successful result, the answer or the failure to answer corresponding in each case with the “yes” or “no” of the written list—that is to say, with the silently concentrated will of the agent.
1 1 Similar trials on other occasions were equally successful; as also were trials where the tuning-fork was dispensed with, and the only sound was the question, “Do you hear?” asked by one of the observers. On these latter occasions, however, Mr. Smith was holding Mr. Beard’s hand; and it might be maintained that “yes” and “no” indications were given by unconscious variations of pressure. How completely unconscious the supposed “reader” was of any sensible guidance will be evident from Mr. Beard’s own account. “During the experiments of January 1st, when Mr. Smith mesmerised me, I did not entirely lose consciousness at any time, but only experienced a sensation of total numbness in my limbs. When the trial as to whether I could hear sounds was made, I heard the sounds distinctly each time, but in a large number of instances I felt totally unable to acknowledge that I heard them. I seemed to know each time whether Mr. Smith wished me to say that I heard them; and as I had surrendered my will to his at the commencement of the experiment, I was unable to reassert my power of volition whilst under his influence.”
A much more prolonged series of trials was made in November, 1883, by Professor Barrett, at his house in Dublin. The hypnotist was again Mr. G. A. Smith.
“The ‘subject’ was an entire stranger to Mr. Smith, a youth named Fearnley, to whom nothing whatever was said as to the nature of the experiment about to be tried, until he was thrown into the hypnotic state in my study. He was then in a light sleep-waking condition—his eyes were closed and the pupils upturned—apparently sound asleep; but he readily answered in response to any questions addressed to him by Mr. Smith or by myself.
“I first told him to open the fingers of his closed hand, or not to open them, just as he felt disposed, in response to the question addressed to him. That question, which I always asked in a uniform tone of voice, was in {i-60} each case, ‘Now, will you open your hand?’ and at the same moment I pointed to the word ‘Yes’ or ‘No,’ written on a card, which was held in sight of Mr. Smith, but entirely out of the range of vision of the
‘subject,’ even had his eyes been open, which they were not. Without the slightest change of expression or other observable muscular movement, and quite out of contact with the ‘subject,’ Mr. Smith then silently willed the subject to open or not to open his hand, in accordance with the ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’ Twenty successive experiments were made in this way; seventeen of these were quite successful, and three were failures. But these three failures were possibly due to inadvertence on Mr. Smith‘s part, as he subsequently stated that on those occasions he had not been prompt enough to direct his will in the right direction before the question was asked.
“The experiment was now varied as follows: The word ‘Yes’ was written on one, and the word ‘No’ on the other, of two precisely similar pieces of card. One or other of these cards was handed to Mr. Smith at my arbitrary pleasure, care, of course, being taken that the ‘subject’ had no opportunity of seeing the card, even had he been awake. When ‘Yes’ was handed, Mr. Smith was silently to will the ‘subject’ to answer aloud in response to the question asked by me, ‘Did you hear me?’ When ‘No’ was handed, Mr. Smith was to will that no response should be made in reply to the same question. The object of this series of experiments was to note the effect of increasing the distance between the willer and the willed,—the agent and the percipient. In the first instance Mr. Smith was placed three feet from the ‘subject,’ who remained throughout apparently asleep in an arm-chair in one corner of my study.
“At three feet apart, fifteen trials were successively made, and in every case the ‘subject’ responded or did not respond in exact accordance with the silent will of Mr. Smith, as directed by me.
“At six feet apart, six similar trials were made without a single failure.
“At twelve feet apart, six more trials were made without a single failure.
“At seventeen feet apart, six more trials were made without a single failure.
“In this last case Mr. Smith had to be placed outside the study door, which was then closed with the exception of a narrow chink just wide enough to admit of passing a card in or out, whilst I remained in the study observing the ‘subject.’ To avoid any possible indication from the tone in which I asked the question, in all cases except the first dozen experiments, I shuffled the cards face downwards, and then handed the unknown ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to Mr. Smith, who looked at the card and willed accordingly. I noted down the result, and then, and not till then, looked at the card.
“A final experiment was made when Mr. Smith was taken across the hall and placed in the dining-room, at a distance of about thirty feet from the ‘subject,’ two doors, both quite closed, intervening. Under these conditions, three trials were made with success, the ‘Yes’ response being, however, very faint and hardly audible to me, who returned to the study to ask the usual question after handing the card to the distant operator. At this point, the ‘subject’ fell into a deep sleep, and made no further replies to the questions addressed to him.
“Omitting these final experiments, the total number of successive trials at different distances was forty-three. If the result had been due to accident, there would have been an even chance of failures and of {i-61} successes,—whereas in fact there was not a single failure in the entire series.
“I subsequently made a series of a dozen successive trials in an absolutely dark room, conveying my intention to Mr. Smith by silently squeezing his hand, once for ‘No,’ twice for ‘Yes.’ Every trial was successful. When Mr. Smith was placed outside the darkened room, I handed him the card through a small aperture, which could be closed. Eight trials gave six results quite right, one wrong, and one doubtful. Afterwards twenty trials, made when Mr. Smith was recalled, and the room lighted, were all entirely successful. There was, I need hardly say, no contact between operator and ‘subject’ in any of these experiments.
“The difference in the power of the will of the hypnotist and that of any other person was strikingly manifest, and the proof of the existence of a peculiar ‘rapport’ between operator and subject was simply overwhelming. I several times exerted my will in opposition to that of Mr. Smith—that is to say, willed that the ‘subject’ should or should not respond, when Mr. Smith willed the opposite, both of us being equally distant from the ‘subject.’ In every case his will triumphed. As in the case of Mr. Beard, the ‘subject,’ on being aroused, stated that he had heard the question each time, but that when he gave no answer he felt unaccountably unable to control his muscles so as to frame the word.
“It was noticeable that neither in the normal nor in the hypnotic state was this subject able to tell any word or number or describe any diagram thought of or viewed by the operator. Only his ability to act in a particular way could be controlled, and he was not susceptible to even the most rudimentary form of thought-transference proper.”
The following shorter series with another operator, Mr. Kershaw, of Southport, and with Mrs. Firth, a sick-nurse, as “subject,” though the precautions were less elaborate than in the case just recorded, was to an eye-witness almost equally satisfactory. For the trial was quite suddenly suggested to Mr. Kershaw by the present writer; and not only was it planned out of Mrs. Firth’s hearing, but Mr. Kershaw himself had some difficulty in understanding what was wanted. A variety of small circumstances combined to show that the form of experiment was entirely new both to operator and “subject.”
The trial took place at Southport, on September 7th, 1883. Mrs. Firth, who had been previously thrown into a light stage of trance, was placed in a chair in the middle of a bare room. Mr. Kershaw and I stood about three yards behind her; and sight of us, or of any part of us, on her part was out of the question. The window was in the wall in front of her, but altogether on one side; and there were no other reflecting surfaces in the room. I drew up the subjoined list of yeses and noes, and held it for Mr. Kershaw to see. He made a quiet connecting motion of the hand (not touching me, and being many {i-62}
feet from Mrs. Firth), when there was to be an answer, and an equally-quiet transverse or separating pass when there was to be none. I attribute no virtue to the passes, except so far as they were a means of vivifying Mr. Kershaw’s silent intention to himself. The passes were almost absolutely noiseless, and the extremely faint sound which they made, from the very nature of the gentle motion, can scarcely have varied. Complete silence was preserved but for my question, “Do you hear?” repeated time after time, in a perfectly neutral tone; and there did not appear to be the very faintest chance of signalling, even had there been an opportunity for arranging a scheme.
1.—Yes | | Right (i.e., Mrs. Firth responded). |
2.—No | | Right (i.e., Mrs. Firth did not respond). |
3.—Yes | | Right. |
4.—Yes | | Right. |
5.—No | | Right. |
6.—Yes | | Right. |
7.—No | | At first no answer, which was right: then I gave a very loud stamp, which provoked a “Yes.” |
8.—No | | Right. |
9.—Yes | | Right. |
I will add one more short series, which took place at my lodgings at Brighton, on September 10th, 1883. The operator was Mr. Smith; the “subject” an intelligent young cabinet-maker, named Conway. Mr. Smith and I stood behind him, without any contact with him. I held the list, and pointed to the desired answer each time. The silence was absolute. I repeated the question, “What is your name?” in a perfectly neutral and monotonous manner.
1.—Yes | | Right (i.e., the “subject” said “Conway”). |
2.—Yes | | Right. |
3.—No | | This time the answer “Conway” was given; but when the next question was asked, the “subject” seemed unable to answer for some seconds, as though Mr. Smith‘s intention had taken effect a little too late. |
4.—Yes | | Right. |
5.—No | | Right. |
6.—No | | Right. |
7.—Yes | | Right. |
8.—No | | Right. |
9.—Yes | | Right. |
10.—Yes | | Right. |
11.—No | | Right. |
12. Yes | | Right. |
§ 12. But in experiments of this class it is clearly difficult to be sure that the conscious idea of the evoked or the inhibited action does not precede or accompany the muscular effects. Indeed, as we have seen, the percipient’s own account has sometimes shown that it did so. I proceed, then, to our second class of cases. There is, fortunately, one sort of act where the verdict of the performer that it was {i-63} automatically performed may be taken as conclusive; the act of writing. If words are written down which the writer is obliged to read over, and even to puzzle over, just as anyone else might do, in order to learn what they are, his unconsciousness of them in the act of writing may be taken as established. Now written words are of course as good as spoken ones, as evidence that a particular idea has been in some way communicated. If, then, one person’s automatic writing corresponds unmistakeably to the idea on which another person’s mind was concentrated at the time, and if the possibility of sensory indications has been excluded, we have a clear example of some novel influence acting, not only without the participation of the recognised organs of sense, but without the participation of the percipient’s conscious intelligence. Here again we find the advantage of the generic word “telepathy”—for it would clearly be inaccurate to call a phenomenon “thought-transference” where what is transferred does not make its appearance, on the percipient’s side, as thought or any other form of conscious perception.
We have in our collection several examples of this motor form of experimental telepathy; where a mental question on the part of some one present has been answered in writing, with a planchette1 1 A planchette has two advantages over a simple pencil. It is very much more easily moved to write; and it is very much easier to make with it the movements necessary for the formation of letters without realising what the letters are. or a simple pencil, without any consciousness of either the question or the answer on the part of the person whose hand was automatically acting. But the following group of cases is decidedly the most remarkable that has come under our notice.
The Rev. P. H. Newnham, Vicar of Maker, Devonport, has had many indications of spontaneous transference of thought from himself to his wife;2 2 See, e.g., the cases quoted in Chap. v., §§2 and 8. and at one period of his life, in 1871, he carried out a long and systematic series of experiments, which were of the motor type that we are now considering—he writing down a question, and the planchette under his wife’s hands replying to it. He recorded the results, day by day, in a private diary, which he has kindly placed at our disposal. From this diary I quote the following extracts:—
My wife always sat at a small low table, in a low chair, leaning backwards. I sat about eight feet distant, at a rather high table, and with my back towards her while writing down the questions. It was absolutely impossible that any gesture or play of features, on my part, could have been visible or intelligible to her. As a rule she kept her eyes shut; but never became in the slightest degree hypnotic, or even naturally drowsy.
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Under these conditions we carried on experiments for about eight months, and I have 309 questions and answers recorded in my note-book, spread over this time. But the experiments were found very exhaustive of nerve power, and as my wife’s health was delicate, and the fact of thought-transmission had been abundantly proved, we thought it best to abandon the pursuit.
I may mention that the planchette began to move instantly, with my wife. The answer was often half written before I had completed the question.
On first finding that it would write easily, I asked three simple questions which were known to the operator;1 1 Mr. Newnham uses this word where we should use “subject” or “percipient.” then three others, unknown to her, relating to my own private concerns. All six having been instantly answered in a manner to show complete intelligence, I proceeded to ask:—
7.2 2 The numbers prefixed to the questions are those in the note-book. Write down the lowest temperature here this winter. A. 8.
Now, this reply at once arrested my interest. The actual lowest temperature had been 7.6° so that 8 was the nearest whole degree; but my wife said at once that, if she had been asked the question, she would have written 7 and not 8; as she had forgotten the decimal, but remembered my having said that the temperature had been down to 7 something.
I simply quote this, as a good instance, at the very outset, of perfect transmission of thought, coupled with a perfectly independent reply; the answer being correct in itself, but different from the impression on the conscious intelligence of both parties.3 3 It will be borne in mind throughout that Mrs. Newnham had, at the time when the answer was produced, no conscious knowledge of the question which her husband had written down.
Naturally our first desire was to see if we could obtain any information concerning the nature of the intelligence which was operating through the planchette, and of the method by which it produced the written results. We repeated questions on this subject again and again, and I will copy down the principal questions and answers in the connection.
January 29th.
13. Is it the operator’s brain, or some external force, that moves the planchette? Answer “brain” or “force.”
A. Will.
14. Is it the will of a living person, or of an immaterial spirit, distinct
from that person? Answer “person” or “spirit.”
A. Wife.
15. Give first the wife’s Christian name; then, my favourite name for her.
(This was accurately done.)
27. What is your own name?
A. Only you.
28. We are not quite sure of the meaning of the answer. Explain.
A. Wife.
Failing to get more than this, at the outset, we turned to the same thought after question 114; when, having been closely pressed on another subject, we received the curt reply—“Told all I know.”
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February 18th.
117. Who are you that writes, and has told all you know?
A. Wife.
118. But does no one tell wife what to write? If so, who?
A. Spirit.
119. Whose spirit?
A. Wife’s brain.
120. But how does wife’s brain know (certain) secrets?
A. Wife’s spirit unconsciously guides.
121. But how does wife’s spirit know things it has never been told?
A. No external influence.
122. But by what internal influence does it know (these) secrets?
A. You cannot know.
March 15th.
132. Who, then, makes the impressions upon her?
A. Many strange things.
133. What sort of strange things?
A. Things beyond your knowledge.
134. Do, then, things beyond our knowledge make impressions upon wife?
A. Influences which no man understands or knows.
136. Are these influences which we cannot understand external to wife?
A. External—invisible.
137. Does a spirit, or do spirits, exercise those influences?
A. No, never (written very large and emphatically).
138. Then from whom, or from whence, do the external influences come?
A. Yes; you will never know.
139. What do you mean by writing “yes” in the last answer?
A. That I really meant never.
April 10th.
192. But by what means are my thoughts conveyed to her brain?
A. Electro-biology.
193. What is electro-biology?
A. No one knows.
194. But do not you know?
A. No. Wife does not know.
My object in quoting this large number of questions and replies [N.B. those here given are mere samples] has not been merely to show the instantaneous and unfailing transmission of thought from questioner to operator; but, more especially, to call attention to a remarkable characteristic of the answers given. These answers, consistent and invariable in their tenor from first to last, did not correspond with the opinions or expectations of either myself or my wife. Neither myself nor my wife had ever taken part in any form of (so-called) “spiritual” manifestations before this time; nor had we any decided opinion as to the agency by which phenomena of this kind were brought about. But for such answers as those numbered 14, 27, 137, 192, and 194, we were both of us totally unprepared; and I may add that, so far as we were prepossessed by any opinions whatever, these replies were distinctly opposed to such opinions. In a word, it is simply impossible that these replies should {i-66} have been either suggested or composed by the conscious intelligence of either of us.
I had a young man reading with me as a private pupil at this time. On February 12th he returned from his vacation; and, on being told of our experiments, expressed his incredulity very strongly. I offered any proof that he liked to insist upon, only stipulating that I should see the question asked. Accordingly, Mrs. Newnham took her accustomed chair in my study, while we went out into the hall, and shut the door behind us. He then wrote down on a piece of paper:—
87. What is the Christian name of my eldest sister?
We at once returned to, the study, and found the answer already waiting for us:—
A. Mina.
(This name was the family abbreviation of Wilhelmina; and I should add that it was unknown to myself.)
I must now go on to speak of a series of other experiments, of a very remarkable kind.
We soon found that my wife was perfectly unable to follow the motions of the planchette. Often she only touched it with a single finger; but even with all her fingers resting on the board, she never had the slightest idea of what words were being traced out. It struck me that it would be a good thing to take advantage of this peculiarity on her part, to ask questions upon subjects that it was impossible for her to know anything about. I had taken a deep interest in Masonic archæology, and I now questioned planchette on some subjects connected therewith.
February 14th.
92. What is the English of the great word of the R.A.?
After an interruption, of which I shall speak hereafter, one great word of the degree, but not the one I meant, was written, very slowly and clearly.
February 18th.
112. What is the translation of the Great Triple Word?
A. (The first syllable of the word in question was written correctly, and then it proceeded.) The end unknown. Three languages. Greece. Egypt. Syriac.
115. Who are you that know?
(Answer scrawled and illegible.)
116. Please repeat same answer legibly.
A. Manifestation triune person.
March 26th.
166. Of what language is the first syllable of the Great Triple R.A. Word?
A. Don’t know.
167. Yes, you do. What are the three languages of which the word is composed?
A. Greek, Egypt, Syriac first syllable (correctly given), rest unknown.
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168. Write the syllable which is Syriac.
A. (First syllable correctly written.)
169. Write the syllable which is Egyptian.
A. Second.
170. Can you not write the syllable itself?
A. Third Greek.
174. Write down the word itself.
A. First three and last two letters were written correctly, but four incorrect letters, partly borrowed from another word of the same degree, came in the middle.
176. Why do you write a word of which I know nothing?
A. Wife tried hard to tell the word, but could not quite catch it.
177. Catch it from whom?
A. Not quite sure.
178. Not quite sure of what?
A. I know nothing. Wife doesn’t quite know.
In the above series of answers we have, it seems to me, a very remarkable combination of knowledge and ignorance. There is a perfect appreciation of my thoughts, in the queries; but a strange, persistent, almost dogged, incapability of seeing my thoughts, in the replies. Especially in the answer to 116, and in some other answers [not here quoted], there is a reference to an opinion which was published by Dr. Oliver, whose works I had been carefully reading about four months before, but with whose theory, in this case, I most strongly disagreed. So that here was an opinion intimated which it was impossible that the operator could have been aware of, and which the questioner had absolutely rejected as untenable!
182. Write out the prayer used at the advancement of a Mark Master Mason.
A. Almighty Ruler of the Universe and Architect of all worlds, we beseech Thee to accept this, our brother, whom we have this day received into our most honourable Company of Mark Master Masons. Grant him to be a worthy member of our brotherhood; and may he be in his own person a perfect mirror of all Masonic virtues. Grant that all our doings may be to Thy honour and glory, and to the welfare of all mankind.
This prayer was written off instantaneously and very rapidly. It is a very remarkable production indeed. For the benefit of those who are not members of the craft, I may say that no prayer in the slightest degree resembling it is made use of in the Ritual of any Masonic degree; and yet it contains more than one strictly accurate technicality connected with the degree of Mark Mason. My wife has never seen any Masonic prayers, whether in “Carlile,” or any other real or spurious Ritual of the Masonic Order.
Here, then, assuredly was a formula composed by some intelligence totally distinct from the conscious intelligence of either of the persons engaged in the experiment.
I proceeded to inquire as follows:—
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183. I do not know this prayer. Where is it to be found?
A. Old American Ritual.
184. Where can I get one?
A. Most likely none in England.
185. Can you not write the prayer that I made use of in my own Lodge?
A. No, I don’t know it.
In these last answers we see a new moral element introduced. There is evasion, or subterfuge, of a more or less ingenious kind; and totally foreign to the whole character and natural disposition of the operator. A similar attempt at deliberate invention, rather than plead guilty to total ignorance, is contained in the following answers:—
May 7th.
255. In what Masonic degree was the Triple Word first used?
A. Wife does not know.
256. Cannot you tell her?
A. How can wife know what no one else does?
257. Does no one, then, know the answer to this?
A. No one knows now.
258. What do you mean by “now”? Did anyone once know?
A. The last one who knew died at least twenty years ago.
259. What was his name?
A. In America; don’t know name.
[Many more instances of these evasive replies occur.]
May 10th.
Planchette again gave us an example of its sense of the humorous.
I had been obliged to engage a clergyman who was not a favourable specimen of his profession, as I could procure no one else in time to get the Sunday’s work done. He was much amused with planchette, and desired to ask:—
277. How should a bachelor live in this neighbourhood?
(The answer was illegible.)
278. Please repeat answer.
A. Three months.
(Planchette evidently did not catch the exact query.)
279. I did not ask how long but how?
A. Eating and drinking and sleeping and smoking.
That clergyman never consulted planchette again.
I will conclude with a very pretty instance of a mistake instantly corrected. It was on the same evening, May 10th; I had to preach on the following Whit-Monday, on the occasion of laying a foundation-stone with Masonic ceremonial, so I asked:—
275. Give me a text for Whit-Monday’s sermon.
A. If I go not away, the Comforter will not come to you.
The selection of a subject suitable for Whitsuntide is plainly the first idea caught by the intelligence; so I proceeded:—
276. That will not do for my subject. I want a text for the Monday’s sermon.
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A. Let brotherly love continue.
I will add one example where, contrary to the usual rule, the idea of the answer, though not that of the question, reached the level of consciousness in Mrs. Newnham’s mind.
59. What name shall we give to our new dog?
A. Nipen.
The name of Nipen, from Feats on the Fiord, shot into the operator’s brain just as the question was asked.
The above quotations form a fair sample of Mr. Newnham’s 309 experiments of the same type; and no one who admits the bona fides of the record, and believes that Mrs. Newnham, sitting with closed eyes eight feet behind her husband, did not obtain through her senses an unconscious knowledge of what he wrote, will deny that some sort of telepathic influence was at work, acting below the level of the percipient’s consciousness. The experiments are further interesting as suggesting, in the character of many of the replies, an unconscious intelligence—a second self quite other than Mrs. Newnham’s conscious self. “Unconscious intelligence” is no doubt a somewhat equivocal phrase, and it is necessary to know in every case exactly what is meant by it. It may be used in a purely physical sense—to describe the unconscious cerebral processes whereby actions are produced which as a rule are held to imply conscious intelligence; as, for instance, when complicated movements, once performed with thought and effort, gradually become mechanical. But it may be used also to describe psychical processes which are severed from the main conscious current of an individual’s life. Unconsciousness in any further sense it would be rash to assert; for intelligent psychic process without consciousness of some sort, if not a contradiction in terms, is at any rate something as impossible to imagine as a fourth dimension in space. The events in question are outside the individual’s consciousness, as the events in another person’s consciousness are; but they differ from these last in not revealing themselves as part of any continuous stream of conscious life; and no one, therefore, can give an account of them as belonging to a self. What their range and conditions of emergence may be we cannot tell; since, in general, their very existence can only be inferred from certain sensible effects to which they lead.1 1 It may be asked what right I have to make any such inference; since à la rigueur the effects, being sensible and physical, do not require us to suppose that they had any other than physical antecedents. It is true that it is impossible to demonstrate that the physical antecedents, which undoubtedly exist, have any psychical correlative. But the results in question have often no analogy to the automatic actions which we are accustomed to attribute to “unconscious cerebration.” They are not the effects of habit and practice; they are new results, of a sort which has in all our experience been preceded by intention and reflection, and referable to a self. But perhaps the simplest illustration of what is here meant by “unconscious intelligence” is to be found in occasional facts of dreaming. Thus, it has occurred to me at least once, in a dream, to be asked a riddle, to give it up, and then to be told the answer—which, on waking, I found quite sufficiently pertinent to show that the question could not have been framed without distinct reference to it. Yet for the consciousness which I call mine, that reference had remained wholly concealed: so little had I known myself as the composer of the riddle that the answer came to me as a complete surprise. The philosophical problem of partial selves cannot be here enlarged on. For a discussion of the subject from the point of view of cerebral localisation, as well as for further quotations from Mr. Newnham’s record, I may refer the reader to Mr. Myers’ paper on “Automatic Writing,” in Vol. iii. of the Proceedings of the S.P.R. I may recall the undoubted phenomena of what {i-70} has been termed “double consciousness,” where a double psychical life is found connected with a single organism. In those cases the two selves, one of which knows nothing of the other, appear as successive; but if we can regard such segregated existences as united or unified by bonds of reference and association which, for the partial view of one of them at least, remain permanently out of sight, then I do not see what new or fundamental difficulty is introduced by conceiving them as simultaneous; and simultaneity of the sort is what seems to be shown, in a fragmentary way, by cases like the present. I shall have to recur to this conception in connection with some of the facts of spontaneous telepathy (see pp. 230–1).
A further noteworthy point is that so often the questions and not the answers in the agent’s mind should have been telepathically discerned; but we may perhaps conceive that the impulse first conveyed set the percipient’s independent activity to work, and so put an end for the moment to the receptive condition. The power to reproduce the actual word thought of is sufficiently shown in the cases where names were given (15 and 87), and in some of the Masonic answers; and the following examples belong to the same class.
48. What name shall we give to our new dog?
A. Yesterday was not a fair trial.
49. Why was not yesterday a fair trial?
A. Dog.
And again:—
108. What do I mean by chaffing C. about a lilac tree?
A. Temper and imagination.
109. You are thinking of somebody else. Please reply to my question.
A. Lilacs.
Here a single image or word seems to have made its mark on the percipient’s mind, without calling any originative activity into play; and we thus get the naked reproduction. In these last examples we again notice the feature of deferred impression. The influence {i-71} only gradually became effective, the immediate answer being irrelevant to the question. We may suppose, therefore, that the first effect took place below the threshold of consciousness.1 1 The following case, though not strictly experimental, is sufficiently in point to be worth quoting. Though unfortunately not recorded in writing at the time, it was described within a few days of its occurrence to Mr. Podmore, who is acquainted with all the persons concerned. The narrator is Miss Robertson, of 229, Marylebone Road, W.
“About three years ago I was speaking of planchette-writing to some of my friends, when a young lady, a daughter of the house where I was spending the evening, mentioned that she had played with planchette at school, and that it had always written for her. Thereupon I asked her to spend the evening with me, and try it again, which she agreed to do. On the morning of the day on which she had arranged to come to me, her brother, on leaving the house, said, laughing, ‘Well, Edith, it is all humbug, but if planchette tells you the name and sum of money which are on a cheque which I have in my pocket, and which I am going to cash for mother, I will believe there is something in it.’ Edith, on her arrival at my house in the evening, told me of this, and I said, ‘We must not expect that; planchette never does what one wants,’ or words to that effect. A couple of hours after, we tried the planchette, Edith’s hand alone touching it. It almost immediately wrote, quite clearly:—
‘I. SPALDING. £6:13:4.’
I had forgotten about the cheque, and I said,
‘What can that mean?’ Upon which Edith replied, ‘It is H.’s cheque, perhaps.’ I was incredulous, having a long acquaintance with planchette. I said, ‘If it is right, send me word directly you get home; I am sure it will not be.’ But the next day I received a letter from Edith, telling me that she had astonished her brother greatly by telling him the name and the amount on the cheque, which was perfectly correct. I have read this account to the young lady and her brother, who sign it as well as myself.
“NORA ROBERTSON.
“E. C.
“D. C. H. C.”
In answer to an inquiry, Miss Robertson adds, on Feb. 12, 1885:—
“Miss E. C. says, in answer to your question, that she is quite certain she could not have known, or surmised, the name and amount of the cheque.
“I can confirm her on the first point, for I remember questioning everybody all round at the time. She had just returned from school, and knew nothing at all about her mother’s business or money matters.”
Here, it will be observed, the impression seems not only to have been unconscious, but to have remained latent for several hours before taking effect; for it is at any rate the most natural supposition that the transference actually occurred at the time when the conversation on the subject took place between the brother and sister.
This latency of an impression which finally takes effect in distinct automatic or semi-automatic movements, may be seen in cases which have no connection with telepathy. It occurs, for instance, in the following “muscle-reading” experiment, described to us by Mr. George B. Trent, of 65, Sandgate Road, Folkestone:—
“March 24th, 1883.
“Some two months back, I was asked by a gentleman, who had read of my experiments in the paper, to oblige him with a séance. I called upon him one afternoon, and he told me that he had hidden some object, in the early morning, and he thought he had given me a puzzle. I first experimented with pins; I led him to their hiding-places at once, without the least hesitation. I then asked him to concentrate the whole of his thoughts on what he had done in the morning. I immediately led him to a davenport, unlocked it, and from amongst, I may say, perhaps a hundred papers and other articles, I selected three photographs, and from the three I fixed upon one—that of his wife. He then said he was perfectly astonished, as I had positively gone through an experiment he had set himself to do, but abandoned in favour of another he had done.”
It seems probable that, at any rate in the earlier stages of this performance, the idea of what was to be done was not consciously present in the “willer’s” mind, which was apparently concentrated on something else. And if so, his muscular indications must have been the result of unconscious cerebration—an effect of nervous activity, continuing to act in accordance with a previous impulse which had lapsed from consciousness.
§ 13. I may now proceed to some further results which were obtained with percipients of less abnormal sensibility, and which demand, therefore, a careful application of the theory of probabilities.
{i-72}
For the development of the motor form of experiment in this direction, we have again to thank M. Richet; who here, as in the case of the card-guessing, has brought the calculus to bear effectively on various sets of results many of which, if looked at in separation, would have had no significance.1 1 I have given a fuller description and criticism of M. Richet’s investigations in Vol. ii. of the Proceedings of the S.P.R. The fact that the “subjects” of his trials were persons who had betrayed no special aptitude for “mental suggestion,” made it clearly desirable that the bodily action required should be of the very simplest sort. The formation of words by a planchette-writer requires, of course, a very complex set of muscular co-ordinations: all that M. Richet sought to obtain was a single movement or twitch. In the earlier trials an object was hidden, and the percipient endeavoured to discover it by means of a sort of divining-rod—the idea being that he involuntarily twitched the rod at the right moment under the influence of “mental suggestion” from the agent, who was watching his movements. But where the subject of communication is of such an extremely simple kind, very elaborate precautions would be needed to guard against unconscious hints. Indications from the expression or attitude of the “agent” may be prevented by blindfolding the “percipient,” and in other ways; but if the two are in close proximity, it is harder to exclude such signs as may be given by involuntary movements, or by changes of breathing. M. Richet’s later experiments were ingeniously contrived so as to obviate this objection.
The place of a planchette was taken by a table, and M. Richet prefaces his account by a succinct statement of the orthodox view as to “table-turning.” Rejecting altogether the three theories which attribute the phenomena to wholesale fraud, to spirits, and to an unknown force, he regards the gyrations and oscillations of séance-tables as due wholly to the unconscious muscular contractions of the sitters. It thus occurred to him to employ a table as an indicator of the movements that might be produced, by “mental suggestion.” The plan of the experiments was as follows. Three persons (C, D, and E,) took their seats in a semi-circle, at a little table on which their hands rested. One of these three was always a “medium”—a term used by M. Richet to denote a person liable to exhibit intelligent movements in which consciousness and will apparently take no part. Attached to the table was a simple electrical apparatus, the effect of which was to ring a bell whenever the current was broken by the tilting of the table.
{i-73} Behind the backs of the sitters at the table was another table, on which was a large alphabet, completely screened from the view of C, D, and E, even had they turned round and endeavoured to see it. In front of this alphabet sat A, whose duty was to follow the letters slowly and steadily with a pen, returning at once to the beginning as soon as he arrived at the end. At A’s side sat B, with a note-book; his duty was to write down the letter at which A’s pen happened to be pointing whenever the bell rang. This happened whenever one of the sitters at the table made the simple movement necessary to tilt it. Under these conditions, A and B are apparently mere automata. C, D, and E are little more, being unconscious of tilting the table, which appears to them to tilt itself; but even if they tilted it consciously, and with a conscious desire to dictate words, they have no means of ascertaining at what letter A’s pen is pointing at any particular moment; and they might tilt for ever without producing more than an endless series of incoherent letters. Things being arranged thus, a sixth operator, F, stationed himself apart both from the tilting table and from the alphabet, and concentrated his thought on some word of his own choosing, which he had not communicated to the others. The three sitters at the first table engaged in conversation, sang, or told stories; but at intervals the table tilted, the bell rang, and B wrote down the letter which A’s pen was opposite to at that moment. Now, to the astonishment of all concerned, these letters, when arranged in a series, turned out to produce a more or less close approximation to the word of which F was thinking.
For the sake of comparing the results with those which pure accident would give, M. Richet first considers some cases of the latter sort. He writes the word NAPOLEON; he then takes a box containing a number of letters, and makes eight draws; the eight letters, in the order of drawing, turn out to be UPMTDEYV He then places this set below the other, thus:—
NAPOLEON
UPMTDEYV
Taking the number of letters in the French alphabet to be 24, the probability of the correspondence of any letter in the lower line with the letter immediately above it is, of course 1 ⁄ 24; and in the series of 8 letters it is more probable than not that there will not be a single correspondence. If we reckon as a success any case where the letter in the lower line corresponds not only with the letter above it, but {i-74} with either of the neighbours of that letter in the alphabet1 1 This procedure of counting neighbouring letters seems to require some justification. It might be justified by the difficulty, on the theory of mental suggestion, of obtaining an exact coincidence of time between the tilting and the pointing. But I think that M. Richet does justify it (Rev. Phil., p. 654), by reference to some other experiments—not yet published, but of which he has shown us the record—where intelligible words were produced of which no one in the room was, or had been, thinking. For here also neighbouring letters appeared, but in such a way as left no room for doubt, in the reader’s mind, as to what the letter should have been. (e.g., where L has above it either K, L, or M), then a single correspondence represents the most probable amount of success. In the actual result, it will be seen, there is just one correspondence, which happens to be a complete one—the letter E in the sixth place. It will not be necessary to quote other instances. Suffice it to say that the total result, of trials involving the use of 64 letters, gives 3 exact correspondences, while the expression indicating the most probable number was 2·7; and 7 correspondences of the other type, while the most probable number was 8. Thus even in this short set of trials, the accidental result very nearly coincided with the strict theoretic number.
We are now in a position to appreciate the results obtained when the factor of “mental suggestion” was introduced. In the first experiment made, M. Richet, standing apart both from the table and from the alphabet, selected from Littré’s dictionary a line of poetry which was unknown to his friends, and asked the name of the author. The letters obtained by the process above described were JFARD; and there the tilting stopped. After M. Richet’s friends had puzzled in vain over this answer, he informed them that the author of the line was Racine; and juxtaposition of the letters thus—
JFARD
JEANR
shows that the number of complete successes was 2, which is about 10 times the fraction representing the most probable number; and that the number of successes of the type where neighbouring letters are reckoned was 3, which is about 5 times the fraction representing the most probable number. M. Richet tells us, however, that he was not actually concentrating his thought on the author’s Christian name. Even so, it probably had a sub-conscious place in his mind, which might sufficiently account for its appearance. At the same time accident has of course a wider scope when there is more than one result that would be allowed as successful; and the amount of success was here not nearly striking enough to have any independent weight.
It is clearly desirable—with the view of making sure that F’s mind, if any, is the operative one—not to ask a question of which the {i-75} answer might possibly at some time have been within the knowledge of the sitters at the table; and in the subsequent experiments the name was silently fixed on by F. The most striking success was this:—
Name thought of: CHEVALON
Letters produced: CHEVAL
Here the most probable number of exact successes was 0, and the actual number was 6.
Taking the sum of eight trials, we find that the most probable number of exact successes was 2, and the actual number 14; and that the most probable number of successes of the other type was 7, and the actual number 24. It was observed, moreover, that the correspondences were much more numerous in the earlier letters of each set than in the later ones. The first three letters of each set were as follows—
JFA—NEF—FOQ—HEN—CHE—EPJ—CHE—ALL
JEA—LEG—EST—HIG—DIE—DOR—CHE—ZKO
Here, out of 24 trials, the most probable number of exact successes being 1, the actual number is 8; the most probable number of successes of the other type being 3, the actual number is 17. The figures become still more striking if we regard certain consecutive series in the results. Thus the probability of obtaining by chance the three consecutive correspondences in the first experiment here quoted was 1 ⁄ 512; and that of obtaining the 6 consecutive correspondences in the CHEVALON experiment was about 1 ⁄ 100,000,000.
The experiment was repeated four times in another form. A line of poetry was secretly and silently written down by the agent, with the omission of a single letter. He then asked what the omitted letter was; it was correctly produced in every one of the four trials. The probability of such a result was less than 1 ⁄ 300,000.
And now follows a very interesting observation. In some cases, after the result was obtained, subsequent trials were made with the same word, which of course the agent did not reveal in the meantime; and the amount of success was sometimes markedly increased on these subsequent trials. Thus, when the name thought of was D’O R M O N T,
the first three letters produced on the first trial were EPJ* * In the printed text, all the words in the following three lines except “second,” “third,” and “fourth” and the three-letter combinations are represented by ditto marks. —Ed.
the first three letters produced on the second trial were EPF
the first three letters produced on the third trial were EPS
the first three letters produced on the fourth trial were DOR
Summing up these four trials, the most probable number of exact successes was 0, and the actual number was 3; the most probable {i-76} number of successes of the other type was 1 or at most 2; and the actual number was 10. The probability of the 3 consecutive successes in the last trial was about 3 ⁄ 10,000.
In respect of this name d’Ormont, there was a further very peculiar result. On the fourth trial, the letters produced in the manner described stood thus—DOREMIOD. Thus, if the name thought of were spelt DOREMOND, the approximation would be extraordinarily close, the probability of the accidental occurrence of the 5 consecutive successes being something infinitesimal.
1 1 Moreover the E in the 4th place had appeared in two of the preceding trials and the final O D in one of them. Now, as long as we are merely aiming at an unassailable mathematical estimate of probabilities for each particular case, it does not seem justifiable to take
ifs of any sort into consideration. M. Richet, who was the agent, expressly tells us that he
was imagining the name spelt as d’Ormont; and on the strict account, therefore, the success reached a point against which the odds, though still enormous, were decidedly less enormous than if he had been imagining the other spelling. But when we are endeavouring to form a correct view of what really takes place, it would be unintelligent not to take a somewhat wider view of the phenomena. And such a view seems to show that in those underground mental regions where M. Richet’s results (if more than accidental) must have had their preparation, a mistake or a piece of independence in spelling is by no means an unusual occurrence. The records of automatism, quite apart from telepathy, afford many instances of such independence. Thus a gentleman, writing automatically, was puzzled by the mention of a friend at
Frontunac—a place he had never heard of; weeks afterwards his own writing gave him the correct name—
Fond du Lac. Mr. Myers’ paper, above referred to, contains one case where a planchette wrote, “My name is
Norman,” presumably meaning
Norval; and another, witnessed by Professor Sidgwick, where the Greek letter x was automatically written as K H, with the result that for a time the word completely puzzled the writer. And while engaged on this very point I have received a letter from Mr. Julian Hawthorne, in which he tells me that the spelling of the planchette-writing obtained through the automatism of a young child of his own was “much better than in her own letters and journals.”
I will insert here an incident to which, since it occurred in connection with a person who has been detected in the production of spurious {i-77} phenomena, I wish to attribute no evidential importance. Throughout this book care has been taken to rest our case exclusively on phenomena and records of phenomena derived from (as we believe) quite untainted sources; but there are two reasons which seem to me to make the following experience worth describing. First, those who already believe in thought-transference will feel little doubt that we have here an instance of it, which is in itself independent of the character and pretensions of the percipient; and this being so, they will find, in the close parallelism that the case presents in some points to M. Richet’s experiments, an interesting confirmation of these. And secondly, it may be useful to suggest that thought-transference is probably the true explanation of certain results professedly produced by “spiritualistic mediumship”; for till telepathic percipience is allowed for, as a natural human faculty, the occasional manifestations of it in dubious circumstances are certain to be a source of confusion and error.
On September 2, 1885, Mr. F. W. H. Myers, Dr. A. T. Myers, and the present writer paid an impromptu visit to a professional “medium” in a foreign town, who had no clue whatever to our names and identity. We had decided beforehand on a name on which to concentrate our thoughts, with a view to getting it reproduced. There was no opportunity for employing M. Richet’s precautions and checks. The “medium,” her daughter, and the three visitors sat round a table on which their hands were placed, and the present writer pointed to the successive letters of a printed alphabet; at intervals the sound of a rap was heard, and the letter thus indicated was written down. Now these conditions could not have been considered adequate, had the result been that the name in our minds was correctly given; for though our two companions were not apparently looking at us and not in contact with us, it might have been supposed that some involuntary and unconscious movement on our part revealed to one of them at what points to make the raps. But as the result turned out, it will be seen, I think, that this objection does not apply. The name that had been selected was John Henry Pratt. The result obtained in the way described was JONHNYESROSAT. From the N in the fifth place to the end, Dr. Myers and myself regarded the letters that were being given as purely fortuitous, and as forming gibberish; and though Mr. F. W. H. Myers detected a method in them, he was as far as we were from expecting the successive letters before they appeared. On inspection, the method {i-78} becomes apparent. If in three places an approximation (of the sort so often met with by M. Richet) be allowed, and a contiguous letter be substituted, the complete name will be found to be given, thus:—
J |
O |
N |
|
H |
N |
Y |
E |
R S |
|
R |
P O |
T S |
A |
T |
the first word being phonetically spelt, and the other two being correct anagrams. It is highly improbable that such an amount of resemblance was accidental; and it is difficult to suppose that it was due to muscular indications unconsciously given by us in accordance with an unconscious arrangement of the letters in our minds in phonetic and anagrammatic order. If these suppositions be excluded, the only alternative will be thought-transference—the letters whose image or sound was transferred being modified by the percipient herself, in a way which seems, from some experiments unconnected with thought-transference, to be quite within the scope of the mind’s unconscious operations.1 1 For a curious case of the automatic production of anagrams see Proceedings of the S.P.R., Vol. ii., pp. 226–31. But in whatever way the knowledge of the letters or syllables reached the “medium’s” mind, I see no reason to think that the expression of it by raps was other than a conscious act. The sounds were such as would be made by gently tapping the foot against the wooden frame of the table; and at a subsequent trial with one of these so-called “mediums”—the daughter—I managed by very gradually advancing my own foot to receive on it first a part and ultimately the whole of the impact. The movement required to make the raps may have become semiautomatic from long habit, but can hardly have been unconscious. I may add that, out of a good many words and sentences which were spelt out in the same way at several different sittings, the case recorded was (with a single doubtful exception) the only one that contained the slightest indication of any abnormal faculty.
To return to M. Richet’s experiments—a result of a different kind was the following, which is especially noteworthy as due to the agency of an idea that was itself on the verge of the unconscious. M. Richet chose a quotation at random from Littré’s dictionary, and asked for the name of the author, which was Legouvé. The letters produced were JOSEPHCHD, which looked like a complete failure. But the quotation in the dictionary was adjacent to another from the works of Joseph Chénier; and M. Richet’s eye, in running over the page, had certainly encountered the latter name, which had probably retained a certain low place in his consciousness. Another {i-79} very interesting case of a result unintended by the agent, though probably due to something in his mind, was this. The name thought of was Victor; the letters produced on three trials were
DALEN
DAMES
DANDS
—seemingly complete failures. But it appeared that while the agent had been concentrating his thoughts on “Victor,” the name of a friend, Danet, had spontaneously recurred to his memory. We should, of course, be greatly extending the chances of accidental
success, if we reckoned collocations of letters as successful on the ground of their resemblance to any one of the names or words which may have momentarily found their way into the agent’s mind while the experiment was in progress. Here, however, the name seems to have suggested itself with considerable persistence, and the resemblance is very close. And if the result may fairly be attributed to “mental suggestion,” then, of the two names which had a certain lodgment in the agent’s mind, the one intended to be effective was ineffective, and
vice versâ.
It is a remarkable fact that in the few hitherto recorded cases of experimental telepathy, where words have been indicated by writing or by other movements on the percipient’s part, the idea or word transferred seems as often as not to have been one which was not at the moment occupying the agent’s consciousness; that is to say, the influence has proceeded from some part of the agent’s mind which is below the threshold of conscious attention. (See p. 84 below, and Vol. II., pp. 670–1.) This conception of unconscious agency—of an “unconscious intelligence” in the agent as well as in the percipient—will present itself again very prominently when we come to consider the cases of spontaneous telepathy. But the experimental instances have a theoretic importance of another sort. They seem to exhibit telepathic production of movements by what is at most an idea, and not a volition, on the agent’s part. This, indeed, is a hypothesis which seems justified even by M. Richet’s less exceptional results. For we must remember that in a sense A is throughout more immediately the agent than F; it is what A’s mind contributes, not what F’s mind contributes, that produces the tilts at the right moments.1 1 When A, in pointing, began at the beginning of the alphabet, the sense of time might conceivably have led to an unconscious judgment as to the point arrived at. This idea had occurred to M. Richet. It seems, however, an unnecessary multiplication of hypotheses; for we learn from him that in some trials A began at uncertain places, and that under these conditions coherent words were obtained. The fact that so often the approximate letter was given, instead of the exact one, might seem at first sight to favour the hypothesis of unconscious reckoning; but it will be observed that exactly the same approximations took place in our own experiment (pp. 77–8), where the alphabet was in the “medium’s” sight. But this {i-80} is of course through no will of A’s; he is ignorant of the required word, and has absolutely no opportunity of bringing his volition into play. His “agency” is of a wholly passive sort; and his mind, as it follows the course of his pen, is a mere conduit-pipe, whereby knowledge of a certain kind obtains access to the “unconscious intelligence” which evokes the tilts. If, then, the knowledge manifests itself as impulse, can we avoid the conclusion that in this particular mode of access—in “mental suggestion” or telepathy as such—a certain impulsive quality is involved? We shall encounter further signs of such an impulsive quality among the spontaneous cases.1 1 The impulse might no doubt be otherwise accounted for if we supposed that a close connection was established in F’s mind between the idea of the object—i.e., the successive letters—and the idea of the movement, and that this complex idea was what was transferred and what ultimately took effect. But it is hard to apply this hypothesis to cases where a word is produced which, though latent in F’s mind, has no resemblance to the word whose production he is willing. The transference of the idea of the latent word, even to the exclusion of the right word, can be quite conceived; but can we suppose that, subconsciously or unconsciously, an idea of movement was combined with the idea of its letters in the agent’s mind, at the very moment when that on which his attention was fixed, and with which ex hypothesi the conscious idea of movement was connected, was a quite different set of letters? Can we suppose that the idea of movement overflowed into the unconscious region of his mind, and there on its own account formed an alliance with alien elements, the effect of which on the percipient would prevent the effect intended? It must be remembered that where a word which is not the one intended gets transferred from F to the “medium,” there is no knowledge, conscious or unconscious, on F’s part, as to what that word will be. A number of words are latent in his mind; one of these finds an echo in another mind. But how should the idea of movement find out which particular one, out of all the words, is destined thus to find an echo, so as to associate itself with its letters and no others? And if we suppose the association to be between the unconscious idea of movement and the unconscious idea of letters in general, this is no less dissimilar and opposed to anything that the conscious part of F’s mind has conceived. For it is not in letters as such, but in the exclusive constituents of a particular word, that he is interested; if indeed he is interested in anything beyond the word as a whole. The difficulty here seems to justify the suggestion—with which I imagine that M. Richet would agree—that the physiological impulse does not depend on any idea of movement, or any special direction of the agent’s will to that result. This might be tested, if F were a person ignorant of the form of the experiment, and out of sight of the table. (See pp. 294, 537–8.)
But of course the relation between F and the “medium” plays also a necessary part in the result; the impulse to tilt when a particular letter is reached only takes effect when it falls (so to speak) on ground prepared by “mental suggestion” from F—on a mind in which the word imagined by him has obtained an unconscious lodgment. The unconscious part of the percipient’s mind would thus be the scene of confluence of two separate telepathic streams, which proceed to combine there in an intelligent way—one proceeding from F’s mind, which produces unconscious knowledge of the word, and the other proceeding from A’s mind, which produces an unconscious image {i-81} of the successive letters.1 1 It will be seen that the results of such “unconscious intelligence” go considerably beyond the received results of mere “unconscious cerebration.” Unconscious cerebration is amply competent to produce such seemingly intelligent actions as ordinary writing; but what is now done more resembles the formation of a word by picking letters from a heap, or type-writing by a person who is unused to his instrument. The process is not one in which every item is connected by long-standing association with the one before and after it; every item is independent, and implies the recognition, at an uncertain moment, of a particular relation—that between the next letter required for the word and the same letter in its place in a quite distinct series. Another possible supposition would be that F’s thought affects, not the “medium,” but A; or conversely, that A’s thought affects not the “medium,” but F;—that A obtains unconscious knowledge of the word, or that F obtains unconscious knowledge of the letter, and so is enabled to communicate an impulse to the “medium” at the right moment. And we should then have to suppose a secret understanding between two parts of A’s or F’s mind, the part which takes account of the letters of the alphabet, and the part which takes account of the letters of the word—the former being conscious and the latter unconscious, or vice versâ, according as A or F is the party affected.
One hesitates to launch oneself on the conceptions which these experiments open up; but the only alternative would be to question the facts from an evidential point of view. So regarded, they are of an extremely simple kind; and if their genuineness be granted, we are reft once and for all from our old psychological moorings. The whole question of the psychical constitution of man is opened to its furthest depths; and our central conception—telepathy—the interest of which, even in its simpler phases, seemed almost unsurpassable, takes on an interest of a wholly unlooked-for kind. For it now appears as an all-important method or instrument for testing the mind in its hidden parts, and for measuring its unconscious operations.
CHAPTER III.
THE TRANSITION FROM EXPERIMENTAL TO SPONTANEOUS TELEPATHY.
§ 1. IN all the cases of the action of one mind on another that were considered in the last chapter, both the parties concerned—percipient as well as agent—were consciously and voluntarily taking part in the experiment with a definite idea of certain results in view. Spontaneous telepathy, as its name implies, differs from experimental in precisely this particular—that neither agent nor percipient has consciously or voluntarily formed an idea of any result whatever. Something happens for which both alike are completely unprepared. But between these two great classes of cases there is a sort of transitional class, which is akin to each of the others in one marked feature. In this class the agent acts consciously and voluntarily; he exercises a concentration of mind with a certain object, as in experimental thought-transference; he is in this way truly experimenting.1 1 It should be observed, however, that unless he records his experiment at the time, the case will stand on a different footing from those of the last chapter. But the percipient is not consciously or voluntarily a party to the experiment; as in spontaneous telepathy, his mind has not been in any way adjusted to the result; he finds himself affected in a certain manner, he knows not by what means.
In another way, also, this class of cases serves as a connecting link between the other two. For it introduces us to results produced at a much greater distance than any of those that have been so far described. Not that greater distance between the agent and percipient is in any way a distinguishing mark of the spontaneous, as opposed to the experimental, effects; the former no less than the latter—as we shall see reason to think—may take place between persons in the same room. But in the large majority of the spontaneous cases that we shall have to notice, the distance was considerable. And in the transitional class we meet {i-87} with specimens of both kinds—effects produced in the same room, and effects produced at a distance of many miles.
§ 2. In these transitional cases—as in those of the last chapter—the effect may show itself either in ideas and sensations which the percipient describes, or in actions of a more or less automatic sort. The motor cases have been by far the most heard of, and are, indeed, popularly supposed to be tolerably common; but this idea has no real foundation. The allegations of certain persons that, e.g., they can make strangers in church or in a theatre turn their heads, by “willing” that they should do so, cannot be accepted as establishing even a primâ facie case. Till accurate records are kept, such cases must clearly be reckoned as mere illusions of post hoc propter hoc—of successes noted and failures forgotten. Authentic instances of the kind seem, as it happens, always to be more or less closely connected with mesmerism. And even as regards mesmeric cases where a definite action or course of action is produced by silent or distant control, the first thing to remark is that many phenomena are popularly referred to this category which have not the slightest claim to a place in it. The common platform exhibition, where a profession is made of “willing” a particular person to attend, and he rushes into the room at the appointed moment, is not to be attributed to any influence then and there exercised, but is the effect of the command or the threat impressed on his mind when in its wax-like condition of trance on a previous evening. Nor, as a rule, do the cases where “subjects” are said to be drawn by their controller from house to house, or even to a distant town, prove any specific power of his will, or anything beyond the general influence and attraction which he has established, and which is liable every now and then to recrudesce in his absence, and to manifest itself in this startling form.1 1 Signs of this general mesmeric influence occur occasionally in the records of witchcraft. (See, e.g., The Discovery of Sorcery and Witchcraft practised by Jane Wenham, London, 1712.) It would scarcely be safe to interpret in any other way such an isolated case as the following of the late Mr. H. S. Thompson’s:—
“Mr. John Dundas, who was very much interested in mesmerism, was staying with me at Fairfield, about eight miles from Sutton. He one evening suggested that I should try and influence Mrs. Thornton at a distance; this was about 9 o’clock. I tried, but only for a few minutes, never thinking I should succeed. We went over to Sutton next day, when Mr. Harland said, ‘You must take care what experiments you try on Mrs. Thornton, as she has become so sensitive to you, that she not only goes to sleep when you are present, but last night after dinner she went to sleep, and rushed to the hall door, saying she must go to Fairfield, as Mr. Thompson wanted her. And we had great difficulty in waking her.’”
The incident is a striking one; but we need to know whether Mrs. Thornton ever behaved in the manner described at times when Mr. Thompson was not trying to influence her.
{i-88}
Very much rarer are the really crucial cases where the intended effect—the origination or inhibition of a motor-impulse—is brought about at the moment by a deliberate exercise of volition. In some of the more striking instances, the inhibition has been of that specific sort which temporarily alters the whole condition of the “subject,” and induces the mesmeric trance. In the Zoist for April, 1849, Mr. Adams, a surgeon of Lymington, writing four months after the event, describes how a guest of his own twice succeeded in mesmerising the man-servant of a common friend at a distance of nearly fifty miles, the time when the attempt was to be made having in each case been privately arranged with the man’s master. On the first occasion, the unwitting “subject” fell at the time named, 7.30 p.m., into a state of profound coma not at all resembling natural sleep, from which he was with difficulty aroused. He said that “before he fell asleep he had lost the use of his legs; he had endeavoured to kick the cat away, and could not do so.” On the second occasion a similar fit was induced at 9.30 a.m., when the man was in the act of walking across a meadow to feed the pigs. But the following case is more striking, as resting on the testimony of a man whose name must perforce be treated with respect. Dr. Esdaile says:—1 [☼]1 Natural and Mesmeric Clairvoyance, pp. 227–8. See also Mr. Cattell’s case in the Zoist, Vol. viii., p. 143; where the special circumstances seem sufficiently to exclude the hypothesis of expectancy.
These examples of distant influence have a bearing on the question as to the efficacy of concentrated attention in more ordinary mesmeric processes. Elliotson asserts that his own manipulations were often successful, however mechanically and inattentively carried out; and Bertrand (Du Magnétisme Animal, p. 341) makes a similar remark. Other operators have said that their passes were ineffectual, unless accompanied by distinct intention. The Rev. C. H. Townshend made this observation in an experiment with the celebrated naturalist, Agassiz, whom he was mesmerising while himself distracted by the non-arrival of some expected letters. “Although I was at the time engaged in the mesmeric processes to all appearance as actively as usual, my patient called out to me constantly and coincidently with the remission of my thought, ‘You influence me no longer; you are not exerting yourself.’” And the above cases certainly favour the view that the exercise of any specific influence will normally have a well-marked psychical side. (See also Nos. 688, 689, 690.) It is interesting to find Esdaile making the same observation as Townshend in respect even of the very definite manipulations of his Hindoo assistants, where, if anywhere, we might have assumed a purely physical and mechanical agency.
(1) “I had been looking for a blind man on whom to test the imagination theory, and one at last presented himself. This man became so susceptible that, by making him the object of my attention, I could entrance him in whatever occupation he was engaged, and at any distance within the hospital enclosure. … My first attempt to influence the blind man was made by gazing at him silently over a wall, while he was engaged in the act of eating his solitary dinner, at the distance of twenty yards. He gradually ceased to eat, and in a quarter of an hour was profoundly entranced and cataleptic. This was repeated at the most untimely hours, when he could not possibly know of my being in his neighbourhood, and always with like results.”
{i-89}
Cases of waking a hypnotic “subject” by the silent exercise of the will have been recorded by Reichenbach,1 1 Der Sensitive Mensch (Stuttgart, 1855), Vol. ii., pp. 665–6. and by the Committee appointed by the French Royal Academy of Medicine to investigate “animal magnetism.” In their Report, published in 1831, this Committee say that they “could entertain no doubt as to the very decided effects which magnetism produced upon the ‘subject,’ even without his knowledge, and at a certain distance.” A more recent case will be found in Vol. II., p. 685.
§ 3. But, besides such examples of the induction of trance, the records of mesmerism contain a good many cases of the induction or inhibition of particular actions; and where persons who appeared to be in a perfectly normal state have had their will similarly dominated, or their actions dominated against their will, it has almost always, I think, been through the agency of some person who has given indications of considerable mesmeric power. The Rev. J. Lawson Sisson, Rector of Edingthorpe, North Walsham, (whose interest in mesmerism, like that of so many others, began with the discovery of his own power to alleviate pain,) describes the following experiment as having been performed on an incredulous lady, whose first experience of his influence had been a few moments’ subjection to the slightest possible hypnotic process in the course of the evening.2 2 For results of a still simpler type, see the record of the experiments made on M. Petit, in the Report of the French Committee above mentioned. Mr. Sisson says of one of his subjects that, when she was walking many yards in front of him, and engaged in conversation, “I could, by raising my hand and willing it, draw her head quite back. It fell back, neither to right nor left, as though it had been pulled by a cord.”
(2) “Conversation went on on other topics, and then followed a light supper. Several of the gentlemen, myself among the number, were obliged to stand. I stood talking to a friend, against the wall, and at the back of Miss Cooke, some three or four feet off her. Her wine-glass was filled, and I made up my mind that she should not drink without my ‘willing.’ I kept on talking and watching her many futile attempts to get the glass to her mouth. Sometimes she got it a few inches from the level of the table, sometimes she got it a little higher, but she evidently felt that it was not for some reason to be done. At last I said, ‘Miss Cooke, why don’t you drink your wine?’ and her answer was at once, ‘I will when you let me.’”
The Zoist contains several cases of apparently the same kind; though, unfortunately, the narrators have seldom recognised the need of making it clear that the possibility of physical indications was completely excluded. Thus Mr. Barth records of a patient of his own (Vol. VII., p. 280):—
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(3) “When she wished to leave the room, I could at any time prevent her, by willing that she should stay, and this silently. I could not arrest her progress whilst she was in motion, but if she stood for a moment and I mentally said ‘Stand,’ she stood unable to move from the spot. If she placed her hand on the table I could affix it by my will alone, and unfix it by will. If she held a ruler or paper-knife in her closed hand, I could compel her by will alone to unclose her hand and drop the article. Frequently when she has been at the tea-table, and I quite behind and out of sight, have I locked her jaws or arrested her hand with her bread-and-butter in it, when half way betwixt her plate and her mouth.”
And Mr. N. Dunscombe, J.P. (Zoist, Vol. IX., p. 438), narrates of himself that, having attended some mesmeric performances, he was for some time at the mercy of the operator’s silent will.
(4) “He has caused me, by way of experiment, to leave my seat in one part of my house, and follow him all through it and out of it until I found him. He was not in the room with me, neither had I the slightest idea of his attempting the experiment. I felt an unaccountable desire to go in a certain direction.”
Most remarkable of all are the cases of acts performed under the silent control of the late Mr. H. S. Thompson, of Moorfields, York, though here again we have to regret that the signed corroboration of the persons affected was not obtained at the time. Mr. Thompson’s interest in mesmerism lay almost entirely in the opportunities which his power gave him of alleviating suffering; and having succeeded in giving relief to a patient, it is to him a comparatively small matter to be able to say (Zoist, Vol. V., p. 257):—
“I have often, by the will, made her perform a series of trifling acts, though, when asked why she did them, she has answered that she did them without observing them, and had no distinct wish to do them as far as she was aware.”
Some of his descriptions, however, are more explicit. He gave us permission to publish, for the first time on his authority, an account of an after-dinner incident which made much sensation in Yorkshire society when it occurred, and which even twenty years afterwards was still alluded to with bated breath, as a manifest proof of the alliance of mesmerists with the devil. The account was sent to us in November, 1883.
(5) “In 1837, I first became acquainted with mesmerism through Baron Dupotet. The first experiment I tried was upon a Mrs. Thornton, who was staying with some friends of mine, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Harland, of {i-91} Sutton. She told me that no one had ever succeeded in mesmerising her, though she soon submitted to being mesmerised by me. She went to sleep at once, and was very strongly influenced by my will. One night when I was dining with Mr. Harland, after the ladies had left the room, some gentleman proposed that I should will her to come back again, which I did. She came directly, and after this I could not go to the house without her going to sleep, even if she did not know that I was there.”
In the same letter, Mr. Thompson continues:—
“I have met with many cases of thought-reading, but none so distinct as in a little girl named Crowther. She had had brain fever, which had caused a protrusion of the eyes. Of this ill effect I soon relieved her, and found that she was naturally a thought-reader. I practised on her a good deal, and at length there was no need for me to utter what I wished to say, as she always knew my thoughts. I was showing some experiments to a Dr. Simpson, and he asked me to will her to go and pick a piece of white heather out of a large vase full of flowers there was in the room, and bring it to me. She did this as quickly as if I had spoken to her. All these experiments were performed when the girl was awake, and not in a mesmeric sleep.”
The next account (received in 1883) is none the less interesting that it is of a partial failure; and in this case we have the advantage of the percipient’s own testimony. The lady who sent it to us is a cousin of Mr. Thompson’s and has had other similar experiences; but at this distance of time can only recollect the following, whose absurdity vividly impressed her mind.
(6) “I was sitting one day in the library. No one else was in the room except my cousin, Henry Thompson, who was reading at the other end of the room. Gradually I felt an unaccountable impulse stealing over me, an impulse to go up to him and kiss him. I had been in the habit of kissing him from childhood upwards at intervals, when I left the sitting-room before going to bed, or when he came to say good-bye at the termination of a visit, &c., as a matter of course, not of pleasure. In this instance the inclination to kiss him struck me as being so extraordinary and ridiculous as to make it an impossibility. I have no recollection of leaving the room, though I may have done so, but in the evening when he said to me at dinner, ‘I tried to will you to-day and failed,’ I answered at once, ‘I know perfectly when you were willing me, and what you wanted me to do, though I did not suspect it at the time. But you were willing me to kiss you in the library, and I had the greatest inclination to do so!’ ‘And why would you not?’ he asked, and laughed immoderately at my answering that I was so astonished at myself for feeling an inclination to kiss him that I resisted it at once. I had never been mesmerised by him, and my will was not subservient to his.
“L. F. C.”
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And here a word may be in place as to the relation of the will to telepathic experiments in general. That the will of the agent or operator is usually in active play, admits, of course, of no doubt; but the nature and extent of its operation are sometimes misconceived. In ordinary thought-transference, it is probably effective only so far as it implies strong concentration of the agent’s own attention on the sensation or image which he seeks to convey. As a rule he will naturally desire that the experiment should succeed; but, provided only that the necessary concentration be given, there is nothing to show, or even to suggest that, if for some special reason he desired failure, his desire would ensure that result. It is somewhat different with cases like the above, where a distinct set of visible actions—as that the performer shall walk to a particular spot or select a particular object—is the thing aimed at; in so far as there the desire is likely to be keener and more persistent. When we are picturing a series of movements to be performed by a person in our sight, we easily come to regard that person’s physique under a half-illusion that we can direct it from moment to moment, as though it were our own; and we are more on edge, so to speak, than when we are merely imagining (say) a word or a number, and waiting for the “subject” to name it, or write it down. But even here there is little foundation for the idea that the operator’s will in any way dominates the other will, or that he succeeds by superior “strength of will” in any ordinary sense. It is still primarily an image, not any form of force, that is conveyed—but an image of movement, i.e., an image whose nervous correlate in the brain is in intimate connection with motor-centres; and the muscular effect is thus evoked while the “subject” remains a sort of spectator of his own conduct. The last example of Mr. Thompson’s powers goes as near as any I know to the actual production of an effect on the self-determining faculty of a person in a normal state; but even here, it will be observed, the action suggested was of a simple sort, and one which the “subject” had often voluntarily performed. And in mesmeric cases—as in the experiments on inhibition of utterance in the last chapter—where, no doubt, the self-determining faculty is often to a great extent abrogated, we must still beware of concluding that the “subject’s” will is dominated and directed this way or that by a series of special jets of energy. It is rather that his instinct of choice, his free-will as a whole, has lapsed, as one of the general features of the trance-condition. It is worth noting, moreover, that in none of {i-93} the cases quoted have the “willer” or the “willed” been further removed from one another than two neighbouring rooms. The liability to have definite acts compelled from a distance, which figures in romance and in popular imagination as the natural and terrible result of mesmeric influence, is precisely the result for which we can find least evidence.
We have, however, in our own collection, two first-hand instances where the distance between the agent and the percipient was greater, and where the action to be performed was of a rather more complicated sort.1 1 See Vol. ii., pp. 680–1. In case 687 the distance was about 100 yards. We received the following case in 1883 from the agent, Mr. S. H. B., a friend of our own. The first part of the account was copied by us from a MS. book, in which Mr. B. has recorded this and other experiments.
(7) “On Wednesday, 26th July, 1882, at 10.30 p.m., I willed very strongly that Miss V., who was living at Clarence Road, Kew, should leave any part of that house in which she might happen to be at the time, and that she should go into her bedroom, and remove a portrait from her dressing-table.
“When I next saw her she told me that at this particular time and on this day, she felt strongly impelled to go up to her room and remove something from her dressing-table, but she was not sure which article to misplace. She did so and removed an article, but not the framed portrait which I had thought of.
“Between the time of the occurrence of this fact and that of our next meeting, I received one or two letters, in which the matter is alluded to and my questions concerning it answered.
“S. H. B.”2 2 This entry is undated; but Mr. B. assures us that it was written very soon after the event.
Mr. B. was himself at Southall on the evening in question. He has shown the letters of which he speaks to the present writer, and has allowed him to copy extracts.
On Thursday, July 27th, without having seen or had any communication with Mr. B., Miss Verity (now residing in Castellain Road, W., who allows the publication of her name) wrote to him as follows:—
“What were you doing between ten and eleven o’clock on Wednesday evening? If you make me so restless, I shall begin to be afraid of you. I positively could not stay in the dining-room, and I believe you meant me to be upstairs, and to move something on my dressing-table. I want to see if you know what it was. At any rate, I am sure you were thinking about me.”
Mr. B. then wrote and told Miss Verity that the object he had thought of was Mr. G.’s photograph. She answered:—
“I must tell you it was not G.’s photo, but something on my table {i-94} which perhaps you would never think of. However, it was really wonderful how impossible I found it to think or do anything until I came upstairs, and I knew for certain that your thoughts were here; in fact, it seemed as if you were very near.”
[More than a year after these letters were written, an absolutely concordant account was given viva voce to the present writer by Miss Verity, whom he believes to be a thoroughly careful and conscientious witness.]
We have a parallel instance to this on equally trustworthy authority; but the person impressed has a dread of the subject, and will not give his testimony for publication.1 1 The following case, though sufficiently like the above to be worth quoting, cannot be pressed as evidence; for there is an appreciable chance that the impulse felt was accidental. Its interest partly depends on the fact that the ladies concerned report that they have occasionally had very striking successes in the ordinary experimental thought-transference. The account was received in 1884, from the Misses Barr, of Apsley Town, East Grinstead.
“I and my sister E. had been in the habit, for some years, of trying our power of ‘will’ over my youngest sister H., and had succeeded so well that in the winter of 1874–5, E., being then in London, determined to test her will-power over H., who was then living in the North of Scotland. E. was very anxious to have a certain pair of shoes sent to her in time for a ball to which she was going, and there was not time enough for a letter to go to Scotland, and for the shoes to be sent by post. She therefore determined to ‘will H.’ to go into her room in the house in Scotland, fetch the shoes, and start them off by post.
“On the afternoon of that day H. brought the shoes into the drawing-room, where we were sitting, saying, ‘I’ve a fixed idea that E. wants these shoes, so I am just going to send them off to her.’
“E. was delighted, yet half-surprised, to receive them on the following day.
“LIZZIE M. BARK.”
“I perfectly remember the above incident, and also the vague but impressed feelings which prompted my actions. My sister E. had been absent in England for some weeks, and I did not know she was going to a ball. It was a most unusual thing for me to enter her room while she was away, and I wondered at myself for doing so, and especially for opening one of her drawers.
“HARRIET A. S. BARR.”
§ 4. I now turn to the second class of transitional cases; that where ideas and sensations unconnected with movement are excited, in a person who is not a conscious party to the experiment, by the concentrated but unexpressed will of another. And here, even more than before, I have to admit how scanty in every sense are the accounts which former observers have published.2 2 See however Vol. ii., pp. 334–6 and 676–8. Of ideational cases, one of the most striking, if correctly reported, is that given by the Rev. L. Lewis in the Zoist, Vol. V, p. 324.
“Gateacre, October, 1847.
(8) “One evening, at a friend’s house, and in the presence of several spectators, E. C. was put into the sleep, when I suggested to the magnetiser [Mr. Lewis’s son] that he should attempt inducing personation, that is, making the magnetised person assume different characters by means of the will and passes alone.
“The first individual agreed upon was myself, with whom E. C. was well acquainted, and my name was given to the magnetiser on paper. After a {i-95} few passes having been made by him over E. C., she assumed rather a dictatorial tone, complaining of interruption when spoken to, as it was Saturday night, when she was busy writing. I shall draw a curtain over my other frailties, and proceed to the mention of characters well known in the world, but whom E. C. had never seen.
“The first of these was Queen Victoria. With regard to this name the company observed the same silence as before, only writing it on paper, and the magnetiser pursued the same method also with E. C. But the dignity which she very soon assumed, the lofty tone with which she asked questions, so contrary to her usual disposition, the orders she issued to the various persons of the household, and especially her conversation with Prince Albert (whose person the magnetiser had assumed),1 1 It is probably to be understood that the magnetiser assumed this part after his “subject” had assumed the other. her remonstrances at his staying so long from the castle contrary to her express commands, and her threats that he should not be permitted to leave again, excited instantly peals of laughter, and on reflection, the most intense astonishment.
“The name of Sir Robert Peel was then written by one of the company, and given to the magnetiser. He then magnetised her, and she soon gave unequivocal proofs of her personating the noble baronet by conversations with the Queen on the state of the country, and answering several political questions in accordance with his well-known sentiments.
“From Conservatism it was thought the best step next to take was Liberalism, and the name of Daniel O’Connell was handed to the magnetiser. Now E. C.’s replies were of a different nature, whether political or religious; but there was one question which she answered in a peculiar manner, yet whether in unison with the views of the late celebrated ‘Liberator’ I know not. When the magnetiser asked her what she thought of the English Church Establishment, she replied that the ‘Establishment was already on crutches, and would soon be down.’
“The last personation was that of a young lady whom E. C. had never seen or heard of, and who was then more than one hundred miles distant, but her mother and sisters were present. The same mode of secrecy was adopted in this as well as in all other instances, so that it was impossible E. C. should have been able to guess the name. The absent person was the daughter of a lady at whose house these experiments were made. When E. C. was willed to personate the proposed character, the first thing she uttered was an exclamation of surprise at finding herself suddenly at home. Being asked her name, she ridiculed the idea of such a question being put in the presence of her family, but being pressed by her magnetiser to pronounce it, and promised not to be troubled with any further questions, she ingeniously said, and with somewhat of an arch look, that it began with the third letter in the alphabet. On being told that she had not given a direct reply, she rather pettishly answered, ‘Well, then, it is Clara.’ This was the fact.
“Except in the precise order in which these cases occurred, I can vouch for their correctness, having been present when they happened.
“L. LEWIS.”
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The following instance, however, has more weight with us, who know the observer, and have had ample proof of his accuracy. Mr. G. A. Smith, of 2, Elms Road, Dulwich, (who has assisted us in most of our mesmeric work,) narrated the incident to us within two months of its occurrence; and has now supplied a written account.
(9) “One evening in September, 1882, at Brighton, I was trying some experiments with a Mrs. W., a ‘subject’ whom I had frequently hypnotised. I found that she could give surprisingly minute descriptions of spots which she knew—with details which her normal recollection could never have furnished. I did not for a moment regard these descriptions as implying anything more than intensified memory, but resolved to see what would happen when she was requested to examine a place where she had never been to. I therefore requested her to look into the manager’s room at the Aquarium, and to tell me all about it. Much to my surprise, she immediately began to describe the apartment with great exactness, and in perfect conformity with my own knowledge of it. I was fairly astonished; but it occurred to me that although my subject’s memory could not be at work, my own mind might be acting on hers. To test this, I imagined strongly that I saw a large open umbrella on the table, and in a minute or so the lady said, in great wonder: ‘Well! how odd, there’s a large open umbrella on the table,’ and then began to laugh. It, therefore, seemed clear that her apparent knowledge of the room had been derived somehow from my own mental picture of it; but I may add I was never able to produce the same effect again.”
This may he fairly reckoned among transitional cases, inasmuch as the lady was quite unaware at the time that any person’s influence was being brought to bear upon her.
§ 5. It will be seen that in both these last examples the agent and percipient were close together, and the latter was in the hypnotic state. And among transitional cases, we have absolutely no specimens of the deliberate transference of a perfectly unexciting idea—as of a card or a name—to a distant and normal percipient. This may appear an unfortunate lacuna in the transition that I am attempting to make; but the fact itself can hardly surprise us. It must be remembered that in most of our experimental cases there was a true analogy to the passivity of hypnotism, in the adjustment of the percipient’s mind, the sort of inward blankness and receptivity which he or she established by a deliberate effort; that even where this was absent, the rapport involved in the mere sense of personal proximity to the agent probably went for something in the results; and also that (with few exceptions) the sort of image to be expected was known—that the percipient realised whether it was a card, a {i-97} name, or a taste. That an impression should flash across a mind in this state of preparation is clearly no guarantee that anything similar will occur when the percipient is occupied with wholly different things, while the agent is secretly concentrating his thoughts on a card or a taste in another place. And indeed the supposed conditions—a purely unemotional idea on the part of the would-be agent, and a state of complete unpreparedness on the part of the person whom it is attempted to influence—seem the most unfavourable possible: where the percipient mind is unprepared—that is, where the condition on one side is unfavourable—we should naturally expect that a stronger impulsive force must be supplied from the other side. But we have further to note that, even if the trial succeeded, the success would be hard to establish. For to the percipient the impression would only be a fleeting and uninteresting item in the swarm of faint ideas that pass every minute through the mind; and as he is ex hypothesi ignorant that the trial is being made, there would be nothing to fix this particular faint item in his memory. It would come and go unmarked, like a thousand others. And this same possibility must be equally borne in mind in respect of spontaneous telepathy. For though in most of the cases to be quoted in the sequel, a special impulsive force will be inferred from the fact that the agent was at the time in a state psychically or physically abnormal, we must not be too positive that the telepathic action is confined to the well-marked or ostensive instances on which the proof of it has to depend. The abnormality of the agent’s state, though needed to make the coincidence striking enough to be included in this book, may not for all that be an indispensable condition; genuine transferences of idea, of which we can take no account, may occur in the more ordinary conditions of life; and the continuity of the experimental and the spontaneous cases may thus conceivably be complete. Meanwhile, however, a certain gap in the evidence has to be admitted; and there is nothing for it but to pass on to the more extreme cases where the senses begin to be affected—the percipients having been for the most part in a normal state, and at various distances from the agents.
§ 6. The sensory cases to be found in the Zoist are a trifle less fragmentary than some that I have quoted, but depend again on the uncorroborated statement of a single observer. Mr. H. S. Thompson (Vol. IV., p. 263) says:—
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(10) “I have tried an amusing experiment two or three times very successfully. I have taken a party (without informing them of my intentions) to witness some galvanic experiments, and whilst submitting myself to continued slight galvanic shocks, have fixed my attention on some one of the party. The first time I tried this I was much amused by the person soon exclaiming, ‘Well, it is very strange, but I could fancy that I feel a sensation in my hands and arms as though I were subject to the action of the battery.’ I found that out of seven persons, four experienced similar sensations more or less. None of them showed any symptom of being affected before I directed my attention towards them. After that [sic] they were made acquainted with the experiment, I found their imagination sometimes supplied the place of my will, and they fancied I was experimenting upon them when I was not so. This we so often see in other cases.”
Muscular and tactile hallucinations are, of course, eminently of a sort which may be produced by expectancy; and all that can be said is that Mr. Thompson seems to have been alive to this danger. I may perhaps be allowed to state of this gentleman that, as far as we are aware, (and we have questioned both a near relative of his and a bitter detractor,) it was never alleged that he was an untrustworthy witness, or prone to exaggerate his powers.
The impression in the next example seems to have been on the borderland between sensation and idea. It is given by the Rev. L. Lewis in the same paper as the account above quoted. His son had resolved to test the statement that in a mesmeric state a “subject” might, by the operator’s unexpressed will, be impressed with delusions such as are usually only produced by direct suggestion.
(11) “The girl [one whom he had often hypnotised] being gone into the sleep, the first thing that occurred to him was that she should imagine herself a camphine lamp, which was then burning on the table. He wrote down the words, which were not uttered by anyone, and were handed to the company. Then, without speaking, he strongly willed that she should be a lamp, making over her head the usual magnetic passes. E. C. was in a few minutes perfectly immovable, and not a word could be elicited from her. When she had continued in this strange state for some time, he dissipated the illusion by his will, without awaking her, when she immediately found her tongue again, and on being asked how she had felt when she would not speak, she replied, ‘Very hot, and full of naphtha.‘”
The next case (contained in a letter from Mr. H. S. Thompson, to Dr. Elliotson, Zoist, Vol. V., p. 257,) takes us a little further, for the agent and percipient were at a considerable distance from one another; and though the experience was of a vague sort, very much more was produced than a mere idea—namely, a physical impression of the agent’s presence, strong enough to be described as felt.
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(12) “I have tried several experiments on persons not in the mesmeric state, and some who had never been mesmerised. I have repeatedly found that I have been able, by will, to suggest a series of ideas to some persons, which ideas have induced corresponding actions; and again, by fixing my attention upon others, and thinking on some particular subject, I have often found them able most accurately to penetrate my thoughts. Neither have I observed that it was always necessary to be near them, or to be in the same room with them, to produce these effects. … Some months ago I was staying at a friend’s house, and this subject came under discussion. Two friends had left the house the day before.1
1 It seems practically certain, from what follows, that by “the day before” Mr. Thompson meant “earlier in the day.” Otherwise the case would have had no relation to what he is speaking of. Neither of them, that I am aware of, had ever been in the mesmeric state; but I knew that to some extent they had this faculty. I proposed to make trial whether I could will them to think I was coming to see them at that moment. I accordingly fixed my attention upon them for some little time. Six weeks elapsed before I saw either of them again; and when we met I had forgotten the circumstance, but one of them soon reminded me of it by saying, ‘I have something curious to tell you, and want also to know whether you have ever tried to practise your power of volition upon either of us; for on the evening of the day I left the house where you were staying, I was sitting reading a book in the same room with Mr. ——. My attention was withdrawn from my book, and for some moments I felt as though a third person was in the room, and that feeling shortly after became connected with an idea that you were coming or even then present. This seemed so very absurd that I tried to banish the idea from my mind. I then observed that Mr. ——’s attention was also drawn from the book which he was reading, and he exclaimed, ‘It is positively very ridiculous, but I could have sworn some third person was in the room, and that impression is connected with an idea of Henry Thompson.’”
§ 7. But the most pronounced cases are of course those where an actual affection of vision is produced. Here previous observations of an authentic sort almost wholly fail us.2 2 It is hardly necessary to say that we cannot reckon in this class hallucinations, even though dependent on the special influence of another person, where no definite exercise of will has been exerted by that person at the time. For instance, the following case of Mr. H. S. Thompson’s may (in default of more precise detail) be ascribed to faith and imagination on the part of the “subject.”
“Mr. Harland’s wife had been ill for three years, said to be heart-disease, with spasms of the heart, and neuralgic pains in head and spine. A few passes removed the pains, and in the course of a few days she gained so much strength that she walked round the garden, which she had not done for three years. In a few days she was able to walk to a friend’s house two miles off; she became very sensitive and slept well. I frequently put her to sleep at night, but when I did not go to her house I always used to will her to go to sleep, and when I asked if she had had a good night, she used to say, ‘I always have a good night when you mesmerise me,’ and when I said, ‘I was not here last night,’ she answered, ‘Oh, yes, but you were, I heard you come up stairs after I had gone to bed, and knock at my door. I said, “Come in,” but you would not speak to me, and walked up to me, and held your hand over my head, saying, “Sleep,” and I did sleep, and had a very good night; you surely were in the house, for I saw you as plainly as I do now.’” I have no wish to extenuate the negative importance of this fact. At the same time, it must be remembered how very exceptional, probably, are the occasions on which {i-100} the experiment has been attempted. When the two persons concerned in a “willing” experiment have been together, the object, as a rule, has been to produce the effect which shall present the most obvious test for spectators or for the agent himself—namely, motor effects. And when some one of the few persons who possess an appreciable degree of the abnormal power has attempted to exercise it at a distance, it is still the production of actions that he would most naturally aim at; for it is in this direction that such a power has been popularly expected to show itself. Thus it is reasonable to conclude that deliberate attempts to produce a visual hallucination in another person, by the exercise of the will, have been very few and far between. Still this is, of course, no complete explanation of the rarity of the phenomenon; for no definable line separates these rare attempts from the ordinary experiments in thought-transference, when the agent concentrates his attention on a visible object. In those experiments there is, so to speak, an opportunity for a visual hallucination, if the agent is able to produce one. But the percipient has never (as far as I know) received more than a vivid idea, or at most a picture of the object in the mind’s eye. And this fact sufficiently indicates that the more pronounced sensory result is one requiring most special conditions—one which would remain extremely rare however much it were sought for, and the proof of which will rightly be regarded with all the more jealous scrutiny.
The previous records of the phenomenon to which I can point are really only four in number;1 1 We cannot, of course, recognise as even on the threshold of evidence the following remote and third-hand case from A Treatise on the Second-Sight, &c., by “Theophilus Insulanus” (Edinburgh, 1763), p. 40. But it is curious enough to be worth quoting, the imperfection of the alleged transference being very parallel to what has been already observed in some of our own experiments.
“The said ensign [viz., Ensign Donald Macleod], a person of candour, who lived then at Laoran, informed me that, having gone with his wife to visit his father-in-law in the Isle of Skye, night coming on, they were obliged to put up with a cave on the side of Lough Urn, to pass the night; and as they were at supper, his wife took a cabbock of cheese in her hand, and, having covered it with three or four apples, wished it in a seer’s hand, who lived with her father, and who, that night, by her second-sight, saw the gentlewoman offering her a cabbock of cheese, but was at a loss to know what the round things were that covered it, as, perhaps, she had seen none of the kind in her lifetime, until her master’s daughter, upon her arrival, told her the whole.” and these are so far from conclusive, that they would hardly even be worth mentioning, if stronger examples could not be added from our own collection. The first case is thus meagrely described by Dr. Elliotson (Zoist, Vol. VIII., p. 69):—
“I have a friend, who can, by his will, make certain patients think of any others he chooses, and fancy he sees those persons: he silently thinking of certain persons, the brain of the patient sympathises with his brain. Nay, by silently willing that these persons shall say and do certain {i-101} things which he chooses, he makes the patients believe they see these imaginary appearances doing and uttering those very things.”
That a man of indisputable ability should have thought such a statement of such a fact adequate is truly extraordinary. The same may be said of the following sentence of Dr. Charpignon’s Physiologic du Magnétisms, (Paris, 1848,) p. 325:—
“Nous avons maintes fois formé dans notre pensée des images fictives, et les somnambules que nous questionnions voyaient ces images comme des réalités.” [Translation]We have often formed fictive images in our minds, and the subjects we were interrogating saw those images as realities.
Even if these descriptions be accurate in the main, we are unable to judge how far the vision was really externalised by the patients. In the next case this point is clear; but the distinct assurance is still lacking that the agent was on his guard against the slightest approach to a suggestive movement. The incident is cited in the Annales Médico-Psychologiques, 6th series, Vol. V., p. 379, by Dr. Dagonet, doctor at the Saint Anne Asylum.
“Un interne [house-physician] lui dit: ‘Regardez done, Didier, voilà une jolie femme.’ II n’y avait personne. Didier reprit: ‘Mais non, elle est laide,’ et il ajoute: ‘Qu’a-t-elle dans les bras?’ Ces questions se rap-portaient exactement à ce que pensait son interlocuteur. A un certain moment Didier se précipita même pour empêcher de tomber l’enfant qu’il croyait voir dans les bras de la femme imaginaire dont on lui parlait.” [Translation]An intern said to him, "Look, Didier, a pretty woman." There was nobody there. Didier replied, "No, no, she is ugly." He added: "What is she holding in her arms?" These questions were linked directly to what the other speaker was thinking. At one point Didier even rushed over to save from a fall the child he thought he saw in the arms of the imaginary woman he was told about.
This is a specimen of the stray indications of thought-transference that may be found even in strictly scientific literature; but the significance of the phenomenon seems to have been altogether missed. It is described among a number of observations of an ordinary kind, made on an habitual somnambulist, and as though it were quite on a par with the rest.
The next account, though, like Dr. Charpignon’s, first-hand from the agent, is more remote, and equally uncorroborated. It is to be found in an article by Councillor H. M. Wesermann, in the Archiv für den Thierischen Magnetismus, Vol. VI., pp. 136–9; and is dated Düsseldorf, June 15th, 1819. The first four items in the list are impressions alleged to have been made on a sleeping percipient but the fifth is a waking and completely externalised hallucination.
“First Experiment at a Distance of Five Miles.—I endeavoured to acquaint my friend, the Hofkammerrath G. (whom I had not seen, with whom I had not spoken, and to whom I had not written, for thirteen years), with the fact of my intended visit, by presenting my form to him in his sleep, through the force of my will. When I unexpectedly went to him on the following evening, he evinced his astonishment at having seen me in a dream on the preceding night.
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“Second Experiment at a Distance of Three Miles.—Madame W., in her sleep, was to hear a conversation between me and two other persons, relating to a certain secret; and when I visited her on the third day she told me all that had been said, and showed her astonishment at this remarkable dream.
“Third Experiment at a Distance of One Mile.—An aged person in G. was to see in a dream the funeral procession of my deceased friend S., and when I visited her on the next day her first words were that she had in her sleep seen a funeral procession, and on inquiry had learned that I was the corpse. Here then was a slight error.
“Fourth Experiment at a Distance of One-Eighth of a Mile.—Herr Doctor B. desired a trial to convince him, whereupon I represented to him a nocturnal street-brawl. He saw it in a dream, to his great astonishment. [This means, presumably, that he was astonished when he found that the actual subject of his dream was what Wesermann had been endeavouring to impress on him.]
“Fifth Experiment at a Distance of Nine Miles.—The intention was that Lieutenant N. should see in a dream, at 11 o’clock p.m., a lady who had been five years dead, who was to incite him to a good action. Herr N., however, contrary to expectation, had not gone to sleep by 11 o’clock, but was conversing with his friend S. on the French campaign. Suddenly the door of the chamber opens; the lady, dressed in white, with black kerchief and bare head, walks in, salutes S. thrice with her hand in a friendly way, turns to N., nods to him, and then returns through the door. Both follow quickly, and call the sentinel at the entrance; but all had vanished, and nothing was to be found. Some months afterwards, Herr S. informed me by letter that the chamber door used to creak when opened, but did not do so when the lady opened it—whence it is to be inferred that the opening of the door was only a dream-picture, like all the rest of the apparition.”1 1 Other cases of the hallucination of a door opening or shutting are Nos. 15, 30, 190, 198, 495, 530, 537, 591, 659, 670, 676, 696, 698. In Nasse’s Zeitschrift für Psychische Aertze (Leipzig) for 1820, Part IV., pp. 757–67, Wesermann again describes the first and fifth of these experiments, and states that the trials were made in the autumn of 1808.
To such a record, if it stood alone, we should attach very little importance, in default of any evidence as to the intellectual and moral trustworthiness of Wesermann. There is, fortunately, no necessity for dwelling on these cases, as the possibility of the alleged phenomenon will certainly not be admitted except on the strength of contemporary and corroborated instances.
CHAPTER IV.
GENERAL CRITICISM OF THE EVIDENCE FOR SPONTANEOUS TELEPATHY.
§ 1. WE have now to quit the experimental branch of our subject. We have been engaged, so far, with cases of thought-transference deliberately sought for and observed within the four walls of a room, both the agent and the percipient being aware of the object in view; and with the further cases where—though the distance between the agent and the percipient was often greater, and the latter had no intimation of what was intended—there was still a deliberate desire on the agent’s part to exert a telepathic influence, and a concentration of his mind on that object. For the remainder of our course we shall be entirely occupied with cases where no such desire or idea existed—where the effect produced on the percipient, though we may connect it with the state of the agent, was certainly not an effect which he was aiming at producing. And this change in the character of the facts is accompanied by a marked change in the character of the evidence—a change for which some of the transitional cases in the last chapter have already prepared us. Our conclusions will now have to be drawn from the records of persons who, at the time when the phenomena which they describe took place, were quite unaware that these would ever be used as evidence for telepathy or anything else. Nor have my colleagues and I any observations of our own to compare with what our witnesses tell us; the facts are known to us only through the medium of their report, and we shall have to decide how far the medium may be a distorting one. Our method of inquiry will thus be the historical method; and success will depend upon the exercise of a wider and less specialised form of common-sense than was required in the experimental work. A great many more points have to be taken into account in weighing human testimony than in arranging the conditions of a crucial trial of thought-transference. There, one precise and simple form of danger had to be guarded against—the {i-115} possibility of conscious or unconscious physical signs: here, dangers multiform and indeterminate will have to be allowed for. We shall be brought face to face with questions of character, of the general behaviour of human beings in various circumstances, and of the unconscious workings of the human mind; and a quite different sort of logic must come into play, involving often a very complex estimate of probabilities
.
So all-important is it for our purpose to form a correct judgment as to the possible sources of error in this new department of evidence, that I have thought it best to devote the present chapter entirely to that subject.
§ 2. First, then, to face the most general objection of all. This may perhaps be stated as follows. All manner of false beliefs have in their day been able to muster a considerable amount of evidence in their support, much of which was certainly not consciously fraudulent. The form of superstition varies with the religious and educational conditions of the time; but within certain limits a diligent collector will be able to obtain evidence for pretty well anything that he chooses. There is, of course, a line—and every age will have its own line—beyond which it would be impossible for anyone who wished to be thought sane and educated to go; for instance, it would be impossible in the present day to obtain anything like respectable contemporary testimony for the transformation of old women into hares and cats. But short of this line there is always a range of ideas and beliefs as to which opinion is divided—which it is perfectly allowable to repudiate, and which science may treat with scorn, but which it is not a sign of abnormal ignorance or stupidity to entertain. And within this range evidence, and even educated evidence, for the beliefs will pretty certainly be forthcoming. For however much advancing knowledge may have limited the field of superstition, the fund of possibilities in the way of mal-observation, misinterpretation, and exaggeration of facts is still practically inexhaustible; and with such a fund to draw on, the belief, or the mere desire or tendency to believe, in any particular order of phenomena is sure, now and again, to light on facts which can be made to yield the semblance of a proof.
Now, though it is difficult to deny the force of this argument when stated in general terms, I think that it can be shown not seriously to invalidate the evidence which is here relied on as proof of the reality of spontaneous telepathy. For the sake of comparison, it will {i-116} be worth while to glance at the most striking example that modern times supply of the support of false beliefs by a large array of contemporary evidence—the case of witchcraft.
We may begin by excluding the enormous amount of the witch-evidence which consisted in confessions extracted by torture, terror, or false promises—“the casting evidence in most tryals,” as Hutchinson says; and also the large class of cases where the actual facts attested would not be disputed;—as where a woman was condemned because a child who had been with her hung its head on its return home, and rolled over in its cradle in the evening; or because a good many people or cattle had fallen sick in her village; or because she kept a tame frog, presumed to be her “imp”; or because on the very day that she had scolded a carter whose cart knocked up against her house, the self-same cart stuck in a gate, and the men who should have emptied it at night felt too tired to do so.1 1 Lilienthal, Die Hexenprocesse der beiden Städte Braunsberg (Königsberg,1861), p. 152; A Detection of Chelmsford Witches (London, 1579); Malleus Maleficarum (Lyons, 1620), Vol. i., p. 242; Müller, Beiträge zur Geschichte des Hexenglaubens (Brunswick, 1854), p. 35, &c.; Ady, Candle in the Dark (London, 1656), p. 135; Hutchinson, Historical Essay Concerning Witchcraft (London, 1720), p. 147. Putting these cases aside as irrelevant, anyone who looks carefully into the remaining records will find (1) that the actual testimony on which the alleged facts were believed came exclusively from the uneducated classes; and (2) that the easy acceptance of this evidence by better educated persons was due to the ignorance which was at that time all but universal respecting several great departments of natural phenomena—those of hallucination, trance, hysteria, and mesmerism. This ignorance took effect in the following way—that every piece of evidence to marvellous facts was perforce regarded as presenting one simple alternative:—either the facts happened as alleged; or the witnesses must be practising deliberate fraud. The latter hypothesis was, of course, an easy one enough to make in respect of this or that individual case, and was supported by indisputable examples; but it could not long be applied in any wholesale manner. The previous character of many of the persons involved, the aimlessness of such a fraud, the vast scale of the conspiracy which would have had to be organised in order to impose it on the world, and above all the fact that many of the witnesses brought on themselves nothing but opprobrium and persecution by their statements, made it practically impossible to doubt that the testimony was on the whole honestly given. Fraud, then, being excluded, there remained nothing but to believe {i-117} the facts genuine. Sane men and women spoke with obvious sincerity of what they had seen with their own eyes; how could such a proof be gainsaid? This is a point which Glanvil and other writers of the witch-epoch are for ever urging; if we reject these facts, they argue, we must reject all beliefs that have their basis in human testimony.
Happily we have now a totally different means of escaping from the dilemma. We know now that subjective hallucinations may possess the very fullest sensory character, and may be as real to the percipient as any object he ever beheld. I have myself heard an epileptic subject, who was perfectly sane and rational in his general conduct, describe a series of interviews that he had had with the devil, with a precision, and an absolute belief in the evidence of his senses, equal to anything that I ever read in the records of the witches’ compacts. And further, we know now that there is a condition, capable often of being induced in uneducated and simple persons with extreme ease, in which any idea that is suggested may at once take sensory form, and be projected as an actual hallucination. To those who have seen robust young men, in an early stage of hypnotic trance, staring with horror at a figure which appears to them to be walking on the ceiling, or giving way to strange convulsions under the impression that they have been changed into birds or snakes, there will be nothing very surprising in the belief of hysterical girls that they were possessed by some alien influence, or that their distant persecutor was actually present to their senses. It is true that in hypnotic experiments there is commonly some preliminary process by which the peculiar condition is induced, and that the idea which originates the delusion has then to be suggested ab extra.from outside But with sensitive “subjects” who have been much under any particular influence, a mere word will produce the effect; nor is there any feature in the evidence for witchcraft that more constantly recurs than the touching of the victim by the witch.1 1 Thus, in a case mentioned by De l’Anere, in the Tableau de l’Inconstance des mauvais Anges et Démons (Paris, 1612), p. 115, all the children who believed themselves to have been taken to a “Sabbath,” stated that the witch had passed her hand over their faces, or placed it on their heads. Moreover, no hard and fast line exists between the delusions of induced hypnotism and those of spontaneous trance, or of the grave hystero-epileptic crises which mere terror is now known to develop. And association between persons who were possessed with certain exciting ideas would readily account for the generation of a mutually contagious influence; as in cases where magic rites were performed by several persons in company; or {i-118} where a whole household or community was affected with some particular delusion.1 1 A True and Just Record of the Information taken at St. Osey, in Essex (London, 1582); Potts, Wonderfull Disooverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster, &c.. (London, 1613); the case of the Flowers in A Collection of Rare and Curious Tracts relating to Witchcraft between the Years 1618 and 1664, pp. 19, 21; Glanvil, Sadducismus Triumphatus, p. 581: Hutchinson, Op. cit., p. 53; Durbin, A Narrative of Some Extraordinary Things (Bristol, 1800), p. 47; Horst, Zauber-Bibliothek, p. 219; Madden, Phantasmata, Vol. i., pp. 346–7; T. Hutchinson, History of Massachusetts Bay (Boston, 1692), Vol. ii., p. 18; Richet, L’Homme et l’Intelligence (Paris, 1884), p. 392.
The above seems a sufficient explanation of the testimony which to the eyes of contemporaries appeared the strongest—the testimony of “possessed” persons, and of the professed participators in the incantation scenes and nocturnal orgies. As regards the alleged statements of independent persons who testified to having witnessed the aërial rides, transformations into animal forms, and such-like marvels, I would remark in the first place that the literature of witchcraft may be searched far and wide without encountering half-a-dozen first-hand statements of the sort;2 [☼]2 If “first-hand” be restricted (as it is throughout this book) to statements in the witness’s own words, I cannot point to a single such statement; but in the above phrase I mean merely the author’s statement of what was told directly to herself. The circumstantial evidence (also very meagre) for these miracles stands on different ground; as there the facts recorded are quite credible, and only the inference need be rejected. For example, the external evidence relied on for the supposed transformations was usually that the accused proved to have some bodily hurt on the same day as a wolf or some other animal had been wounded. and in the second place, that there is a characteristic of uneducated minds which is only exceptionally observed in educated adults—the tendency to confound mental images, pure and simple, with matters of fact. This tendency naturally allies itself with any set of images which is prominent in the beliefs of the time; and it is certain now and then to give to what are merely vivid ideas the character of bonâ fide memories. The imagination which may be unable to produce, even in feeble-minded persons, the belief that they see things that are not there, may be quite able to produce the belief that they have seen them—which is all, of course, that their testimony implies.3 3 Another explanation might be attempted, if (on the analogy of certain Indian juggling tricks) we could suppose the spectator to have been unawares subjected to a “mesmeric glamour,” whereby the suggestion of the magical occurrence was enabled to develop in his mind into an actual vision of it. One story in the Malleus Maleficarum, where a girl appeared to herself and to her friends to be a mare, while a priest (over whom the evil influence had no power) saw her as a girl, strongly recalls some of the Indian stories. See also the curious account of imps which appears in Witches of Huntingdon, Renfrew, and Essex (London, 1646). Such a result would, however, enormously transcend the range of mesmeric influence as so far recognised in the West; and we certainly need not strain hypotheses to save the credit of writers like Sprenger.
There is, however, one small class of phenomena connected with witchcraft which stands on different ground, as regards the quality of {i-119} the evidence adduced for it. A few cases are recorded, on really respectable authority, of a remarkable susceptibility, shown by persons whom we might now recognise as hypnotic “subjects,” to the conscious or unconscious influence of some absent person supposed to be a witch; and perhaps also of abnormal powers of discernment on the part of the supposed witches themselves. These alleged telepathic cases naturally fell into discredit along with all the other phenomena of occult agency. For the belief in witchcraft faded and ultimately died as a whole; not because each sort of phenomenon was in turn exposed or explained, or because any critical account of hallucinations and popular delusions was forthcoming, or even because a certain amount of distinct fraud was proved, but because the general tide of uncritical opinion took a turn towards scepticism as to matters supernatural. Now we are certainly not concerned to maintain that this or that instance of alleged telepathic influence ought to have been allowed to stand as genuine, when belief in the more phantastic phenomena was undermined. Is [sic] is probable that in the former, as in the latter, the influence of imagination was not allowed for, and that the different items of evidence were never tested and compared in the manner that true scientific scepticism would dictate. We, at any rate, have difficulty enough in testing the accuracy of contemporary evidence, and certainly are not going to rest any part of our case on the records of a by-gone age. But if anyone who has studied the evidence for witchcraft urges these cases as a proof that the more recent telepathic evidence is unworthy of attention, it is reasonable to remark that if telepathy is in operation now, it was probably in operation then; and that the only cases of supposed magic with which persons of sense and education seem, at the time, to have come to close quarters were similar in character to cases for which persons of sense and education are still found to offer their personal testimony.1 1 Of the early records the best known is the evidence of the Père Surin and others in respect of the hysterical epidemic in the Ursuline convent at Loudun, in 1633. But perhaps the most carefully observed case is the older one given in the Most Strange and Admirable Discovery of the Three Witches of Warboys (London, 1593), of which Sir W. Scott’s account (Demonology and Witchcraft, p. 238) gives a very imperfect idea. Another example of much the same kind is given in G. More’s True Discourse against S. Harsnet (London, 1600). The cases where the victim showed uneasiness when the absent witch was at large, and relief when she was bolted, though quite inconclusive, seem occasionally to have been rationally tested. (Witchcraft further Displayed, London, 1712, p. 21; History of the Witches of Renfrewshire, Paisley, 1809, p. 134; Sadducismus Debellatus, London, 1698, p. 47.) The assertions that “possessed persons” were able to read secrets present sometimes this sign of sobriety, that the revelations are said to have concerned only past and present, not future, things (see, e.g., Lercheimer, Ein Christlich Bedenken und Erinnerung von Zauberei, Heidelberg, 1585; and Majolus, Dies Caniculares, Mainz, 1614, p. 593); but as such a power finds no parallel in the telepathy of our day, it is satisfactory rather than otherwise to find that it is supported by hardly anything that can be called evidence. The strongest item is perhaps the testimony of Poncet to the powers of some of the convulsionnaires of St. Médard (see Bertrand, Du Magnétisme Animal, Paris, 1826, p. 435). Nor do the “thought-reading” stories about Somers (e.g., in Darrell’s Brief Apologie and Detection, London, 1599 and 1600), and about Escot de Parme (De l’Anere, L’Incredulité et Mescréance du Sortilège, Paris, 1622) reach even the lowest evidential grade. It would be useless to multiply indecisive instances. If the least wretchedly-attested cases, even in the most wretched collections of witch-anecdotes, turn out to be those which admit of a telepathic explanation, yet much stronger cases might well be damned by such company. And though some of the less credulous authors, who have a real notion of natural causes and of what constitutes proof, seem to have felt the evidence for supersensuous communications to be too strong to resist (e.g., Cotta in The Infallible, True and Assured Witch, London, 1625) their general position is too wavering for their authority to have any weight. One rises from their works feeling that this was the side of the subject which had produced on them the strongest impression of reality; and that is all that can be said.
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But in whatever light these residual cases be regarded, the general conclusion remains the same—that the phenomena which were characteristic of witchcraft, and which are an accepted type of exploded superstitions, never rested on the first-hand testimony of educated and intelligent persons; and the sweeping assertion which is often made that such persons were, in their day, witnesses to the truth of these absurdities needs, therefore, to be carefully guarded. What the educated and intelligent believers did was to accept from others, as evidence of objective facts, statements which were really only evidence of subjective facts. And they did this naturally and excusably, because they lived at a time when the science of psychology was in its infancy, and the necessary means of correction were not within their reach.1 1 I am speaking—it must be remembered—of the attitude of educated and intelligent persons towards assertions which might (however loosely) be described as evidence. That such persons often showed themselves credulous and uninquiring in attaching value to mere legends and local gossip is of course true enough, but does not concern the present argument. For a justification of the above remarks, see the Note on Witchcraft at the
end of this chapter.
One further criticism may be made as to the mental condition of those who were in any direct sense witnesses to the facts. They were invariably persons inclined to such beliefs to begin with—who had been brought up in them and had accepted them as a matter of course. We have no record of anyone who had all his life declined to admit the reality of the alleged phenomena, and who was suddenly convinced of his mistake by coming into personal contact with them.
§ 3. We are now in a position to perceive, by comparison, how the case stands with the evidence for telepathy which awaits examination. It would almost be sufficient to say that the comparison is an absolute contrast in respect of every point which has been mentioned. A very large number of our first-hand witnesses are {i-121} educated and intelligent persons, whose sobriety of judgment has never been called in question. For the most part, moreover, they have been in no way inclined to admit the reality of the phenomena, prior to themselves encountering them. By many of them even what they themselves narrate has not been regarded with special interest; while others, who have been unable to get behind their own experience, have expressed scepticism as to the existence of the phenomena as a class.1 1 It is amusing sometimes to encounter arbitrary fragments of scepticism, combined with a belief in the “supernatural” character of many of the coincidences which we are endeavouring to account for as natural. Thus a gentleman contributes a case to Knowledge (May 16th, 1884) and concludes his letter thus: “Personally, I do not believe in apparitions, nor in anything akin thereto; but coincidences such as you record from week to week must have happened to most of us, and obtuse indeed must the individual be who does not think that there is something supernatural sometimes even in coincidences.” The facts themselves have no special affinity with any particular form of faith; they are not facts in a belief of which any one is specially brought up. And here we may contrast telepathy, not only with the comparatively modern superstition of witchcraft, but with phenomena of much older and wider acceptance—the alleged apparitions of the dead. The continued existence of departed friends and relatives has been one of the most constant elements of religious belief; and that myths should grow up respecting their appearances to survivors is what might have naturally been looked for. But even in respect of the most striking sort of phenomena with which we shall here be concerned—apparitions at the time of death—we do not find in men’s prevalent habits of thought, at any stage of culture, elements which would be particularly likely to produce a myth on the subject. And as a matter of fact, if we go to the classes of persons whose beliefs have no special relation to evidence, we do actually find the one myth prevalent, and not the other. The idea of apparitions after death has a wide and strong hold on the popular mind; the idea of apparitions at the time either of death, or of serious crises in life, has no established vogue. Instances are, no doubt, to be met with in books of history, biography, and travel; and the range which such notices cover is itself important, as showing that the idea, though so far from universally prevalent, is for all that not in any sense a speciality of particular times or localities. But though numerous, the instances are sporadic; they appear as isolated marvels, which even those who experienced them regarded as such, and not as evidences to any widely-believed reality. So much is this the case that to many persons with {i-122} whom we have conversed on the subject we find that the very idea of such phenomena is practically new; and that “apparitions,” whether delusions or realities, have always been considered by them as apparitions of the dead.1 1 Next to these, the best-recognised class are undoubtedly the premonitory apparitions of “second-sight.”
Since the above remarks were written, I am glad to find them implicitly confirmed by a very high authority on myth and folk-lore, Mr. Andrew Lang. In the Nineteenth Century for April, 1885, he showed very clearly and amusingly how the same types of “ghost-story” are found in the most distant places, and in the most diverse stages of culture—whether owing to some common basis of fact, or to the same pervading love of the mysterious, or (as is sometimes undoubtedly the case) to the survival of remnants of primitive superstitions in the midst of an advancing civilisation. But though most of his instances are drawn from barbarous countries, he “has not encountered, among savages, more than one example” pointing to a belief in what we call telepathic impressions; and even that one is a very doubtful example. There is, as I have said, a certain amount of sporadic evidence that the phenomena have been noticed at many different times and places; but of any pervading belief, such as would cause people to be on the qui vive for them and would ensure a perpetual supply of spurious evidence, neither we nor apparently Mr. Lang can find any indication whatever. And if this is true of the more striking telepathic cases, à fortiori is it true of the less striking. The class of apparitions and impressions which have corresponded with the death of the “agent” has only been vaguely recognised; the class which have corresponded with a state of passing excitement or danger can hardly be said to have been recognised at all. Even persons with whose general way of thinking they might seem compatible are apt to be repelled by their apparent uselessness, and certainly are not wont to exhibit any à priori belief in their reality; while to others who have encountered them, they have appeared in the objectionable light of a puzzle, without analogies and without a place in the recognised order of Nature.
But though I think that it is not hard to distinguish the evidence on which we rely from the evidence for various forms of popular superstition, and to show that, as a matter of fact, telepathy is not a popular superstition, I am far from denying a certain degree of force to the line of objection above suggested. Ignorance, credulity, and a predisposition to believe in a particular order of marvels, are not the only sources of unconscious falsification in human testimony; and it by no means follows, because these particular elements of error are absent, that a bonâ fide first-hand narrative of contemporary facts is trustworthy. And having briefly considered certain dangers and objections from which we think that our telepathic evidence is free, I proceed now to consider certain others to which it is to a certain extent exposed, and to explain the means by which we have endeavoured to obviate or reduce them.
{i-123}
§ 4. It will be best to enumerate, one by one, the general sources of error which may affect the testimony of honest and fairly-educated persons, to events that are both unusual and of a sort unrecognised by contemporary science. We shall thus be able to observe in detail how far each is likely to have affected the evidence here brought forward.
The most obvious danger may seem to lie in errors of observation and inference. And first as to errors of observation. The phenomena with which these have to do are naturally objective phenomena. It is only in reference to the objective world that observation can be proved to be accurate or faulty; the faulty observation is that which interprets real things in a way that does not correspond with reality. Now misinterpretation of this sort may undoubtedly produce spurious telepathic cases; and wherever we can suppose it to have been possible, we are bound to exclude the case from our evidence. Thus we have a group of narratives of the following type, suggesting a mistake of identity.
Mrs. Campbell, of Dunstaffnage, Oban, wrote, in June, 1884:—
“Two years ago one of our tenant farmers was very ill, and my brother asked me to inquire how he was, on my way back from a walk I was going to take with a cousin of mine. We went, but on passing the old man’s house I forgot to go in, and soon we arrived at our avenue, when my cousin reminded me of not having asked for the sick man. I thought of returning, when I distinctly saw the old man, followed by his favourite dog, cross a field in front of us, and go into his house, and I remarked to my cousin, who also had seen the old man and his dog, that as he was so well that he was able to walk about, there was not much use in going to inquire for him, so we went on home. But on arriving there, my brother came to tell us that the old man’s son had just been to say that his father had just died.”
Here it is possible, and therefore for evidential purposes necessary, to suppose that the figure seen was a neighbour, or perhaps the old man’s son.1 1
I may say here, once for all, that our gratitude to an informant is none the less because his or her experience may not have appeared relevant to the direct argument of this book. Such cases have often been very useful and instructive in other ways. The next incident, given in the words of Mrs. Saxby, of Mount Elton, Clevedon, was narrated to her and other friends by the late Rev. G. Ridout, Vicar of Newland, Gloucestershire, on whom it had made a very serious impression.
“My sister and I were left orphans when we were extremely young. We were very fond of each other. When I was nearly grown up, I was sent to Magdalen College, Oxford. While there, one day when I was {i-124} walking in the cloisters, I saw my sister walking before me, dressed in white. I knew that she was not staying in Oxford, and I was much surprised at seeing her there—but I had no doubt whatever that it was my sister. She passed along the cloister before me, I following close behind her till she turned the first angle. To my surprise, when I reached the same place, instead of seeing her before me, she was gone. Immediately the conviction that she was dead seized me, and I felt myself strengthened to receive the tidings of her death, which reached me next day.”
The disappearance here seems to have been strangely sudden; but we have not been able to cross-examine the witness; and one knows that people of flesh and blood do sometimes get out of sight round corners in odd ways. Again, the Rev. C. Woodcock, Rector of All Saints’, Axminster, writes:—
“January 8th, 1884.
“The following fact was often narrated in my presence by my father, who has been dead upwards of thirty years. He was once invited, when a young man, to breakfast on the ground floor at St. James’s Palace, to meet a particular friend. He was punctual to the appointed hour; but not so the expected guest. The hour had struck, but neither party present was willing to sit down without the mutual friend. They had not long to wait for seeming satisfaction, for as each stood at a window opposite the thoroughfare to the park, both exclaimed at the same moment, ‘Oh! there he is,’ and the host, so fully satisfied in his ocular assurance, went to the door on the other side of the house, to welcome his friend, instead of waiting for his announcement. He stood there in vain; the friend never appeared, to the great astonishment of all present; for two persons standing at different windows agreed that they saw him pass at the identical moment. Within an hour, a man-servant appeared to announce that his master, the expected guest, was found dead in his bed that morning. My father was a member of the Madras C. S.; the name of his host I forget.”
Here the eyes of two persons were concerned; but they were in an expectant state of mind, which is eminently favourable to such mistakes. In another case, two gentlemen crossed Piccadilly under the impression that they saw a friend, who, as it turned out, died in India on that day. But it is needless to multiply instances; in all of them the figure seen has been out of doors, and at some yards’ distance; and these being the very circumstances in which we know that spurious recognitions often take place, there is nothing surprising in an occasional coincidence of the sort described. Similarly, a person may hear a call, perhaps of his own Christian name, outside his house, and may mistake the voice for that of a friend; and, “in due course,” as our informants sometimes say, the news of that friend’s {i-125} death may arrive.1 1 The following example has a comic as well as a tragic side. A gentleman, with whom the present writer is well acquainted, had attained some skill in “ventriloquism,” and used occasionally to amuse himself by mystifying his friends. He was one day idly swinging on a trapeze in the Ramsgate Gymnasium, and was chatting with the wife and daughter of Mr. R., the manager of the place, who were at a window above him.
“It occurred to me to put my powers into practice for the benefit of everybody, so I delivered myself of a long, low wail, carefully muffled and made distant, so as to resemble a cry from the rocks on the seashore below. Without really thinking much of what I was doing, I amused myself for about a minute by producing ‘Oh’s!’ Suddenly there was a disturbance above, Mr. R. rushed upstairs, and I saw his wife hurried off by her family in a state of collapse. I supposed she had been taken ill, and thought no more of the matter.
“I did not attend the gymnasium for the next few days; but a friend who did learnt what the mystery was. It appears that Mrs. R., who had several sons abroad, had received, at one time or another, what you call ‘telepathic’ indications of any illness or death happening to any of them. My imitation of a distant person in distress had been heard and regarded by her as one of these telepathic messages, and implanted in her mind the belief that a son, who was abroad, and from whom they had not heard for some time, had at that moment died. So convinced was she that the voice she heard was that of her dying son, that she refused to listen to any comfortings, and gave herself up to despair. She did not recover from the shock for upwards of three weeks, and never quite forgave me.” But it is only to an inconsiderable fraction of the evidence here presented that such explanations could by any possibility be applied. The large majority of the alleged experiences are, on the face of them, subjective phenomena, in the sense that they are independent of any real objects in the environment, and of any mistakes possible in connection with such objects, and are due to a peculiar affection of the percipient’s own mind. This mode of regarding them (and the reservations with which the word “subjective” must be used) will be fully explained in the sequel. It is enough for the present to note that the witness who would be an unsafe authority if he said “Sea-serpents exist,” may be a safe authority if he says, “I saw what appeared to be a sea-serpent”; and this amount of assertion is all that the telepathic evidence involves. All the accuracy of observation required of the witness has to do with what he seemed to himself to see, or to hear, or to feel.
Nor in our cases is the danger of errors of inference so serious as might be imagined. A man may, no doubt, see something odd or indefinite, at the time that his mother dies at a distance, and may infer that it bodes calamity; and if, after he hears of the death, he infers and reports that he saw his mother’s form, the error will be a very grave one. But it will be more convenient to treat retrospective mistakes of this sort under the head of errors of memory. And with a percipient’s interpretation of his impression at the moment we have really very little concern. He may see the apparition of a relative in his room, and infer first that it is the relative’s real figure in flesh and blood, and next that it is the relative’s spirit. Neither inference has any relation to our argument. {i-126} The only fact that concerns us is the fact that he had the subjective impression of seeing his relative. I may refer once more, by way of contrast, to the case of witchcraft, where the very basis of the superstition was error of inference,—error shown (and by the more intelligent class exclusively shown) not in the giving but in the interpreting of testimony.
§ 5. The tendencies to error which more vitally concern us fall broadly into two classes—tendencies to error in narration, and tendencies to error of memory. Let us ask, then, what are the various conscious or unconscious motives which may cause persons who belong to the educated class, and who have a general character for truthfulness, to narrate experiences of telepathic impressions in a manner which is not strictly accurate?
One motive which has undoubtedly to be allowed for in some cases is the desire to make the account edifying. This danger naturally attaches to the evidence for any class of facts which can be regarded, however erroneously, as transcending natural law. Enthusiastic persons will value an unusual occurrence, not for its intrinsic interest, but for its tendency, if accepted, to convert others to their own way of belief; and they will be apt to shape and colour their account of it with a view to the desired effect. Intent on pointing the moral, they will unconsciously adorn the tale. This source of error is one which it is specially necessary to bear in mind where some particular type of story is connected with a particular religious sect. The literature of the Society of Friends, for instance, is remarkably rich in accounts of providential monitions and premonitions; and it supplies also a considerable number of telepathic cases. But we have already seen that telepathy does not specially lend itself to the support of definite articles of faith. Nor is any one who takes the trouble to study our evidence likely to maintain that errors of narration have largely entered into it under the influence of a propagandist zeal. It is rather for the sake of completeness than on account of its practical importance
that such a possibility has been mentioned.
1 1 Curiously enough, the only specially “edifying” incident which has reached us on what seemed good authority, turns out to be quite inadmissible as evidence. The account was received from the Rev. G. B. Simeon, of St. John’s Vicarage, Gainsborough, of whose accuracy as a narrator we feel no doubt. He says:—
“January 10th, 1884.
“When I was in Oxford, a story was going about to the effect that Dr. Pusey had seen an apparition in High Street, and I undertook to ask him whether it was true. He said No, but that the report was probably founded on the following truth:—
“Two clergymen, A and B, well known to himself and very great friends, were together in the neighbourhood of Oxford. One of them, B, went away on a visit. The other, A, was in the garden, and saw his friend B come in at the gate and approach him. On expressing his surprise at seeing him return sooner than was expected, his friend B replied, in an agitated manner, ‘I have been in hell for half an hour because I loved the praise of men more than the praise of God,’ and turning, immediately left the garden. In the course of the next day, A, going out into the parish, met a third person, who stopped him and said, ‘Do you know, sir, that devoted servant of God, B, is dead suddenly?’ On further inquiry he found he had died the previous day shortly before his appearance in the garden.
“The underlined words were exactly those used by Dr. Pusey, and the whole manner of his telling made me feel sure that A was himself, although I did not like to ask him point blank. But he assured me he knew it to be true, and that, doubtless, it had given rise to the story going about Oxford. I fear you will think that, like most of these things, it lacks the full details, which probably none but Dr. Pusey could give, and which I felt it would be presumptuous to ask for.”
The same story—with some differences of detail—is reported to have been told by Dr. Pusey, as a personal experience, to the Sisters in Osnaburgh Street (see p. 25 of Sisterhoods of the Church of England, by Margaret Goodman). Nevertheless, we are forced to conclude that those to whom Dr. Pusey narrated the incident were mistaken in supposing him to refer to himself. For it is scarcely possible to doubt that a story published as long ago as 1819, in the Imperial Magazine (Liverpool), p. 963, and given also in the Life of Mr. W. Bramwell, 1839, is the original of what he told. The vision appears there as a dream, not a waking percept. Otherwise the central incident is the same, and the very words used by the phantom are almost identical. But the names of the parties are not given, and all our guarantee for the correctness of the account vanishes. This case is of interest, as showing the importance of probing a witness as thoroughly as possible whiles one is in the way with him.
{i-127}
A far more frequent and effective source of error in narration is the tendency to make the account graphic and picturesque. Among human beings, the motives which prompt narration of matters unconnected with business or the mere machinery of life are mainly two,—a desire to interest one’s auditor; and a desire to put oneself en evidence, to feed one’s own self-esteem by attracting and retaining the attention of others. The influence of each of these motives is towards making the story as good a one as possible. And though, as I have already said, a good deal of our evidence comes from persons who profess to have had no bias in favour of the reality of such events as they describe, and wish rather that they had not occurred, still the instinct to make what one says seem worth saying is too general for it ever to be safe to assume its absence. In such a subject as ours, this instinct will find its chief opportunity in making things appear marvellous. The reader must decide for himself how far the evidence to be here presented bears the stamp of the wonder-mongerer[☼] or raconteur. The desire to make people open their eyes is no doubt perfectly compatible with a habit of truthfulness in the ordinary affairs of life. Still, the desire, as a rule, is actually to see the eyes opening; and the danger is therefore greater in the case of a story which is told off-hand and vivâ voce for the sake of immediate effect, than in the case of evidence which is first written down at leisure, and has then to undergo the ordeal of a careful and detailed scrutiny. Nor must we forget that there is another instinct which tends directly {i-128} to discourage wonder-mongering, at any rate in the narration of unusual personal experiences—the instinct to win belief. Where the risk of being disbelieved is appreciable, a sense of accuracy becomes also a sense of security; a thing being credible to oneself just because it is fact, the consciousness of not exaggerating the fact begets a sort of trust that others may somehow find it credible. And with the class from whom our evidence is chiefly drawn, this influence seems not less likely to be operative than the desire to say something startling. The latter tendency is more prone on the whole to affect second-hand witnesses, who do not feel bound to exercise any economy of the miraculous, who can always fall back on the plea that they are only telling what was told to them, and who may easily be led into inaccuracies by the analogy of other marvellous stories.
And indeed it is a matter of ordinary observation, by no means confined to “psychical research,” that where the subject of narration has nothing to do with merit, and what is alleged to have been done or suffered is not of a sort to attract admiration to the doer or sufferer, the more extravagant sort of stories are given, not as personal experiences, but on the authority of someone else. If there is exaggeration, it is “a friend” who is to blame; and this term is used on such occasions with considerable latitude. I have already noted how, in the case of witchcraft, the more bizarre incidents do not rest on anything like traceable first-hand testimony. This remark is applicable in a general way to the whole field of evidence for marvellous events, as recorded in modern literature; and the same fact has been very noticeable with respect to the evidence, of very various sorts and qualities, which has come under the attention of my colleagues and myself during the last few years. We have often taken the trouble to trace and test the matter of those sensational newspaper-paragraphs which get so freely copied from one journal into another; but in scarcely one per cent. of the cases has the evidence held water. And in the ordinary talk of society, where there is often a show or assertion of authority for the statements made, one gradually learns to diagnose with confidence the accounts which profess to be second or third hand from the original, but of which no original will ever be forthcoming. An example is the well-known tale of the dripping letter, handed to a lady by the phantasmal figure of a midshipman who had been drowned before he could execute his commission. If the newspaper-anecdotes were like bubbles that break in the pursuer’s hand, a society-marvel of this stamp may be {i-129} more fitly compared to a will-o’-the-wisp: one never gets any nearer to it. Then there is the young lady who was preserved from a railway accident by seeing the apparition of her fiancé on the platform of three consecutive stations—which induced her to alight. Here I was actually promised an introduction to the heroine: what I finally received was a reference to “a friend of the lady who told the story.” Or, again, there is the tale of second-sight, so widely told during the last three years, where the visitor saw a daughter of the house stabbed by a stranger, whom he has since identified as her husband, and has remorselessly dogged in hansom cabs. Three or four times have we been, so to speak, “one off” this story; but the various clues have shown no sign of converging; and we still occasionally hear of the happy couple as on their honeymoon.
§ 6. Turning now to the sources of error in memory, we find the danger here is of a more insidious kind, in that comparatively few persons realise the extent to which it exists in their own case. For one who is innocent of any desire to impress his auditor in any particular way, and who simply desires to tell the truth, it is not easy to realise that he may be an untrustworthy witness about matters concerning himself. The weaknesses of human memory, and the precautions which they necessitate, will be so frequent a topic in the sequel that a brief classification will here suffice.
We must allow, in the first place, for a common result of the belief in supernatural influences and providential interpositions. Persons who are interested in such ideas will be keenly alive to any phenomena which seem to transcend a purely materialistic view of life. They will be apt to see facts of this class where they do not exist, and to interpret in this sense small or vague occurrences which if accurately examined at the time might have been otherwise explained. And where this tendency exists, it is almost inevitable that, as time goes on, the occurrence should represent itself to memory more and more in the desired light, that inconvenient details should drop out, and that the remainder should stand out in a deceptively significant and harmonious form. Of the cases to be here presented, however, only a very small proportion betray any idea on the part of the witness that what he recounts has any special religious or philosophical significance. Our informants have had no motive to conceal from us their real view of the facts; and if they narrate an incident as simply strange or {i-130} unaccountable, we have no right to assume their evidence to have been coloured by an emotional sense that materialism had been refuted in their person, or that supernatural communications had been permitted to them. Indeed, as regards religious and emotional prepossessions, we are certainly justified in thinking that they have rather been hindrances than helps to the presentation of an abundant array of evidence. For it has happened in many instances that persons whose testimony would have been a valuable addition to the case for telepathy, have felt their experiences to be too intimate or too sacred for publication.1 1 To take a single instance—a lady sends us an unsensational narrative of the ordinary type, as to how one day in 1882, when just about to sit down to the piano, she saw close to her the figure of an old school-friend, who, as it turned out, died on that day at a distance. “I am confident,” she says, “of having seen the vision, though my common-sense makes me wish to put it down to imagination. I never saw any vision of any kind before or since.” But we are withheld from quoting the account in a form which could have any evidential value, by her feeling that such publication would be wrong.
But apart from any bias of an emotional or speculative sort, we must certainly admit a general tendency in the human mind to make any picture of facts definite. To many people vagueness of emotion or of speculation is a delight; but no one enjoys vagueness of memory. In thinking of an event which was in any way shadowy or uncertain, there is always a certain irksomeness in realising clearly how little clear it was. The same applies, of course, to events at which we look back through any considerable interval of time. The very effort to recall them implies an effort to represent them to the mind as precisely and completely as possible, and it is often not observed that the precision thus attained is not that of reality.
Lastly, there is a general tendency to lighten the burden of memory by simplifying its contents—by bringing any group of connected events into as round and portable a form as possible. This may, of course, only result in the loss of excrescences and subordinate features, while the essential incident is left intact. But we shall find instances further on where simplification really alters the character of the evidence. Details may not simply drop out; they may undergo a change, and group themselves conveniently round some central idea. It might reasonably be expected, and we ourselves certainly began by expecting, that error from this source would always tell in the direction of actual distortion and exaggeration; if the aspect of the case was to some extent striking and significant to begin with, it would seem likely that this aspect of it should become {i-131} more pronounced as it assumed a more isolated place in the mind, and lost its connection with the normal stream of experience in the course of which it appeared. As a matter of fact, however, this is by no means always what happens. For instance, we have met with several cases of the following sort. An impression of a remarkable kind, and which, if telepathy exists, may fairly be regarded as telepathic, has been produced on a percipient while in a state which he recognised at the time as one of complete wakefulness, and which was practically proved to be so by the fact that he did not wake from it—that it formed a connected part of his waking life. But in the natural gravitation towards easy accounts of things, he gradually gets to look back on this experience as a dream; that is, he allows the verdict of subsequent memory to supplant the verdict of immediate consciousness. We must not then say in our haste, all men—or all memories—are exaggerators. Even where evidence has been modified in passing through several mouths, a comparison between later and earlier versions of the same occurrence has sometimes shown that its more striking and significant characteristics have lost rather than gained by the transmission. But this is no doubt the exception.
§ 7. Such, in brief outline, are the principal sources of error which may in a general way be supposed to affect the sort of evidence with which we are concerned; and our next step must be to fix with precision what the actual opportunities for perversion are. The evidence for telepathy has a certain type and structure of its own, and we must realise what this is, in order to know where to look for the weak points. What, then, are the essential elements of a typical telepathic phenomenon? They consist in two events or two states, of a more or less remarkable kind, and connected, as a rule, by certain common characteristics; and of a certain time-relation between the two. For example, if a flawless case is to be presented, it would be of the following type and composition: It would comprise (1) indisputable evidence that A (whom we call the agent) has had an unusual experience—say, has died; (2) indisputable evidence that B (whom we call the percipient) has had an unusual experience which includes a certain impression of A—say, has, while wide awake, had a vision of A in the room; (3) indisputable evidence that the two events coincided in time—which, of course, implies that their respective dates can be accurately fixed. When I call such evidence as this flawless, I do not, of course, mean that it is conclusive: the fact that the two {i-132} events occurred, and the fact that they occurred simultaneously, might be placed beyond dispute, and the coincidence might, for all that, be due not to telepathy, but to chance alone. But though no single case can prove telepathy, no case where the above conditions are not to some extent realised can even help to prove it. Briefly, then, if the account of some alleged instance of telepathy-is evidentially faulty, there must be misrepresentation as to one or more of the following items: (1) the state of the agent; (2) the experience of the percipient; (3) the time of (1); (4) the time of (2).
Now the evidence where the chances of misrepresentation have primarily to be considered is clearly that of the percipient. It is the percipient’s mention of his own experience which makes, so to speak, the ground-work of the case; unless the percipient gives his own account of this experience, the case is in no sense a first-hand one; whereas if such an account is given we should consider the evidence first-hand, even though the account of the agent’s state is not obtained from himself. Of course when the agent is in a position to give an account, it is important that his evidence should be procured; but this is impossible in the numerous cases where his share in the matter consists simply in dying. In these cases, then, we are dependent on others for evidence as to the agent’s side of the occurrence; and primarily often on the percipient, who is our first and indispensable witness for the whole matter. This being premised, we shall have no difficulty in discovering where the risks of misrepresentation really lie.
§ 13. But on the whole, the danger that the closeness of the coincidence may be exaggerated depends rather on mis-statement of the date of the percipient’s than of the agent’s share in the alleged occurrence. Clearly the fact that some one has died or has had a serious accident, or has been placed in circumstances of some unusual sort, is likely to be known to more persons, and to be more frequently recorded in some permanent form, than the fact that some one has had, or says he has had, an odd hallucination. And clearly also, if one of the points is fixed, and the other, by hasty assumption or defective memory, is moved up to it, the moveable date is likely to be that of the event which has no ascertainable place in the world of objective fact. As a rule, it is at any rate possible at the time to obtain certainty as to the date of what has befallen the agent; and therefore if the percipient has been struck by his experience and retains evidence of its date, either in writing or in the memory of others to whom he mentioned it, he will very likely be prompted, when he hears of the other event, to assure himself as to what the degree of coincidence really was. But the converse case is very different. If the percipient does not record his experience at the time of its occurrence, even a week’s interval may destroy the possibility of making sure what its exact date was; and therefore, however certain the date of the other event may be, assurance as to the degree of coincidence will here be unattainable. It is often expressly recognised as such by the percipient himself; and then one can only regret that the importance of the class of facts—if facts indeed they are—has been so little realised that the simple measures which would have ensured {i-145} accurate evidence have not been taken. But where the account given is one of accurate coincidence, we cannot be satisfied without good evidence that the point was critically examined into at the time. It may, of course, happen that the percipient has a clear recollection that the coincidence was adequately made out at the time, although he can produce no documentary evidence which would establish it; and if others confirm his memory in this respect, that is so far satisfactory. Such unwritten confirmation, however, will have little independent force, unless the person who gives it was made aware of the percipient’s experience within a very short time of its occurrence.
But though the danger here must be explicitly recognised, it is important not to exaggerate its practical scope. The coincidence may have been reported as closer than it was; but it may still, in a majority of cases, be fairly concluded to have fallen within the 12 hours’ limit. As a rule, the news of what has befallen the agent arrives soon enough for not more than a space of two days to intervene between the percipient’s knowledge of this event and the time when, to make the coincidence complete, his own experience must have taken place. We are not, therefore, making a large demand on his memory; we are only requiring that he shall remember that an experience, which he represents as remarkable, befell him, or did not befall him, on the day before yesterday. No doubt, after a lapse of years, the evidential value of what a person reports ceases to have a close relation to the knowledge of the facts which it seems pretty certain he must have had at the time. But the demands made at the time on the intelligence either of the percipient, or of anyone else who had the opportunity of asking questions and forming conclusions, are so slight that we may fairly take contemporary written records of the matter, or even later verbal corroboration, as having a considerable claim to attention, even when the best evidence of all—evidence whose existence preceded the arrival of the news—is wanting. And it is important to notice that, while we have had several coincidences reported to us as having been close to the hour, which turned out, on further inquiry or examination of documents, to have been only close to the day, we have had very few cases where a similar correction has proved that the 12 hours’ limit was really overpassed.1 [☼]1 We have, however, a case where a death was reported to us as having taken place at 3 a.m., and where, on reference to the letter in which it was announced, it was found to have taken place at 6 p.m. The evidence on the percipient’s side seemed satisfactory, as we received confirmation of the fact that she mentioned her impression at the time as a unique and very distressing one, without any knowledge that her brother, who died in Jamaica, was even ill; and there can be no doubt that the impression did actually fall within the period of serious illness. But the impression was a dream; and a dream of death, however remarkable in its character, which is separated from the actual event by 18 hours, cannot be included in our evidence. In another very similar case, the percipient’s impression was stated, and apparently correctly, to have occurred in the Crimea on January 11th, 1878, and the death (of a sister) in England to have taken place on the same day. But on examining the letter in which the news was announced, we find that the death actually took place on a Wednesday; and Wednesday fell not on the 11th but on the 9th. The assumed coincidence, therefore, altogether breaks down. For some further instances see the “Additions and Corrections” which precede Chap. i. A good many coincidences, {i-146} no doubt, have been represented as extremely close, where no independent evidence on this point has been accessible, and closer inquiry has occasionally revealed that the assertion rested only on a guess. But wholly to neglect cases where the exactitude of the coincidence is not brought within the 12 hours’ limit would clearly be unreasonable, provided that—on the evidence—it is not likely that this limit was much exceeded,1 1 This question of likelihood must be carefully weighed, according to the circumstances. The following case, from the Rev. Canon Sherlock, of Sherlockstown, Naas, which was published in our first report on the subject as possibly telepathic, is a specimen of what we certainly should not now feel justified in regarding as evidence.
“During the Indian Mutiny, my brother was serving (as ensign) in the 72nd Highlanders. At that time I was an undergraduate of Trinity College, Dublin, and living at Sandycove, near Kingstown. One night about 2 o’clock I was reading by the fire, when I heard myself distinctly called by my brother, the tone of his voice being somewhat raised and urgent; looking round I saw his head and the upper part of his body quite plainly. He appeared to be looking at me, and was about 7 or 8 feet distant. I looked steadily at him for about half a minute, when he seemed gradually to fade into a mist and disappear. The date of this occurrence I, unfortunately, lost note of, but upon my brother’s return from India and my casually mentioning that I had so seen him, we talked the matter over, and both came to the conclusion that the apparition coincided with a dangerous attack of illness, in which my brother suddenly awoke with the impression that he was suffocating, at which moment he thought of me. The attack was brought on by sleeping during a forced march through a country great part [sic] of which was under water. This is the only apparition that I have ever experienced, and there was no anxiety on my mind which could have given rise to it, as we had quite recently had a letter from my brother, written in good health and spirits.
“W. SHERLOCK.”
If one dismisses all à priori leanings to a telepathic explanation, there is nothing in this account which renders it unlikely that the two events were separated by (say) 10 days, or that the event in England preceded the one in India. and not certain that it was exceeded at all. Such cases must, of course, be excluded from any numerical estimate based on precise data; but they may fairly be allowed their own weight on the mind.
§ 14. We see, then, that cases where the alleged correspondence of facts and coincidence of dates are sufficiently close to afford a primâ facie presumption of telepathic action, may present very various degrees of strength and weakness; and it may be convenient to summarise the evidential conditions according to their value, in the following tabular form. (The words “the news” mean always the news of what has befallen the supposed agent.)
A. Where the event which befell the agent, with its date, is recorded in printed notices, or contemporary documents which we {i-147} have examined; or is reported to us by the agent himself independently, or by some independent witness or witnesses; and where
(1) The percipient (α) made a written record of his experience, with its date, at the time of its occurrence, which record we have either seen or otherwise ascertained to be still in existence; or (β) before the arrival of the news, mentioned his experience to one or more persons, by whom the fact that he so mentioned it is corroborated; or (γ) immediately adopted a special course of action on the strength of his experience, as is proved by external evidence, documentary or personal.
(2) The documentary evidence mentioned in (1α) and (1γ) is alleged to have existed, but has not been accessible to our inspection; or the experience is alleged to have been mentioned as in (1β), or the action taken on the strength of it to have been remarked as in (1γ), but owing to death or other causes, the person or persons to whom the experience was mentioned, or by whom the action was remarked, can no longer corroborate the fact.
This second class of cases is placed here for convenience, but should probably rank below the next class. At the same time the fact that the percipient’s experience was noted in writing by him, or was communicated to another person, or was acted on, before the arrival of the news, is not one which is at all specially likely to be unconsciously invented by him afterwards.
(3) The percipient did not (α) make any written record, nor (β) make any verbal mention of his experience until after the arrival of the news, but then did one or both; of which fact we have confirmation.
This class is of course, as a rule, decidedly inferior to the first class. At the same time, cases occur under it in which the news was so immediate that the fact of the coincidence could only be impugned by representing the whole story as an invention.1 1 See, for instance, case 17, pp. 188–9.
(4) The immediate record or mention on the arrival of the news is alleged to have been made, but owing to loss of papers, death of friends, or other causes, cannot be confirmed.
{i-148} (5) The percipient alleges that he remarked the coincidence when he heard the news; but no record or mention of the circumstance was made until some time afterwards.
Such cases, of course, rapidly lose any value they may have as the time increases which separates the account from the incident. Still, sometimes we have been able to obtain the independent evidence of some one who heard an account previous to the present report to us; or we have ourselves obtained two reports separated by a considerable interval. And where a comparison of accounts given at different times shows that they do not vary, this is to some extent an indication of accuracy.
B. Where the percipient is our sole authority for the nature and date of the event which he alleges to have befallen the agent.
In many of these cases, the percipient is also our sole authority for his own experience; and the evidence under this head will then be weaker than in any of the above classes. But where we have independent testimony of the percipient’s mention of the two events, and of their coincidence, soon after their occurrence—he having been at the time in such circumstances that he would naturally know the nature and date of what had befallen the agent—the case may rank as higher in value than some of those of Class A (5).
§ 15. The evidence which I have so far analysed is first-hand evidence—in the sense that the main account comes to us direct from the percipient. The present collection, however, includes (in the Supplement) a certain number of second-hand narratives; and it will be well, therefore, to consider briefly what are the best sorts of second-hand evidence, and what kinds of inaccuracy are most to be apprehended in the transmission of telepathic history from mouth to mouth.
There is one, and only one, sort of second-hand evidence which can on the whole be placed on a par with first-hand; namely, the evidence of a person who has been informed of the experience of the percipient while the latter was still unaware of the corresponding event; and who has had equal opportunities with the percipient for learning the truth of that event, and confirming the coincidence. The second-hand witness’s testimony in such a case is quite as likely to be accurate as the percipient’s; for though his impression of the actual details will no doubt be less vivid, {i-149} yet on the other hand he will not be under the same temptation to exaggerate the force or strangeness of the impression in subsequent retrospection. Specimens of this class have therefore been admitted to the body of the work, as well as to the Supplement. Putting this exceptional class aside, the value of second-hand evidence chiefly depends on the relation of the first narrator to the second. A second-hand account from a person only slightly acquainted with the original narrator is of very little value; not only because it is probably the report of a story which has been only once heard, and that, perhaps, in a hurried or casual way; but also because the less the reporter’s sense of responsibility to his informant, the less also will be his sense of responsibility to the facts, and the greater the temptation to improve on the original.1 [☼]1 A lady has described to us a hallucination which presented to her the form of her father-in-law, who had been dead 14 years. An acquaintance, to whom she once mentioned this experience, had reported it to us as the apparition of her brother, with the addition that “a short time afterwards she received news of her brother’s death, which had taken place at the very time of the apparition.” There is a touch of nature in the fact that the author of this amended version considers the original witness “not at all an imaginative person.” But we cannot so lightly dismiss the testimony of near relatives and close friends to a matter which they have heard the first-hand witness narrate more than once, or narrate in such a manner as convinced them that the alleged facts were to him realities, and had made a lasting impression on his mind. Here we at any rate have a chance of forming a judgment as to the character of the original authority; we can make tolerably certain that what we hear was never the mere anecdote of a raconteur; and we have grounds for assuming in our own informants a certain instinct of fidelity which may at any rate preserve their report from the errors of wilful carelessness and exaggeration. It not infrequently happens, too, that we can obtain several independent versions from several second-hand witnesses, which may mutually confirm one another; and contemporary documentary evidence may give further support to the case.
The risks of error in transmitted evidence are, of course, in many respects the same, in an intensified form, as those of original evidence. To a person who is told something which sounds surprising by some one else who has experienced it, the central marvel is apt to stand out in memory with undue relief; and the various details and considerations which might modify the marvellous element will drop out of sight. One is, of course, familiar with the same process in the case of almost any anecdote or witticism that gets at all répandu:spread the {i-150} point is retained, the details and surroundings vary. For purposes of amusement such variations may be wholly unimportant; for purposes of evidence they may be all-important. Facts, moreover, are very much easier to improve than bon mots and the like, and with the second-hand narrator the tendency to make things picturesque and complete, by the addition, omission, or transformation of details, is naturally stronger in that there is no deeply-graven sense of the reality to act as a check on it. A gentleman, who signs himself “Rector,” writes to the Daily Telegraph, and describes a number of clergymen sitting round a table, on the evening when the late Bishop of Winchester met with his fatal accident. “One of them said, ‘There is the Bishop looking in at that window.’ Another immediately said, ‘No, he is at this window.’” What really happened—as we learn from Mr. G. W. Paxon, who was present at the scene referred to—was that a strange figure passed the three windows of the dining-room at Wotton, but that “it was not possible for the gentlemen present” (who, by the way, were three only, and all laymen) to identify it. Mr. Evelyn went out to see who it could be, but it had disappeared with mysterious rapidity. And that is the whole story. Again, a young man, we are told, was dying in London, his friends being unaware of his whereabouts. A sister of his in Edinburgh, who was also dying, “said that she was present at the death-bed of her brother; she gave an outline of his room, and told the name and number of the street.” A friend of our informant’s, Mr.
David Lewis, of 21, St. Andrew Square, Edinburgh, was then asked to inquire, went to the address, and found (as he informs us) that the young man had just died there. But on more careful inquiry from the lady’s husband, we learn that though his wife described the room, she did not see the name of the street; and that he himself knew his brother-in-law’s address at the time, and had actually received a letter saying that he was very ill and not expected to live. The description of the room—even if proved to be correct—could have no evidential force unless extremely minute. All that remains to be accounted for, therefore, is the lady’s impression as to her brother’s condition; and though her husband is sure that she could not have known it in any ordinary way, it is impossible for outsiders—remembering that the knowledge did exist in the house at the time—to share his confidence. Again, a gentleman tells us how his grandfather, when taking a walk at Honfleur, on November 24th, 1859, saw the apparition of his (our
{i-151} informant’s) sister, who expired at that time in England. He followed the figure, and it disappeared on reaching his garden. “In conversation afterwards the very wrapper worn by the deceased was described.” We obtain a copy of the original letter in which the grandfather described the occurrence, and find that he was walking “in the dark and a drizzling rain” when he observed something very white. “It appeared to be a lady in white, without a bonnet, but a large white veil over her head. It disappeared at the door of a house. This took place as near the time of dear Sarah’s departure as possible.” Here, therefore, the second-hand account
introduced the recognition,
omitted the uncertain light, and
altered the place of disappearance. Once more, a lady has had a strong impression of her husband’s being in danger, at a time when he actually had a narrow escape in a railway accident. In this accident a number of cattle were killed, and the line was red with their blood. The story comes round to us that the wife had not only an impression of danger, but a vivid picture of blood. It is amusing sometimes to find that evidence breaks down on the exact point which has been held to be its most convincing feature. The following narrative, though a third-hand one, seemed to have some claim to attention, as it reached us from two independent quarters; and the two accounts so completely agree that we may assume that we have the correct version of the second-hand witness. Mr. W. C. Morland, of Lamberhurst Court Lodge, Kent, (who vouches for no more than that he repeats exactly what he was told,) writes to us as follows:—
“August 11th, 1883.
“My wife’s great-uncle was private secretary to Warren Hastings in India, and one day, when sitting in Council, they all saw a figure pass through the Council-room into an inner room, from which there was no other exit. One of the Council exclaimed, ‘Good God! that is my father.’ Search was made in the inner room, but nothing could be found, and Warren Hastings, turning to his secretary, said, ‘Cator, make a note of this, and put it with the minutes of to-day’s Council.’ As a small incident in the story, it was noticed that the figure had one of our modern pot hats. Some months after, a ship arrived bringing the news of the old gentleman’s death and the first pot hats that had been seen in India.
“I simply tell it you as I heard it from a Mr. Sparkes, who is now dead, and who, as well as my wife, was a great-nephew to—and probably heard it from—the old Mr. Cator who was present at the Council. I never heard him say whether he heard it direct from Mr. Cator, but I think it likely, as he was rather nearly related, and from his age must have known him.”
{i-152}
Precisely similar details were given by Mr. Sparkes to the Rev. B. Wrey Savile, who has published the case in his book on Apparitions; in this account the Member of Council who recognised his father figures as Mr. Shakespeare. Now the official minutes of the Supreme Council have been searched for us; but it does not appear either that Mr. Shakespeare was a Member of Council at the time, or that Mr. Cator was Hastings‘ private secretary, though he was certainly in the Company’s service. We learn, however, from the Superintendent of Records at the India Office that “it is believed that the registers of the Company’s servants in India at that early date were not always quite accurate”; so that these discoveries would not alone have thrown serious suspicion on the report. And the chimney-pot hat seemed, at any rate, something respectable to stand by. The phantom, in fact, owed his character to his hat; for it is hard to imagine how Mr. Cator or Mr. Sparkes could have gratuitously introduced such a feature into the story. But the curious perfection of the detail as to the simultaneous arrival of the news and of the real hats at once suggests scrutiny of the dates. All the accounts of chimney-pot hats that we have been able to find agree that they came into use between 1790 and 1795, though they seem to have been worn in France as early as 1787. They cannot, therefore, have reached India before the termination of Hastings’ governorship in 1785. Thus the case at once assumes a mythical air; and the most we can assume is that probably some odd coincidence occurred.1 1 Very comparable is an account which we have received, written by the late Lieut.-Colonel Balneavis—describing how, when a child, he was woke by his mother, who had had a terrifying vision of her husband “putting a corpse in full uniform on a sofa, and afterwards covering it over with a white sheet”; and how his father was “at the very time” performing these offices for Sir T. Maitland, Governor of Malta, with whom he had been dining, and who “dropped down dead at table.” We find from the Annual Register that Sir T. Maitland was taken ill in the middle of the day, at the house of a friend, and died there in the evening, in bed, after being speechless for 8 hours.
I will add where the instinct that we have noticed, to make evidence picturesque, has so far overleapt itself as to supply the very means of confutation. The late Mrs. Howitt Watts gave us the narrative as from her mother, who had “many times heard it related” by her mother, the percipient, and so far it is third-hand. But Mrs. Watts had also heard it from her grandmother’s own lips. The occurrence took place at Heanor, in Derbyshire.
“My mother’s family name, Tantum, is an uncommon one, which I do not recollect to have met with, except in a story of Miss Leslie’s. My mother had two brothers, Francis and Richard. The younger, Richard, I {i-153} knew well, for he lived to an old age. The elder, Francis, was at the time of the occurrence I am about to report, a gay young man, about twenty, unmarried, handsome, frank, affectionate, and extremely beloved by all classes throughout that part of the country. He is described, in that age of powder and pigtails, as wearing his auburn hair flowing in ringlets on his shoulders, like another Absalom, and was much admired, as well for his personal grace as for the life and gaiety of his manners.
“One fine calm afternoon, my mother, shortly after a confinement, but perfectly convalescent, was lying in bed, enjoying, from her window, the sense of summer beauty and repose: a bright sky above, and the quiet village before her. In this state she was gladdened by hearing footsteps which she took to be those of her brother Frank, as he was familiarly called, approaching the chamber-door. The visitor knocked and entered. The foot of the bed was towards the door, and the curtains at the foot, notwithstanding the season, were drawn, to prevent any draught. Her brother parted them, and looked in upon her. His gaze was earnest, and destitute of its usual cheerfulness, and he spoke not a word. ‘My dear Frank,’ said my mother, ‘how glad I am to see you. Come round to the bedside; I wish to have some talk with you.’
“He closed the curtains, as complying; but instead of doing so, my mother, to her astonishment, heard him leave the room, close the door behind him, and begin to descend the stairs. Greatly amazed, she hastily rang, and when her maid appeared she bade her call her brother back. The girl replied that she had not seen him enter the house. But my mother insisted, saying, ‘He was here but this instant. Run! quick! call him back! I must see him.’
“The girl hurried away, but, after a time, returned, saying that she could learn nothing of him anywhere; nor had anyone in or about the house seen him either enter or depart.
“Now, my father’s house stood at the bottom of the village, and close to the high-road, which was quite straight; so that anyone passing along it must have been seen for a much longer period than had elapsed. The girl said she had looked up and down the road, then searched the garden—a large, old-fashioned one, with shady walks. But neither in the garden nor on the road was he to be seen. She had inquired at the nearest cottages in the village; but no one had noticed him pass.
“My mother, though a very pious woman, was far from superstitious; yet the strangeness of this circumstance struck her forcibly. While she lay pondering upon it, there was heard a sudden running and excited talking in the village street.”
Briefly, the cause of the disturbance was that Mr. Francis Tantum had just been killed. He had been dining at Shipley Hall, about a mile off, and was riding home after the early country dinner of that day—somewhat elated, it may be, with wine. He stopped at the door of an ale-house at Heanor, where he offended the young man who served him, by striking him with his whip. The youth ran into the house, seized a carving-knife, darted back, and stabbed him.
This story obtained a certain currency, having been published by Mr. Dale Owen in his Footfalls. Yet the simple precaution of {i-154} getting independent evidence as to the time of the death goes far to ruin its character. A certificate sent to us by the rector of the parish shows that Mr. F. Tantum was buried on the 4th of February, and that his age was 36. And this does more than merely disturb our picture of the quiet summer scene, and of the Absalom of twenty. The time of year shows that the percipient’s vision probably took place after dark; so that “any one passing along the high-road” might very well not have been seen a minute after his departure; and the inquiries at the cottages would have been worth little or nothing. But these researches, as they are described, must have taken time; and as the news of the murder would be likely to spread fast, we should conclude that that event took place decidedly after the vision. Thus there appears no adequate reason why the apparition should not have been the real man—his conduct, though undoubtedly odd, being explicable by the state of slight intoxication which the narrative suggests.
But apart from sensational additions, details are apt to creep in which seem sober and innocent enough, but which make the whole difference from an evidential point of view. A very striking narrative reaches us from a second-hand source, as to how an officer in India one day saw his father, long deceased, issue from a wood leading his mother by the hand; how the latter addressed some words to her son, and the pair then vanished; and how he afterwards learnt that his mother had died in England on that very day. We happened already to have a first-hand account of the incident, in which the visitation that coincided with the death was described not as a waking percept, but as a dream. The enormous difference, for the purpose of our argument, which this point involves will abundantly appear in the sequel. Again, in transmitted cases it is quite remarkable how often the percipient “made a note” of his experience at the time of its occurrence—an act of foresight in which percipients, to judge from their own first-hand accounts, seem only too apt to fail.[☼]
In transmitted evidence, which is more remote than second-hand, another frequent point is that the chain of transmission is shortened—that a narrative which has really passed through two or through three mouths will be represented as having passed only through one or through two. For instance, a gentleman tells us of a striking telepathic phantasm which appeared to a friend of his, a sea-captain, on board ship. Nautical phantasms are not a favourite class of ours; the evidence is too apt to “suffer a sea-change”; and even the {i-155} guarantee offered to us in respect of another specimen, that “the crew had no difficulty in believing it,” is not completely reassuring. But the present example, at any rate, proved quite too superlatively nautical; for it turned out that the sea-captain was not the original witness, but had heard the story from another sea-captain; and that this sea-captain had heard it from the “man at the wheel”; whom we have not troubled for it. Again, a story which has been more than once printed by Spiritualistic writers begins as follows:—“Mrs. Crawford, in the Metropolitan Magazine in 1836, tells us that the then Lord Chedworth was a man who suffered deeply from doubts”—and then describes how the apparition of a sceptical friend of Lord Chedworth’s presented itself one night, told him that there was a judgment to come, and disappeared—the news of the friend’s death arriving “in due course” next morning. On referring to Mrs. Crawford’s own account, we find the hero of the story described as “Lord Chedworth, the father of the late lord”: and even this description is incorrect, as the fourth baron—with whose death in 1804 the title became extinct—succeeded, not his father, but his uncle.1 1 The story which “drags at each remove a lengthening chain,” even though the removes be in the direction of its source, is a type that has become very familiar to us. The following is a sample of many a correspondence which is more amusing in retrospect than in reality,
Miss A. described to me a remarkable incident, as related to her by the Rev. B., who had heard of it from the lady to whom it occurred.
The Rev. B., on being applied to, said that he had heard of it, not from the lady to whom it occurred, but from the Rev. C.
The Rev. C. was applied to, but had only heard the story from the Rev. D.; with whose appearance on the scene hope revived.
The Rev. D. reported that he had not heard the story from the heroine of it, but from a friend of hers, Mrs. E., who would procure it from the heroine.
Mrs. E., in turn, reported that her authority, Miss F., was not herself the heroine, but had been informed by Miss G., who was.
Miss F., on being applied to, had only heard Miss G.’s story third-hand, but referred me to Miss H., a nearer friend of Miss G.’s.
Miss H. kindly applied to Miss G., but reported, as the result, that Miss G.’s own information was only third or fourth hand.
Such is the last state (as far as I am concerned at any rate) of a story which began by being third-hand, and has been traced back through seven mouths. This possible shortening of the chain of evidence is a point that must never be lost sight of when the account was given orally to the last witness, and was not made the subject of minute inquiry.2 [☼]2 For instance, a friend of the present writer reports as follows:—
“About ten years ago Admiral Johnson, of Little Baddow, Essex, told me as follows: One day he was walking with companions in a wood, when he suddenly saw his brother Arthur, in uniform, and said, ‘There’s my brother!’ It was discovered afterwards that the brother died at that time.”
We have failed to trace this occurrence; and it may be surmised as possible that the hero of the story, which was told in casual conversation, was not Admiral Johnson himself, but some one else. That is, the story may be third-hand, and is of no evidential value.
The following narrative from Mrs. Lonsdale, of Lichfield, is another instance in point:—
“I was sitting next my dear old friend, Dr. (since Sir Thomas) Watson, at a London dinner-party. I think some one on the opposite side of the table said to him, ‘A physician in your extensive practice must hear and see strange things sometimes.’ He said, ‘Indeed we do.’ He then turned to me and said, ‘You know that I am a matter-of-fact person, and I will now tell you the strangest of all the strange things that ever happened to me.
“‘I was called in, some years ago, to see a man, a stranger to me, who had been taken dangerously ill at his chambers in the Temple. Directly I saw him I knew that he had not more than 24 hours to live, and I told him that he must lose no time in settling any worldly affairs, and in sending for any relations whom he might wish to see. He told me he had only one near relation, a brother, who was in one of the Midland counties. By my patient’s desire, I sat down and wrote to the brother, telling him that if he would find the sick man still alive he must come off at once, on receipt of my letter. The next morning, while I was visiting my patient, who was then sinking fast, the brother arrived. As he came in at the door, the dying man fixed his eyes on his face and said, “Ah! brother, how d’ye do—I saw you last night, you know.” To my infinite surprise, the brother, instead of appearing to take these words as I did, for the dreamy wanderings of extreme weakness, replied quietly, “Ah! yes—so you did—so you did.” All was over in a very short time, and when we left the bedroom together, I could not help asking the brother what those strange words meant. He said, “You may well ask, but as sure as I see you now, I saw my brother in the middle of last night; he came out of a cupboard at the foot of my bed, and after gazing at me for a minute or two, without speaking, he disappeared.”’”
An account of what appears to be the same incident is given, as authentic, but without names, by Dr. Elliotson, in the Zoist, Vol. viii., p. 70. But on the other hand, Sir T. Watson’s family, to whom we applied, seem never to have heard of the story; which we may therefore not unreasonably suppose to have been narrated as a friend’s experience.
I give one more instance—worth nothing of course as it stands—in the hope of inducing some readers to take down at the time the names and addresses of casual acquaintances who seem to have bonâ fide evidence to produce. The account was sent to us by Mrs. Pritchard, of The Cottage, Bangor, North Wales, on February 7th, 1884.
“I much regret that I am not able to give you the name and address of the lady [i.e., Mrs. Pritchard’s informant], for I do not know it myself. I met her at the Barmouth Hotel last summer. She told me that upon one occasion, when her husband had left home for a couple of days, she had a most painful impression that he was being crushed. When he returned she ran up to him, saying, ‘Oh, I’m so glad you have come back safely, for I‘ve had a dreadful feeling that you were crushed.’ Her husband then told her that he had seen a woman crushed to death by the train close by where he stood, and it affected him greatly—he couldn’t get it out of his mind, and it prevented him sleeping.
“I have written to Barmouth to try and find out the name of these people, but as no visitors’ book is kept at the hotel, they were unable to give me any information. I think the name was Dickenson, and I know that the husband is a solicitor in one of the English towns—a young man.”
Here, if we could have discovered the address, the account might possibly have been made first-hand; at present we should not be safe in giving it even as second-hand. But perhaps no feature of the transmitted narratives is on the whole so suggestive as the wonderful exactness of the all-important time-coincidence; which in these cases we must be doubly careful of
{i-156} assuming to have been founded on a genuine coincidence of a less exact kind (p.
139). Thus, a gentleman strikingly describes to us how a friend of his, while walking in Barnsley, and when no one was within 30 yards of her, felt herself seized by two hands round the waist; her only “enlightenment on the matter” being that “on the very same afternoon her brother went down with the ill-fated training ship, the ‘Eurydice.’” On applying direct to the lady, we find that the hallucination took place “two days before the dreadful accident.” The more remote the incident, and the less the authority for the story, the more clinching the correspondence becomes, till its perfection is really quite wearisome. “On the day of his vision, and
at that very moment,
{i-157} his friend was passing away,” is quite the accepted sort of formula. We may hunt far in such accounts before we find any guarding clauses, as that “the hour of death was never exactly ascertained,” or “the vision was in the morning, but the death did not take place till the afternoon”—clauses which are common enough, be it observed, in first-hand records.
It would, however, not be fair to leave this list of causes which diminish the amount of presentable second-hand evidence, without adding that of the more reliable sort of second-hand (no less than of first-hand) cases, a considerable number are withheld from publication from motives with which it is hard altogether to sympathise. Persons who have a really accurate knowledge of some incident in which a deceased relative has been concerned, and who—seeing that the incident did no dishonour to any one’s head or heart—have no scruple in publishing it at casual dinner-parties, become sometimes almost morbidly scrupulous when there is a question of making it available, even in an anonymous form, for a scientific purpose.
Here I may close this preliminary survey of the possibilities of error which must be constantly kept in view in the investigation of alleged telepathic cases, and which must be either excluded by evidence or carefully allowed for. Both the dangers and the safeguards will, of course, be better realised when we come to the details of particular cases. It does not seem necessary to give a similar synopsis of the evidential flaws and weaknesses which are not in any sense errors. Some of these may be apparent on the very face of the evidence; as when the percipient expressly states that his impression was of an undefined sort, or was of a sort which he had experienced on other occasions without the correspondence of any real event, or that the coincidence of dates, though close, was not exactly ascertained. Others may appear when we take all the circumstances into consideration, although the percipient may fail to admit them; for instance, a person who is in decided anxiety about an absent relative or friend may be regarded as to some extent predisposed to subjective impressions which suggest his presence, so that the accidental coincidence of such an impression with some actual crisis that is apprehended may be regarded as not violently improbable. All such topics, however, will find a more convenient place in the sequel.
§ 16. And now with regard to the cases that have been included in the evidential part of the present work. A certain separation has {i-158} been attempted. In the main body of the book, no cases are given which are not first-hand,[☼] or of the particular second-hand sort which (as explained on p. 148) is on a par with first-hand; or in which the primâ facie probability that the facts stated are substantially correct is not tolerably strong. But the Supplement includes a good many second-hand accounts;1 1 We have seen that there is one sort of second-hand evidence which must rank as on a par with first-hand. On the same principle there is one sort of third-hand evidence which must rank as on a par with second-hand. A few third-hand accounts of this type have been admitted to the Supplement; and one or two others by special exception. as well as first-hand accounts where the evidence, from lack of corroboration or other causes, falls short of the standard previously attained.2 2 There are, however, a few first-hand cases in the Supplement which would have found a place in the main body of the work (in substitution probably for some which now appear there), had they been received earlier. Our principle in selecting cases for the Supplement has been to take only those which—supposing telepathy to be established as a fact in Nature—would reasonably be regarded as examples of it. Their existence adds force to the proof of telepathy; but we should not have put them forward as an adequate proof by themselves. This separation, however, does not apportion the evidential weight of the two divisions with rigid precision. For, given a certain amount of assurance that the facts are correctly reported, the value of the facts in the argument for telepathy will vary according to the class to which they belong. There are strong classes and weak classes. Now the body of the work includes specimens of purely emotional impressions, and of dreams—classes which we shall find by their very nature to be weak; and more weight might reasonably be attached to some case in the Supplement, even though less completely attested, if it belonged to the strongest class, which we shall find to be the class of waking visual
phantasms. And even within the limits of a single class, it is impossible to evaluate the cases with exactness. A phantasm of sight or sound which does not at the moment suggest the appearance or voice of an absent friend, may still—if unique in the percipient’s experience, and if the coincidence of time with the friend’s death is exact—have about an equal claim to be considered telepathic with a distinctly recognised phantasm, the coincidence of which with the death (though it may have been exact) cannot with certainty be brought closer than three or four days.
Then as regards the mere accuracy of the records—though it has been possible to draw up a sort of table of degrees, such a table, of course, affords no final criterion. It is a guide in the dissection of {i-159} testimony; it directs attention to important structural points; but it takes no account of the living qualities, the character, training, and habits of thought of witnesses. We have included no cases where the witnesses were not, to the best of our belief, honest in intention, and possessed of sufficient intelligence to be competent reporters of definite facts with which they had been closely connected. But the report, say, of a sceptical1 1 It occasionally happens, however, that scepticism, no less than superstition, may mar the evidence. We have received a case where two sisters in England, sleeping apparently in different rooms, saw the form of another sister who was just dying in Germany; but, “having a horror of encouraging superstitious fancies,” they purposely abstained from making an exact note of the day and hour, and neither of them mentioned what she had seen to the other. And thus the triumph of robust common-sense has been to prevent the verification of a date! lawyer or a man of science, who had totally disbelieved in the whole class of phenomena until convinced by his own experience, is naturally stronger evidence than the report of a lady who, whether owing to natural proclivities or to want of scientific training, has no sense of any à priori objections to the telepathic hypothesis. The report of a person who has seen the phantasm of a friend at the time of his death, but considers that the coincidence may have been accidental, is stronger evidence than the report of a person who would regard such a supposition as irreverent. Each case must be judged on its merits, by reference to a considerable number of points;2 2 Among the variety of considerations involved, it is impossible to hope for more than a general approval of our principles of admission. The cases on the line often present a very puzzling array of pros and cons. Take, for instance, the following first-hand instance.
On February 10th, 1884, Mrs. Longley, of 4, Liverpool Lawn, Ramsgate, a respectable married woman, who has never had any other hallucination of the senses, heard a voice call “Mother” three times. She knew that she had been awake, as she had been restless, and was amusing herself by seeing how long the moon would take to cross a certain pane of glass. She thought that her son, who was sleeping in a room above her own, must be ill; but on going up, she found him fast asleep. She tells us that she looked at the clock on the stairs, and noticed that it was 3.15 a.m. Nine days afterwards she received the news that her eldest and much-loved son, who was at sea, had been drowned, at about that hour, on a moonlight night, and that his first cry was, “Mother, mother, mother! Save me for my mother’s sake.” Her husband, she says, went to Grimsby, and learnt these details from the captain of the vessel, and also made out that the night was the same as that of her own experience.
Now the incidents here are recent; and we need feel no doubt as to the fact either of the unusual auditory impression (which Mrs. Longley mentioned to several people besides her own family before the news arrived), or of the death. These are the pros. The cons. are as follows. (1) The voice was unrecognised. This, however, would not alone be fatal to the evidence; and in one way it even tells in favour of the telepathic explanation, as, had the voice suggested the son at sea, it would have been easier to ascribe the impression to latent anxiety on his account. (2) The narrator is quite uneducated; and times and intervals are matters in which the memory of uneducated persons is specially apt to get hazy. (3) She is certain that her husband, and the son who was at home, would not corroborate her statement in writing—her husband in particular having an aversion to signing documents. (4) No note having been taken, nothing that the husband could say now would convince us that he was justified in his conclusion as to the coincidence of the day; and though the date of the death might still be ascertained by independent inquiry, this would not help us, as the exact date of the voice is irrecoverable.
The inclusion of such a case would perhaps not have injured our argument; but we have felt it safer to reject it. and as far as {i-160} written testimony goes, the reader will have the same opportunities as we have had for forming an opinion. We have done our best to obtain corroborative evidence of all sorts, whether from private sources, from public notices, or from official records. We have often failed; and these failures, and other evidential flaws, have been brought into (I fear) wearisome prominence. In quotations, care has, of course, been taken to give the exact words of witnesses. The only exceptions are that (1) we have occasionally omitted reflections and other matter which formed no part of the evidence; and (2) we have corrected a few obvious slips of writing, and introduced an occasional word for the sake of grammatical coherence, where the narrative has come to us piecemeal, or where the above-named omissions have been made. But in no case have we made the slightest alteration of meaning, or omitted anything that could by any possibility be held to modify the account given. A few cases have been summarised, in whole or in part; but here the form of the sentences will show that they are not quotations. Any word or phrase interpolated for other than grammatical reasons is clearly distinguished by being placed within square brackets.
One advantage, however, which we ourselves have had, cannot be communicated to our readers—namely, the increased power of judgment which a personal interview with the narrator gives. The effect of these interviews on our own minds has been on the whole distinctly favourable. They have greatly added to our confidence that what we are here presenting is the testimony of trustworthy and intelligent witnesses. And if the collection be taken as a whole, this seems to be a sufficient guarantee. It follows from the very nature of telepathic cases (as distinguished, say, from the alleged phenomena of “ghost-seeing” or of “Spiritualism”) that the evidence often in great measure, so to speak, makes itself—the agent’s side in the matter being beyond dispute. Thus a valid case, as has been shown above, might perfectly well rest on the testimony of a person whose own interpretation of it was totally erroneous, and whose intelligence and memory were only adequate to reporting truthfully that he thought he saw so-and-so in his room yesterday or the day before. But we have naturally preferred to be on the safe side. We have, therefore, excluded all narratives where, on personal acquaintance with the witnesses, we felt that we should be uneasy in confronting them with a critical cross-examiner; and we have frequently thought it right to exclude {i-161} cases, otherwise satisfactory, that depended on the reports of uneducated persons.1 1 First-hand evidence, where the witness cannot be cross-questioned, is at once invalidated by any doubt as to the case that may have been felt by persons who were more immediately cognisant of it. The well-known Norway story is an instance. In Early Years and Late Reflections, by Clement Carlyon, M.D., there is a signed account by Mr. Edmund Norway of a vision of his brother’s murder that he had while in command of the Orient, on a voyage from Manilla to Cadiz. Mr. Arthur S. Norway, son of the murdered man and nephew of Mr. Edmund Norway, tells us that the account was taken down by Dr. Carlyon from his uncle, at the latter’s house; he himself also has heard it from his uncle’s own lips. It describes with some detail how in a vision, on the night of February 8th, 1840, Mr. Edmund Norway saw his brother set upon and killed by two assailants at a particular spot on the road between St. Columb and Wadebridge: and how he immediately mentioned the vision to the second officer, Mr. Henry Wren. The brother was actually murdered by two men at that spot, on that night, and the details—as given in the confession of one of the murderers, William Lightfoot—agree with those of the vision. But Mr. Arthur Norway further tells us that another of his uncles and the late Sir William Molesworth “investigated the dream at the time. Both were clever men, and they were at that time
searching deeply and experimenting in mesmerism—so that they were well fitted to form an opinion. They arrived at the conclusion that the dream was imagined.” Mr. Arthur Norway has also heard Mr. Wren speak of the voyage, but without any allusion to the dream. This is just a case, therefore, where we may justly suspect that detail and precision have been retrospectively introduced into the percipient’s experience.
It almost goes without saying, in a case like this, that sooner or later we shall be told that the vision was inscribed in the ship’s log; and Mr. Dale Owen duly tells us so. Mr. Arthur Norway expressly contradicts the fact. Nor, I think, will the reader find much to suggest perversion of facts through superstitious à priori fancies. The greater part of our witnesses, as already stated, have had no special belief in the phenomena, except so far as they have themselves come in contact with them; and even where their interest has been awakened, it has seldom been of a more intense kind than might naturally be excited by a remarkable passage of personal or family experience. They have not, for instance, been at all in the attitude towards the subject which is now ours, and which it is hoped that the reader may come to share. Thus even on this score, their common-sense, in the ordinary straightforward meaning of the term, could hardly be impugned. Perhaps even so general a testimony to character as this is somewhat of an impertinence; to give it precision in particular cases would, as a rule, be out of the question. But however little weight such an expression of opinion may have, the mere statement that we are, in the large majority of cases, personally acquainted with our witnesses, has a distinct bearing on the evidence; for it practically implies that they gave us their account in such a way that their good faith is pledged to it.
§ 17. But there is quantity as well as quality to consider: the basis of our demonstration needs to be broad as well as strong. We might have a few correspondences perfect in every detail, a few {i-162} coincidences precise to the moment, established by evidence which was irresistible; and pure accident might still be the true explanation of them. Later, however, it will be proved, as I think, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that that line cannot be taken in respect of the several hundreds of coincidences included in these volumes. And the majority of persons who regard the book from an evidential point of view, and who start with the legitimate à priori prejudice against the whole class of phenomena, will certainly take other ground. They will take exception to the evidence as it stands. They will not be concerned to deny that there would be an enormously strong case for the reality of telepathy, supposing the correspondences and coincidences to have occurred exactly as stated; but they will take the ground that they did not so occur; and will frame various hypotheses, according to which it should be possible that the evidence should be thus, and the facts otherwise.
Now not only is the endeavour to frame such hypotheses legitimate: it has been throughout an indispensable part of our own work. Even improbable hypotheses ought to be carefully considered; for we have no desire to underrate the à priori improbability of our own hypotheses of telepathy. It is extremely difficult to compare the improbability of any particular combination of known conditions with the improbability of the existence of a hitherto unknown condition. But the point on which we desire to lay stress is the number of improbable hypotheses that will have to be propounded if the telepathic explanation is rejected. Of course, this point may be evaded by including all the hypotheses needed in a single sweeping assumption, as to the general untrustworthiness of human testimony. This mode of argument would be perfectly legitimate if we were presenting a collection of unsifted second and third-hand stories; but it will scarcely seem equally so in application to what we do present. The evidence (or at any rate a very large amount of it) is of a sort which merits attention, even from those who most fully share the views that I have endeavoured to express as to the chances of error in the records of unusual occurrences. It cannot be summarily dismissed; if it is to be got rid of, it must be explained away in detail. And it is the continued process of attempts to explain away which may, we think, produce on others the same cumulative effect as it has produced on ourselves. The attempts have been made on the lines already sketched; and so far as any reader agrees that the risks {i-163} and vulnerable points have been carefully considered in the abstract, he may be willing provisionally to accept an assurance that a similar careful and rationally sceptical mode of examination has been applied to the concrete instances. The work is, no doubt, wearisome; but there is no avoiding it, for anyone who wishes to form a fair independent opinion as to what the strength of the case for telepathy really is. The narratives are very various, and their force is derived from very various characteristics; the endeavour to account for them without resorting to telepathy must, therefore, be carried through a considerable number of groups, before it produces its legitimate effect on the mind. That effect arises from the number and variety of the improbable suppositions, now violent, now vague—contradictory of our experience of all sorts of human acts and human relations—that have to be made at every turn. Not only have we to assume such an extent of forgetfulness and inaccuracy, about simple and striking facts of the immediate past, as is totally unexampled in any other range of experience. Not only have we to assume that distressing or exciting news about another person produces a havoc in the memory which has never been noted in connection with distress or excitement in any other form. We must leave this merely general ground, and make suppositions as detailed as the evidence itself. We must suppose that some people have a way of dating their letters in indifference to the calendar, or making entries in their diaries on the wrong page and never discovering the error; and that whole families have been struck by the collective hallucination that one of their members had made a particular remark, the substance of which had never even entered that member’s head; and that it is a recognised custom to write mournful letters about bereavements which have never occurred; and that when A describes to a friend how he has distinctly heard the voice of B, it is not infrequently by a slip of the tongue for C; and that when D says he is not subject to hallucinations of vision, it is through momentary forgetfulness of the fact that he has a spectral illusion once a week; and that when a wife interrupts her husband’s slumbers with words of distress or alarm, it is only her fun, or a sudden morbid craving for undeserved sympathy; and that when people assert that they were in sound health, in good spirits, and wide awake, at a particular time which they had occasion to note, it is a safe conclusion rhat [sic] they were having a nightmare, or were the prostrate victims of nervous hypochondria. Every one of these improbabilities is, perhaps, in itself a possibility; but as the {i-164} narratives drive us from one desperate expedient to another, when time after time we are compelled to own that deliberate falsification is less unlikely than the assumptions we are making, and then again when we submit the theory of deliberate falsification to the cumulative test, and see what is involved in the supposition that hundreds of persons of established character, known to us for the most part and unknown to one another, have simultaneously formed a plot to deceive us—there comes a point where the reason rebels. Common-sense persists in recognising that when phenomena, which are united by a fundamental characteristic and have every appearance of forming a single natural group, are presented to be explained, an explanation which multiplies causes is improbable, and an explanation which multiplies improbable causes becomes, at a certain point, incredible.
§ 18. I am aware that in its abstract form, and apart from actual study of the cases, this reasoning must be wholly unconvincing. But meanwhile the argument for the general trustworthiness of our evidence may be put in another, and, perhaps, clearer light. Amid all their differences, the cases present one general characteristic—an unusual affection of one person, having no apparent relation to anything outside him except the unusual condition, otherwise unknown to him, of another person. It is this characteristic that gives them the appearance, as I have just said, of a true natural group. Now the full significance of these words may easily escape notice. They have an evidential as well as a theoretic bearing. They involve, of course, the hypothesis that the facts, if truly stated, are probably due to a single cause; but they involve, further, a very strong argument that the facts are truly stated. Let us suppose, for the moment, that any amount of laxity of memory and of statement may be expected even from first-hand witnesses, belonging to the educated class. And let us ignore all the heterogeneous improbabilities which we were just now considering; and assume that the mistakes mentioned, and others like them, may occur at any moment. What, then, is the likelihood that all these
various causes—all these errors of inference, lapses of memory, and exaggerations and perversions of narration—will issue in a consistent body of evidence, presenting one well-defined type of phenomenon, free in every case from excrescences or inconsistent features and explicable, and completely explicable, by one equally well-defined hypothesis? What is the likelihood that a number of narratives, which are assumed
{i-165} to have diverged in various ways from the actual facts, should thus converge to a single result? Several hundreds of independent and first-hand reporters have, wittingly or unwittingly, got loose from the truth, and are well started down the inclined plane of the marvellous. Yet all of them stop short at or within a given line—the line being the exact one up to which a particular explanation, not of theirs but of ours, can be extended, and beyond which it could not be extended. Tempting marvels lie further on—marvels which in the popular view are quite as likely to be true as the facts actually reported, and which the general traditions of the subject would connect with those facts. But our reporters one and all eschew them. To take, for instance, the group of cases which the reader will probably find to be the most interesting, as it is also the largest, in our collection—apparitions at the time of death. Why should not such apparitions hold prolonged converse with the waking friend? Why should they not produce
physical effects—shed tears on the pillow and make it wet, open the door and leave it open, or leave some tangible token of their presence? It is surely noteworthy that we have not had to reject, on grounds like these, a single narrative which on other grounds would have been admitted. Have all our informants drawn an arbitrary line, and all drawn precisely the same arbitrary line, between the mistakes and exaggerations of which they
will be guilty, and the mistakes and exaggerations of which they will
not? We might imagine them as travellers, ignorant of zoology, each of whom reports that he has landed on a strange shore, and has encountered a strange animal. Some of the travellers have been nearer the animal, and have had a better view of him than others, and their accounts vary in clearness; but these accounts, though independently drawn up, all point to the same source; they all present a consistent picture of the self-same animal, and what is more, the picture is one which zoology can find no positive cause to distrust. We find in it none of the familiar features of myth or of untrained fancy; the reports have not given wings to a quadruped, or horns and hoofs to a carnivor; [
sic] they contradict nothing that is known. Can we fairly suppose that this complete agreement, alike in what they contain and in what they do not contain, is the accidental result of a hundred disconnected mistakes?
It is most instructive, in this connection, to compare first-hand (and the better sort of second-hand) narratives with others. I have already spoken of the greater general sobriety of the first-hand {i-166} evidence. I may now add that the suspiciously startling details which often characterise the more remote narratives are precisely of the sort which the telepathic hypothesis could by no possibility be made to cover. To wet the pillow or leave the door open would be quite an ordinary breach of manners in the popular “ghost,” or the second-hand apparition of doubtful authority. I have mentioned the real dripping letter conveyed by the phantasmal midshipman. I may further recall the scar reported to have been left on the lady’s wrist by the touch of the well-known “Beresford” apparition; and the wounds alleged to have been produced on the bodies of absent witches, by blows and sword thrusts directed to their “astral” appearances. No marvels in the least resembling these find any place in our firsthand records; yet why should they not, if those records are fundamentally untrustworthy? The existence of such features in other narratives sufficiently shows how wide is the possible range of incidents, in stories where the ordinary limitations of communication between human beings are alleged to have been transcended. Of this wide field, the hypothesis of the action of mind on mind, which we are endeavouring to develop, covers only a single well-defined portion. By what fatality, if error is widely at work in the case of our firsthand evidence, do its results always fall inside and not outside this very limited area? If our witnesses are assumed to sit loose to the facts which they have known, why should they bring their accounts into rigid (though purely accidental) conformity with a theory which they have not known?
§ 19. What I have here indicated is the general impression produced by the evidence in our own minds. In our view, the reality of telepathy (even apart from a consideration of the experimental evidence) may be not unreasonably taken as proved. Having formed this view, we are bound to state it; but we expressly refrain from putting it forward dogmatically, and from saying that to reject it would argue want of candour or intelligence. We hold that, in such a matter, it is idle to attempt to define the line of complete proof; and the proof given—if it be one—is far from being of an éclatant or overwhelming sort. To those who do not realise the strength of the à priori presumption against it, it may easily look more overwhelming than it is. To others, again, it may appear that, on the hypothesis that the faculty has acted as widely as we have supposed, the highest evidential standard ought to have been reached in a larger number of {i-167} cases. To us it rather seems that the evidence that we find is just about what might have been expected. We see nothing in the mere existence of telepathy that would tend to make reserved people mention strange experiences, or to make careless or busy people keep conscientious diaries—or generally that would lead the persons immediately connected with a telepathic case, in which their emotions may be deeply involved, to act with a single eye to producing a clinching piece of evidence for the future benefit of critical psychological inquirers. It would, of course, be useless for us to urge that evidence which falls short of the best is still as good as can be expected, unless we were able to present a certain nucleus of fairly conclusive cases, and this we think we can do. But if the proof is held to demand more cases of the highest evidential quality, we must trust to time for them. The ideal collection would, of course, be one where every independent instance should be so evidentially complete that it must be either (1) telepathic, or (2) a purely accidental coincidence of a most striking kind, or (3) the result of a fraudulent conspiracy to deceive, in which several persons of good character and reputation have taken part. In our view, this point has been reached in a sufficient number of the examples here given to exclude the second and third of these alternatives; but these examples constitute only a very small minority compared with the mass of cases which are merely confirmatory—strongly confirmatory, as we think, but still confirmatory only and not crucial. And the collection so far falls short of the ideal.
In saying, then, that telepathy may not unreasonably be taken as proved, I do not wish for a moment to imply that the proof which we give is the one which we should eventually desire to see given. To no reader, we think, will the various imperfections and weak spots of our case be more patent than they have been to ourselves. Some of these are beyond remedy—as the absence of contemporary documents. Others may possibly be remedied at a later stage—for instance, the suppression of names.1 [☼]1 The suppressed names have in all cases been given to us in confidence; and in some instances with permission to mention them to any persons who have any bonâ fide interest in the subject. Purely anonymous cases can of course have no weight at all. I subjoin a couple of cases which are of a normal type, and have quite the air of being bonâ fide, as samples of a numerous class which have to be treated as waste paper. The following account appeared in the Times for December 26th, 1868, in a review of Scott’s Demonology and Witchcraft. The writer, who is here perforce anonymous, says that it “has quite recently fallen under our own observation.”
“A young English lady had been betrothed to an officer before his departure to the East. During her lover’s absence she was taken abroad by her mother, and on their arrival late one evening at a French inn, they found it necessary to occupy rooms on different floors. As Miss C. was in the act of getting into bed late at night, she suddenly beheld the form of her lover standing in a remote corner of her chamber. His countenance was extremely sad, and she observed that round his right arm he wore a band of crape. Indignant at the conduct of her betrothed in entering her sleeping apartment, she called on him loudly to depart; the form of her lover remained speechless, but as she lifted up her voice, his brow grew yet sadder, and as he glided silently out of the room he seemed a prey to the gloomiest feelings. After a time Miss
C. summoned up sufficient courage to descend to her mother and recite her adventure. They caused diligent search to be made for the returned officer, but without success. Nor could the smallest trace of him be afterwards discovered. Several weeks later the young lady received the news of her lover’s death in a general action in India.”
If such an account as this appeared in a leading newspaper now, we should hope of course to obtain the means of sifting it. But cases like the following could not be pursued without great expense in local advertising.
”Birmingham, December 15th, 1882.
“Dear Sir,—I have much pleasure in forwarding the following perfectly authentic account. It has never before been made known beyond our own immediate circle, and I relate it to you in the hope that it may be instrumental, with others of greater importance, in establishing the fact that there is indeed, and in truth, a future existence.
“A long time ago when my mother—who is now dead—was a girl, she was staying with her cousin, who was in delicate health; they were reading or chatting when, suddenly, the latter’s attention was drawn to the door, and she exclaimed, with delight, ‘Why, there’s grandma! Why did you not say she was here?’ The two—especially the latter—were great favourites of the old lady. Mother, hearing this, at once turned round, but saw nothing, but at once left the room, fully expecting to find her among the other members of the family. But being told that the old lady was not there she returned with the information to her cousin, who loudly protested that they were deceiving her, as she had been again, during mother’s absence, and she had a ribbon in her cap which she had sent her a short time before, on her birthday anniversary. Mother again went to the other members of the family with this news. They, of course, thought it strange, and told the girl that it was only imagination. On the following day, however, news arrived that at that very time the old lady had passed away.
“This is perfectly true, and can, if neccessary, be corroborated by my brother, who is a clergyman.
“You may make any use you like of this communication, but I do not wish my name and address to be published, and so subscribe myself, yours, &c.,
“WELL-WISHER.”
The signature probably expresses the truth; but for all that it effectually prevents the narrative from being “instrumental in establishing” any fact whatever. But even more tantalising than anonymity is an insufficient or undecipherable address. The following is a case which this cause has rendered abortive. Inquiries for the locality have been made all over the British Isles without success.
“Gurnet Bay.
“January 1st, 1884.
“I do not believe in supernatural visitations, and the following experiences of my mother may be outside the range of your inquiries.
“My mother, while an infant, lost her father by an accident, and was brought up by a maternal uncle, who was greatly attached to her, and for whom she had the most unbounded affection. Learning that he was about to be married, and not being able to endure a divided affection, she left him, came up to Hampshire, married, and settled there, occasionally hearing from him. The night on which her uncle died, she was sleeping with a middle-aged lady named Day. At the moment of her uncle’s death, as it afterwards appeared, she awoke in great agitation, exclaiming, ‘My God! my uncle’s dead,’ and frightened her companion, who awoke at the same time. So vivid was the impression that she made immediate preparation to go to Box, near Bath, where her uncle’s residence was. On her arrival she found that he had died at the time and under exactly the circumstances she had seen in her dream, having strongly desired to see her at the last.
“E. J. A’COURT SMITH.” It has been impossible to bring home to all {i-168} our informants that where a person refuses to a phenomenon, belonging to a certain class, the direct testimony which he would give, if needful, to any other sort of personal experience, the world is sure to take the view that he lacks that complete assurance of the reality of the experience which alone can make his evidence worthy of serious {i-169} attention. This is not always just; since the reason why he suppresses his name may be, not that he doubts the truth of his evidence, but that he regards the truth in this particular department of Nature as something disgraceful or uncanny; or it may be mere fear of ridicule, or a shrinking from any form of publicity. But meanwhile the defect must not be extenuated. Even minor points may detract from the businesslike look of the work. Informants whose evidence is otherwise satisfactory sometimes feel it a sort of mysterious duty to throw a veil over something—if it is only to put C—— for Clapham. A dash is the last refuge of the occult. We must not be held to be blind to these blots because we have printed the evidence in which they occur. But the case, as it stands, seemed worth presenting, and the time for presenting it seemed to have arrived. Even if it be weaker than we think it, there is the future as well as the past to think of. By far the greater part of the telepathic evidence, even of the last twenty years, has undoubtedly perished, for all scientific purposes; we want the account for the next twenty years to be different. But it is only by a decided change in the attitude of the public mind towards the subject that the passing phenomena can be caught and fixed; and it is only by a wider knowledge of what there already is to know that this change can come about. Thus our best chance of a more satisfactory harvest hereafter is to exhibit our sheaf of gleanings now. If telepathy is a reality, examples of it may be trusted to go on occurring; and with the increase of intelligent interest in psychical research we may hope that the collection and verification of good first-hand evidence will gradually become easier, and that the necessity of careful contemporary records, and of complete attestation, will be more widely perceived.
§ 20. Meanwhile it may be just worth while to forestall an objection—which, as it has been made before, may be made again—to the argument from numbers. It has been urged that no accumulation of instances can make up a solid case, if no individual instance can be absolutely certified as free from flaw. But the different items of inductive proof are, of course, not like the links of a deductive chain. The true metaphor is the sticks and the faggot; and our right to treat any particular case as a stick depends, not on its being so flawlessly strong, as evidence for our hypothesis, that no other hypothesis can possibly be entertained with regard to it, but on the much humbler {i-170} fact that any other hypothesis involves the assumption of something in itself improbable. Third-hand ghost-stories, and the ordinary examples of popular superstitions, have no claim to be regarded as sticks at all, since the rejection of the popular explanation of them involves no improbable assumptions of any kind; at best they are dry reeds, and no multiplication of their number could ever make a respectable faggot. But in every one of the examples on which we rest the telepathic hypothesis, the rejection of that hypothesis does, as I have pointed out, involve the assumption of something in itself improbable; and every such example adds to the cumulative force of the argument for telepathy. The multiplication of such examples, therefore, makes a faggot of ever-increasing solidity.
When made explicit, this seems too plain to be denied; but an extreme case may perhaps make the point even clearer. If, since the world began, nobody had ever died without a phantasm of him appearing to one or more of his friends, the joint occurrence of the two events would have been a piece of universally recognised knowledge; of the cause of which we should to this day possibly not know more, and could not possibly know less, than we know of the cause of gravitation. Nor, if the attestation had been forthcoming in the case of only half the deaths, would its significance have been much more likely to be disputed; nor if it had been forthcoming in the case of a quarter, or a tenth, or even a hundredth of the number. But those who admit this, practically admit that there is a conceivable number of well attested cases which they would regard as conclusive evidence of telepathy. We may ask them, then, to name their number; and if they do so, we may not unreasonably proceed to inquire the grounds of their selection. A writer on the subject lately named 5000 as the mark; but can he make his reasons explicit for considering 5000 as conclusive, and 4000, or even 1000, as inconclusive? In course of time we hope that his minimum may be reached; but any limit must be to a great extent arbitrary. We shall be content if impartial readers, who do not feel convinced that an adequate inductive proof has been attained, are yet brought to see that our object and method are scientifically defensible; while we, on our side, fully admit that the adequacy of the
present collection does not admit of demonstration, and are perfectly willing that it should be regarded as only a first imperfect instalment of what is needed.
{i-171}
§ 21. Perhaps, after all, the difference of instinct as to what really is needed may be considerably less than at first sight appears. For we have not been able to regard the alleged phenomena in the completely detached fashion which most of those who consider them naturally adopt. We are unable to determine how far the impression on our own minds of the evidence for spontaneous telepathy has been dependent on our conviction of the genuineness of cognate experimental cases. These latter being for the most part trivial, recent, and little known, it is not surprising that comparatively few persons should have considered them, and that still fewer should have grasped their bearing on the spontaneous cases. But to anyone who accepts the experimental results, the à priori presumption against other forms of supersensuous communication can hardly retain its former aspect. The presumption is diminished—the hospitality of the mind to such phenomena is increased—in a degree which is none the less important that it does not admit of calculation. A further step of about equal importance is made when we advance to the better-evidenced of the transitional cases; though here again the effect on our own minds, due to our knowledge of the persons concerned, cannot be imparted to others. Attention has been duly drawn to the difficulty of embracing these several classes in a common physical conception; but on psychological ground we cannot doubt that we are justified (provisionally at any rate) in regarding them as continuous. Remembering the existence of the transitional class, we may regard the extremes as not more remote from one another than the electrical phenomena of the cat’s coat from those of the firmament. Electricity, indeed, affords in this way a singularly close parallel to telepathy. “The spontaneous apparitions of the dying” (I quote Mr. Myers’ words) “may stand for the lightning; while the ancient observations on the attraction of amber for straw may fairly be paralleled by our modest experiments with cards and diagrams. The spontaneous phenomena, on the one hand, have been observed in every age, but observed with mere terror and bewilderment. And, on the other hand, candid friends have expressed surprise at our taking a serious interest in getting a rude picture from one person’s mind into another, or proving that ginger may be hot in the mouth by the effect of unconscious sympathy alone. Yet we hold that these trivial cases of community of sensation are the germinal indications of a far-reaching force, whose higher manifestations {i-172} may outshine these as the lightning outshines the sparks on Puss’s back. We hold that the lowest telepathic manifestations may be used to explain and corroborate the highest.” Their conditions differ widely; so widely, indeed, as to supply indirectly an argument for the genuineness of the facts, since totally distinct and independent hypotheses—that of collusion in the one case, and of forgetfulness or exaggeration in the other—would be needed to refute them. Yet, with all this difference of conditions, when we compare the facts of either class with any facts which the accepted psychology includes, we cannot help recognising the great common characteristic—a supersensuous influence of mind on mind—as a true generic bond. Where that characteristic is found, there we have a natural group of phenomena which differ far more fundamentally from all other known phenomena than they can possibly differ among themselves. Their unity is found in contrast. Till more is known of their causes, it may be impossible for science to establish their inner relationships, just as it is impossible to establish the degrees of affinity between casually selected members of a single human community. But they draw together, so to speak, on the field of science, even as men of one race draw together when cast among an alien population.
NOTE ON WITCHCRAFT.
In saying that there is a total absence of respectable evidence, and an almost total absence of any first-hand evidence at all, for those alleged phenomena of magic and witchcraft which cannot be accounted for as the results of diseased imagination, hysteria, hypnotism, and occasionally, perhaps, of telepathy, I have made a sweeping statement which it may perhaps seem that nothing short of a knowledge of the whole witch-literature of the world could justify. I have, of course, no claim to this complete knowledge. My statement depends on a careful search through about 260 books on the subject (including, I think, most of the principal ones of the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries), and a large number of contemporary records of trials.1 1 The greater part of this irksome task has been carried out for me with rare zeal and intelligence by my friend, Miss Porter, to whom I must here once again express my obligations. Such a list is certainly very far from exhaustive. But as, on the one hand, the 450 works which Le {i-173} Loyer professed to have studied, before writing his Livre des Spectres, did not fortify him with the trustworthy record of a single case, so, on the other hand, a much smaller assortment may suffice to support very wide negative conclusions. To those who have travelled over the same ground, the reason will be obvious. Every student of records of abnormal or “supernatural” events must have been struck by the way in which the same cases keep on reappearing in one work after another. Even the most credulous partisans exercise a sort of economy of the marvellous, in so far as they find that copying out old marvels is a great saving of time and responsibility. And this is very specially the case with the literature now in question. Bodin’s Démonomanie and the Malleus Maleficarum supplied generations of theorists with their pittance of facts; and not even the Beresford ghost has done such hard and continuous duty in the cause of superstition as some few of the witch-cases.
Considering the enormous place that lycanthropy, for instance, plays in the interminable discussions as to what the devil could do, and how he did it, it is strange to realise what the evidence (outside confessions1) 1 When we remember the ways in which confessions were obtained, the regard in which they were held appears the most amazing fact in the whole history of witchcraft. The common view is quaintly illustrated in an account of Peter Stubbe (translated from the Dutch, London, 1590); where it is said that Peter “after being put to the rack, and fearing the torture, volluntarilye confessed his whole life.” Even where no violent means were used, the mind of the accused would be unhinged by starvation, enforced sleeplessness, or mere despair. And as if this was not enough, we have the dismal record of cheats and quibbles—e.g., the promising his life to the accused if he would confess, meaning eternal life. We have also, no doubt, to allow for the morbid vanity and shame-lessness which is a symptom of advanced hysteria. (See Richet, Op. cit., p. 364.) actually was. Putting Nebuchadnezzar and Lot’s wife out of the question, the main burden of the proof seems really to rest on about four cases. Either it is the 11th century legend, quoted from William of Malmesbury, of the two old women who kept an inn, and transformed their guests into asses: or it is the equally mythical tale of the woodcutter who wounded three cats, and declared that three women afterwards accused him of having wounded them; or it is Peter Stubbe, against whom the evidence was that the villagers lit on him unexpectedly, while they were hunting a wolf; or it is the man who, having cut off a wolf’s paw, drew from his pocket the hand of his host’s wife, whom he found sitting composedly without it—a story told to Boguet (as a joke for aught we can tell) by a person who professed to have picked it up in travelling through the locality. Even the credulous De l’Ancre2 2 Tableau de l’Inconstance des Mauvais Anges et Démons (Paris, 1612), p. 312. admits that, with wide opportunities, he has not come on the track of any transformations—a fact which seems to have a good deal impressed him. But in the eyes of other writers, perpetual citation seems to have imparted to the classical legends just mentioned the virtue of good first-hand testimony. Glanvil gives {i-174} another case where a panting old woman was suddenly seen in the place of a hunted hare, on the authority of a huntsman;1
1 Sadducismus Triumphatus (London, 1689), p. 387. Glanvil’s own theory is that the hare was a demon, and that the witch was invisibly hurried along with it, to put her out of breath. but there are features in the account which strongly suggest, as Glanvil admits, that the huntsman was a wag. I find another less known English example of the kind; and the manner of its appearance is significant. The record of the trial of the Essex witches in 1645
2 2 A Collection of Curious Tracts relating to Witchcraft, &c. (London, 1838). contains, first, all manner of
first-hand evidence to witches’ “familiars”—evidence which must have been easy enough to get, considering that a man who had looked through a cottage window, and seen a woman holding a lock of wool that cast a shadow, was believed when he described these objects as her white and black imps;
3 3 Hutchinson, Historical Essay Concerning Witchcraft (London, 1720), p. 60. It is an interesting instance of the intimate relation between persecution and the vitality of the persecuted doctrines, that imps are little mentioned except in this country, where, as Hutchinson says, “the law makes the feeding, suckling, or rewarding of them to be felony.” and then at last we have a case of transformation into an animal, at which point, sure enough, the evidence becomes
second-hand, and the witness has heard the tale from a man who he knew “would not speak an untruth.” A transformation case which Webster mentions as given on first-hand testimony was afterwards confessed to have been an imposture.
4 4 The Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft (London, 1677), p. 278. I have found but a single item of independent evidence to the phenomenon which is first-hand, in the sense of having been given direct to the writer who records it. This is in Spina’s
Quæstio de Strigibus (Rome, 1576, p. 53), and is to this effect:—a cobbler, being annoyed by a cat, dealt blows at it, after which an old woman turned out to have some hurts which she was not known to have received.
5 5 This story also appears as a treasure in the Compendium Maleficarum (Milan, 1620). In the only other case given by Spina (who, be it observed, is one of the very chief authorities) the evidence was that a witch told two people that certain deceased cats had been witches. In the treatment of the old dateless legends, the taste of the narrator counted for something. Thus, Olaus Magnus (Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus, Rome, 1555, p. 644) reports that once upon a time an accused person was closely confined and watched, till he duly transformed himself. Majolus, telling the story half a century later, says that the watchers watched in vain. To be quite fair, I should add that Bodin says that one Pierre Mamor wrote a little treatise, in which he professed to have actually seen a transformation—this being the only case that I have come across where a man of sufficient education to write something that was printed is even cited as bearing personal testimony to such marvels.
It is the same with the witches’ compacts, and with the nocturnal rides and orgies. Putting aside confessions, the evidence is of the flimsiest sort, and is copied and re-copied with untiring pertinacity; while many of the miraculous tales are mere country gossip, which do not even pretend to {i-175} rest on any authority. Holland says, “I cannot hear that any wise man or honest man tell us any thing, which hath been himself either a party or a witness of such horrible bargains.”1 1 A Treatise against Witchcraft (Cambridge, 1590), p. 31. “What credible witness is there brought at any time,” says Reginald Scot, “of this their corporal, visible, and incredible bargain; saving the confession of some person diseased both in body and mind, wilfully made or injuriously constrained?”2 2 The Discovery of Witchcraft (London, 1584), p. 48. See also his criticism on Bodin, p. 23; and cf. Christian Thomas, Kurtze Lehrsätze von dem Laster der Zauberey (1706), p. 31. As regards transportations, the most superstitious writers have never themselves come into anything like close contact with the marvels that they record. Habbakuk, and the Sabine peasant who inadvertently dispersed an assembly by a pious ejaculation, figure in the records with almost unbroken regularity. I am aware of only two cases in which it is even rumoured that a person has been actually observed travelling through the air;3 3 Malleus, Vol. i., p. 175; Scot, Op. cit., p. 67. On the general omission of any sort of investigation of stories, see Dell’ Osa, Die Nichtigkeit der Hexerey (Frankfort, 1766), p. 508. and whenever a “Sabbath” has been seen, or persons have been found far from their homes in the morning—presumably because the devil, who was carrying them back from the revels, dropped them at the sound of the Angelus—the witnesses are shepherds or peasants (in one case a butler), who have not been cross-examined or even interviewed. Grillandus4 4 Tractatus de Sortilegiis (Lyons, 1536), cap. 7. says that he had been at first inclined to disbelieve in bodily transportations, but that longer experience had changed his view. He then gives a couple of hearsay stories about people found in the fields, and a few confessions. Binsfeld5 5 Tractatus de Confessionibus Maleficarum et Sagarum (Trèves, 1591), pp. 223–30 and 343–5. considers transportation certain, on the strength of some village gossip (copied in part from Grillandus). A story quoted by Horst from the De Hirco Nocturno of Scherertz, of a young man found on the roof towards morning, is apparently a typical case of natural somnambulism. The Malleus (Vol. I., p. 171) tells how some young men saw a comrade carried off by invisible means; but the prominent fact in the story is that they were having a drinking bout.6 6 See also Spina, Op. cit., p. 108; Remy, Dæmonolatria (Lyons, 1595), pp. 112,115; Glanvil, Op. cit., p. 143. The testimony to the effect that the persons reputed to have been at the nocturnal orgies had never really left their beds, must have been well known—see, e.g., J. Baptista Porta, Magia Naturalis (Naples, 1558), p. 102; Wier, De Præstigiis Dæmonum, &c. (Basle, 1568), p. 275; Godelmann, Tractatus de Magis, Veneficis, et Lamiis (Frankfort 1591), Lib. ii., p. 39; Remy, Op. cit., p. 110; Compendium Maleficarum, p. 81; Menghi, Compendio dell’ Arte Essorcista (Bologna, 1590), p. 439; Elich, Dæmonomagia (Frankfort, 1607), p. 131; Hutchinson, Op. cit., pp. 100, 125; but the figure that remained at home might, of course, be accounted for as an optical delusion caused by the devil, or as due to his direct personation (see Gayot de Pitaval, Causes Célèbres, Amsterdam, 1775, p. 153). But if the superstition could thus defy direct counter-evidence, we get a fresh idea of the feebleness of its own evidential support from the fact that both sceptics and believers seem sometimes to have forgotten that the question was one of evidence at all. Thus G. Tartarotti (Del Congresso Notturno delle Lamie, Venice, 1749) bases his elaborate argument entirely on collateral difficulties—as that, if the witches really feasted at their meetings, they ought to come back surfeited and happy, instead of hungry and tired; and that if they could escape from their bedrooms they ought to be able to escape from prison. And, similarly, the author of the Critiche on this book, (Venice, 1751) refutes Tartarotti by a long chain of theoretic reasoning supported by many orthodox authorities, but not by a single fact.
{i-176} In all these matters we may be sure that, had there been better evidence to record, it would have been recorded.
Similarly in the trials of witches, where (if we exclude the confessions) nearly all the alleged facts can now be accepted and explained on physiological and psychological principles, the sameness is so great that, after our research has been carried to a certain point, we feel sure that no new types will be forthcoming.1 1 Compare, for instance, the cases in Pitcairn’s Criminal Trials of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1833); Cannaert’s Olim Procès des Sorcières en Belgique (Ghent, 1845); Rueling’s Auszüge einiger merkwürdigen Hexenprozessen (Göttingen, 1786); Müller, Op. cit. See also Reuss, La Sorcellerie au 16me et au 17me Siècle, particulièrement en Alsace (Paris, 1871), p. 107; Haas, Die Hexenprozesse (Tubingen, 1865), p. 80; and Soldan, Geschichte der Hexenprozessen (Stuttgart, 1880), pp. 385–9. A similar repetition of stock stories, and a similar monotony of detail, are observable in the New England records. Even the questions and suggestions used for entrapping the accused seem to have become stereotyped forms, and the very indictments came to be hurried over, as almost taken for granted.2 2 See Haas, Op. cit., p. 79; Lilienthal, Op. cit., p. 93; Rapp, Die Hexenprozesse (Innsbruck, 1874), pp. 21–27. Rapp (p. 143) specially remarks on the sameness of the confessions as due to the sameness of the judge’s questions. Spee says that it never even entered into his head to doubt the existence of witches, till he studied the judicial evidence.3 3 Cautio Criminalis (Frankfort, 1632), p. 398.
On the whole, then, the sweeping statement considered at the beginning of the foregoing chapter—that in modern societies a more or less imposing array of so-called evidence can be obtained for the support of any belief or crotchet that is less than an outrage on the popular common-sense of the time—is very far from receiving support from the history of witchcraft. The stock example which was to prove the view goes, in fact, somewhat surprisingly far to disprove it. For at no period would the conditions seem to be more favourable for a really impressive record of marvellous phenomena than during the 15th and 16th centuries. The art and literature of the epoch show high imaginative development, and a keen appetite for variety and detail; while, at the same time, the majority of able and educated minds were not fore-armed, in at all the same way as now, by a sense of à priori impossibilities and of a uniform Nature, and the belief in the incalculable power and malignity of the devil was nearly universal.4 4 This belief was held alike by the credulous majority and the sensible minority; and it is interesting to see how the latter contrived to make controversial use of it. For instance, G. Gifford, an author who is almost modern in his view of the influence of the mind on the body, in his Dialogue concerning Witches (London, 1603), p. L, argues for the worthlessness of confessions on the ground that “the testimonie of a witch in many things at her death is not any other than the testimonie of the divell, because the divell hath deceived her, and made her beleeve things which were nothing so.” And Hutchinson, Op. cit., p. 99, ridicules the test of torture on similar grounds, “since the devil will pretend torture when he feels none, and fall down when he needs not.” Cf. D’Autun, L’Incrédulité Scavante et la Crédulité Ignorante (Lyons, 1671), p. 791. One would have {i-177} expected, then, that every village would swell the direct testimony to transformations and witches’ “Sabbaths”; and that even philosophers who regarded the Evil One as an abiding source of sensory delusion might occasionally have had their own senses deluded. But we can only take the record that we find, and it is as monotonous as it is meagre. Not only do the philosophers and their friends seem to have enjoyed complete immunity from Satanic visitations, but even in the lower social strata the magical incidents (other than those which modern science can accept and explain) are extremely few and far between; and the evidence for them—if the word be used with any degree of strictness—is practically non-existent.1 1 Writers of the most opposite views confirm what the records of trials would sufficiently prove—that the natural stronghold of witchcraft was among the most ignorant and backward sections of the population. Bodin (Op. cit., p. 168) says that witches were commonest in villages. Bernard (Guide to Grand Jurymen in Cases of Witchcraft, London, 1627, p. 22) says that “fear and imagination make many witches among country-people,” and asserts that only those who think much about witches are ever troubled with them. Glanvil (Op. cit., p. 498) thinks it an important fact that “all people in the country about were fully persuaded” of the reality of one of his cases. D’Autun (Op. cit., p. 507) traces the rumour of witchcraft to the imagination of villagers. Tartarotti (Op. cit., p. 105) describes the supposed attendants at the “Sabbath” as poor, weak, ill-fed creatures. Hutchinson (Op. cit., p. 153) remarks that “country-people are wonderfully bent to make the most of all stories of witchcraft.” Sir G. Mackenzie (The Laws and Customs of Scotland in Matters Criminal, Edinburgh, 1699) says: “Those poor people who are ordinarily accused of the crime, are poor ignorant creatures, and ofttimes women who understand not the nature of what they are accused of”; and Pitcairn speaks of convictions “on the slenderest evidence, afforded by the testimony of ignorant and superstitious country-people.” These extracts might be multiplied to any extent.
I must specially insist on this point; as my view seems completely opposed to that given in the account from which most English readers have probably formed their idea of the subject—the brilliant first chapter of Mr. Lecky’s History of Rationalism. Mr. Lecky’s treatment appears to me to suffer from the want of two important distinctions. In the first place, he does not separate the fact of the wide belief in the magical phenomena, and the array of authorities that could be cited on the side of that belief, from the evidence for particular events—the statements of bonâ fide witnesses. For every grain of testimony there is no difficulty in finding a ton of authority.2 2 Thus Bodin’s chapter on lycanthropy contains, as Mr. Lecky truly observes, “immense numbers of authorities.” But it is surely important to notice that among the chief of them are Homer, Ovid, and Apuleius; that Virgil is quoted as a frequent eye-witness of the phenomenon on the strength of the 8th Eclogue; and that the only instances for which a shadow of evidence is adduced are the following:—Three confessions unsupported by any external evidence, one of which (to be just) is said not to have been extorted; one confession with the additional piece of evidence reported at third-hand, that the accused man had a wound which the witness recognised as one that he had inflicted on a wolf; a report of a prosecution which was abandoned, against some men who had wounded some cats; the eternal story above mentioned of the wood-cutter and the three cats; and Pierre Mamor’s testimony, also mentioned above. The list is surely not an imposing one; and becomes even less so when we find Bodin quite equally impressed with the fact that the author of another book, dedicated to an emperor, had seen a man, not committing the crime, but condemned for it; or that someone who had been in Livonia reported that the people there were all believers. And in the second place, he does not explicitly discriminate between the wholly bizarre {i-178}
and incredible side of the subject, and its scientific or pathological side. Of course “belief in witchcraft” may be taken to mean simply a group or system of wrong inferences, drawn under a strong instinct of demonic agency; and in that light the belief can doubtless be treated as a whole—as a single though complex superstition. But “witchcraft” may also be used, and is frequently used in Mr. Lecky’s own pages, to denote the facts alleged—for instance, that old women were carried through the air—and not the inference drawn, that it was the devil who carried them. And this is the meaning that naturally becomes prominent when the question is of the
evidence for witchcraft—the actual testimony that men’s senses bore to it. For instance, Mr. Lecky says (pp. 14–16) that “the historical evidence establishing the reality of witchcraft is so vast and varied that it is impossible to disbelieve it without what, on other subjects, we should deem the most extraordinary rashness. … In our own day, it may be said with confidence that it would be altogether impossible for such an amount of evidence to accumulate round a conception which had no substantial basis in fact. … If it were a natural but a very improbable fact, our reluctance to believe it would have been completely stifled by the multiplicity of the proofs.” Here the “evidence” and “proofs” clearly refer rather to facts than to inferences; and it is implied in the whole tone of the passage that the facts referred to belong to the miraculous class which is now universally discredited. I can, therefore, only express my entire dissent from the statements made, at any rate until they receive better support than Mr. Lecky supplies. He tells us, for instance, that Boguet “is said to have burnt 600 persons, chiefly for lycanthropy.” If this be true, it still gives us no hint as to what the evidence was; judging by analogy, we should suppose that it consisted in confessions, probably made under torture.
1 1 See Kanoldt, Supplementum iii curieuser und nutzbarer Anmerkungen, &c. (Bautzen, 1728), p. 63. For a proof that even a writer who was rather inclined to ridicule the subject could still regard confession under torture as conclusive of this crime see Peucer, Commentarius de præcipuis Divinationum Generibus (Hanover, 1607) p. 280. Did 600 persons, or 100, or even 10 persons ever bear testimony before Boguet that they had seen a man or woman converted into a wolf? If so, it is surely remarkable that his own book (
Discours des Sorciers, Lyons, 1608) contains (besides a few confessions and a few of the stock fables)
only two lycanthropy cases—the evidence for one being that a child who had been injured by a wolf declared, in the fever which followed, that the animal’s paws were like hands; and for the other that a peasant woman who had been desperately frightened by a wolf, said afterwards that its hind feet had had human toes. So again, Mr. Lecky (p.
127) seems completely to sympathise with Glanvil’s statement that the evidence for “the belief of things done by persons of despicable power and knowledge, beyond the reach of art and
{i-179} ordinary nature,” was overwhelming.
1 1 Sadducismus Triumphatus, p. 3. And truly Glanvil does speak of “the attestation of thousands of eye and ear witnesses, and those not of the easily deceivable vulgar only, but of wise and grave discerners.” But this is a typical example of the very confusion which I am trying to clear up. If thousands of wise and grave discerners
saw the incredible marvels with their own eyes, how is it that in not a single case has the record been preserved? If on the other hand they
saw only the credible marvels—fits and the like—and
believed the incredible ones, on extraordinarily feeble testimony but under an extraordinarily strong prepossession, in what sense can it be asserted that there was then “overwhelming evidence” for what would now be denied?
In brief, when it is a question of evidence, we should naturally expect to find a strongly-marked division between that part of the superstition where the wrong inference was drawn from spurious facts, such as lycanthropy and the nocturnal orgies, and that part where the wrong inference was drawn from genuine facts, such as the phenomena of somnambulism or epilepsy. And my contention is that this strongly marked division actually exists, and that for the former class of marvels there was practically no evidence—no professedly first-hand observation. For the latter class, on the other hand, the evidence was naturally abundant, however wrongly interpreted.
To pass now to this latter class—that is to say, to the physiological and psychological aspects of the subject. I have said that many phenomena, which in their way were sufficiently genuine, were misinterpreted, because the sciences which should have explained them were still unborn. But though anything like a complete and critical explanation of these phenomena was impossible, it is to be remarked that the witch-literature presents a constant succession of sensible writers (chiefly English and German), who wholly rejected the common view of them. As early as the 15th century, and often during the 16th, works appeared in which the objective nature of the more bizarre incidents is denied, and they are treated as hallucinations; almost invariably, however, as hallucinations of a supernatural kind, caused directly by the devil.2 2 Molitor, De Lamiis (Cologne, 1489), cap. vi.; Wier, Op. cit., pp. 216, 236, 352, 371; Daneau, Les Sorciers (Geneva, 1574), p. 104; Remy, Op. cit., Lib. ii. cap. v.; Saur, Ein kurtze Warnung, &c. (Frankfort, 1582); Del Rio, Disquisitiones Magicæ (Louvain, 1599), Vol. i., pp. 207–8; Gifford, Op. cit., p. K 3, (but cf. his Discourse of Subtill Practices, London, 1587, p. E, where he attributes to certain of the devil’s “counterfeite shewes of a bodie” a kind of objectivity); Flagellum Hereticorum Fascinariorum (Frankfort, 1581), p. 5; Holland, Op. cit., p. 31. Neuwaldt (Exegesis Purgationis, Helmstedt, 1585, p. D 6) gives an elaborate description of the process. The view could claim the authority of St. Augustine (De Civitate Dei, Lib. xviii.). Godelmann (Tractatus de Magis, Veneficis, et Lamiis, Frankfort 1591) is perhaps the only one of the German 16th century writers—and in this respect may be bracketed with Scot and Montaigne—who gets distinctly beyond this notion; but see also Valrick Von den Zaüberern, Hexen, &c. (translated from the Dutch, Cologne, 1576); Erastus, Deux Dialogues (translated from the Latin, 1579), p. 776; and Scribonius, De Sagarun Naturâ (Marburg, 1588), p. 76. It was naturally in connection with the human organism that the idea of Satanic control survived longest. The devil’s power over the external world—shown, e.g., in raising tempests—was as completely believed in as his power over men, by the ablest writer of the Middle Ages; but on this question Professor Huxley does not stand further from St. Thomas Aquinas than did Wier (Op. cit., p. 264). This comparatively rational view of the transportations, transformations, {i-180} &c., was gradually adopted in the course of the 17th century even by the credulous writers;1 1 E.g., King James I., Dæmonologie (London, 1603), p. 40; Nynauld, Dela Lycanthropie (Paris, 1615), p. 20; Glanvil, Op. cit., p. 507. As to transportations, it remained a very favourite compromise that they were occasionally genuine, but as a rule illusory; see, for instance, the Corollaria to the Disputatio de Fascinatione, held at Coburg in 1764. For a proof that the possibility of a purely subjective hallucination had as little dawned on Glanvil in the 17th century as on Michael Psellus in the 11th, see Sadd. Triumph., p. 405; where the only alternative to supposing an apparition to have been “Edward Avon’s ghost” is to suppose it a “ludicrous dæmon.” D’Autun (L’Incrédulité Scavante, &c.), an author whose desire to be just to both sides gives him a sort of half-way position, still believes, in 1671, that the witch or the devil, and not the brain of the percipient, is responsible for hallucinations (pp. 65, 876). It is more remarkable that Hutchinson, an eminently sensible writer, who belonged to a later date, still seems to believe (Op. cit., p. 106) that the devil assumed the form of the delusive image. while the rational writers come to recognise more distinctly the influence of terror and excitement on weak minds, and hallucination begins to be regarded as a natural phenomenon.
2 2 Bekker, De Betoverde Wereld (Leewarden, 1691), p. 247, in the German translation of 1781. Ady even recognises a case (
Candle in the Dark, p. 65) where mere
entraînement,
impulsion apart from terror, was sufficient to produce a hallucination in an excitable “subject”—a boy who was employed to assist in calling up imps, by imitating the quacking of ducks, having so imposed on a minister that, even when shown the cheat, “he would not be persuaded but that he saw real ducks squirming about the room.” And throughout we meet with cases of sensory delusion which may with great probability be referred to hypnotic suggestion; being very similar to the effects which are produced in our day on the platform of professional “mesmerists.” I have mentioned De l’Ancre’s instance of the children supposed to have been taken to a “Sabbath.” Bodin (
Op. cit., p. 138) describes how Trois-Eschelles made a circle of spectators mistake a breviary for a pack of cards; Boguet (
Op. cit., p. 360) mentions the celebrated Escot de Parme as having been able to make persons see cards differently to what they really were, and mentions another case (
Six Advis, p. 89) where a witch made a woman see rubbish as money; Remy and Del Rio describe similar feats performed by one Jean de Vaux. It is of course impossible to be sure that these were not mere conjuring feats; but Del Rio seems to have been awake to that hypothesis, and to have thought it quite untenable.
As specimens of other effects which may fairly be accounted for as hypnotic, I may mention the following. Occasionally witches are said to have shown insensibility to torture; of which a self-induced trance {i-181} affords the readiest explanation.1 1 Wier, Op. cit., 482; Scot, Op. cit., p. 22, quoting Grillandus; Del Rio, Op. cit., Vol. ii., p. 66; Le Loyer, Livre des Spectres, chap. 12; Hexen-processe aus dem, 17en Jahrhundert (Hanover, 1862), p. 78. The phenomenon was much discussed as the “maleficium taciturnitatis.” The same has, of course, been recorded of religious martyrs, and has been ascribed to ecstasy; but we have no reason to suppose the mental and spiritual condition of the supposed witches to have been such as would make that term applicable; and it is difficult to see why merely hysterical anæsthesia should supervene at the critical moment. It is, however, probably to hysteria that we should attribute whatever of truth there may have been in the idea of the devil’s mark—the alleged insensibility of restricted areas of the body. (See Richet, Op. cit., p. 364.) There are occasional cases of inhibition, of a sort to which we have abundant modern parallels in connection with hypnotism, but none, as far as I am aware, except in that connection.2 2 A case in the Pathologia Dæmoniaca of J. Caspar Westphal (Leipzig, 1707), p. 48, which the author seems to have personally observed, closely resembles some of the cases given above in Chap. iii. The mere inhibition of utterance, either produced in the victim by the supposed persecutor’s presence (A Philosophical Endeavour in the Defence of the Being of Witches and Apparitions, London, 1668, p. 129), or by the idea of it (G. More, A True Discourse, &c., London, 1600, p. 20; Witchcraft further Displayed, London, 1712, p. 7); or in the witch herself when attempting to repeat the Lord’s Prayer (Glanvil, Op. cit., p. 377), may, of course, be sufficiently accounted for by hysteria or imagination. Remy (Op. cit., p. 221) gives an apparent example of the inability of the “subject” to drop an object which his controller insists on his holding. In Dr. Lamb Revived, or Witchcraft Condemned, (London, 1653), p. 20, a case of the production of hypnotic sleep is described by an eye-witness. The description in Glanvil (Op. cit., p. 342) of a “subject” who showed the well-known symptoms of muscular rigidity, and of rapport with a single person, is again strongly suggestive of hypnotic trance. The rapport, shown in exclusive sensitiveness to the witch’s touch or approach, reappears in Saint André’s Lettres au Sujet de la Magie (Paris, 1725), p. 213; and in The Tryal of Bridget Bishop at Salem in 1692;3 3 Mather, Wonders of the Invisible World (Boston, 1693), p. 106. where also the “subjects” are described as having displayed the phenomenon of imitation of the witch’s postures and gestures. The “subject’s” craving to get to the witch is another significant feature. (See above, p. 87, note.) We should probably have had a much larger amount of definite hypnotic evidence had such a thing as hypnotism been recognised at the time—observations made under the influence of wrong theories being naturally one-sided and defective.
With respect to demoniacal possession, we find a progress of opinion to some extent parallel with that observed in the treatment of hallucinations; but the belief in the Satanic agency was here naturally more tenacious; and where the actual possession was doubted, the investigators often fell into the opposite error of concluding that the victims could have nothing the matter with them, and must be consciously shamming.4 4 See, for instance, Dr. Harsnet’s Discovery of the Fraudulent Practices of John Darrell, B.A. (London, 1599), and the controversy to which it gave rise. But of course, a certain number of cases were undoubtedly fraudulent; see The Disclosing of a Late Counterfeyted Possession, &c. (London, 1574.) It seems to have depended very much on accidental circumstances whether hysterical girls were pitied as victims or denounced as cheats. {i-182} Webster (Op. cit., p. 248) is, perhaps, the earliest English writer who insists on purely natural causes as sufficient to explain possession. As regards the whole question of the influence of the reputed witches on health, it is here probably that we should have had the most distinct indications of hypnotic agency had the idea of hypnotism been there to colligate the facts.1 1 On the beneficial effects of the supposed witch’s touch and strokings, see, for instance, the sensible Cotta, The Infallible, True and Assured Witch, (London, 1625), p. 138; Deodat Lawson, Further Account of the Trials of the New England Witches (London, 1693), p. 8; Lamberg, Criminal Verfahren (Nuremberg, 1835), p. 27; Miscellany of the Spalding Club (Aberdeen, 1841), Vol. i., pp. 92, 119. Even in the present century mesmeric cures have been attributed to the devil. (See Lecky, Op. cit., p. 109.) And much must, no doubt, be set down to the morbid craving for notoriety which is now one of the best known symptoms of hysteria. But as regards the larger number of the alleged phenomena, the rational inference—that the effects were due to imagination or fright—might, as we now see, have been drawn from the evidence of even the most credulous writers. Bodin, for instance, insists on the necessity of faith on the part of the sufferer,2 2 Cf. A Pleasant Treatise of Witches (London, 1673), p. 109; Remy, Op. cit., p. 348. and reports not a single case of curing where the witch was not actually present.3 3 Bodin has a firm belief that a witch could cause death by a word; but characteristically adduces no evidence. He is also persuaded that the disease which is removed from one person must be transferred to another—a view which he supports by a single supposed instance. His records, and those of many others, are precisely parallel to what our newspapers describe of the “mind-cures” in Boston and Bethshan, and might be accepted to-day without difficulty by orthodox medical opinion.4 4 See, for example, Prof. G. Buchanan’s paper on “Healing by Faith” in the Lancet, for 1885, Vol. i., p. 1117. Cf. Dell’ Osa, Op. cit., pp. 29, 30. Cases where there was rapid improvement in the victim’s health on the condemnation of the supposed witch come into the same category.
5 5 See, for instance, Mackenzie, Op. cit., p. 50; and the account of Dorothy Durant’s restoration when the verdict was given against Amy Duny, in the Tryal of Witches at the Assizes held at Bury St. Edmunds, before Sir Matthew Male (London, 1682). Similarly in cases of injurious effects—we constantly hear that the sufferer had been touched, or at the very least fixedly looked at, by the supposed witch.
6 6 Remy, Op. cit., p. 312; Del Rio, Op. cit., Vol. i., p. 34; De l’Ancre, L’Incrédulité et Méscréance du Sortilège (Paris, 1622), p. 108; Goldschmidt, Verworffener Hexen- und Zauber-Advocat (Hamburg, 1705), p. 454; Pitcairn, Op. cit., passim. Great stress was laid on the confession of the celebrated Gaufridi that he had breathed on his numerous victims.
7 7 Michaelis, Histoire Admirable (Paris, 1613), Part II., p. 118; Calmet, Traité sur les Apparitions (Senones, 1759), Vol. i., pp.37, 138. See also Westphal, Op. cit., p. 48; and the history of Hartley, the kissing witch, in G. More’s True Discourse. And if we bear in mind the prevalent belief that the witch commanded the full powers of the devil, we need not refuse to connect the threats and angry words of unpopular old women with a certain proportion, at any rate, of the
{i-183} illnesses which are so freely testified to as having soon after supervened.
1 1 Mackenzie, Op. cit., p. 48; D’Autun, Op. cit., p. 480; Miscellany of the Spalding Club, Vol. i., pp. 84, 131, 144; Piteairn, Op. cit., passim. Wagstaffe (The Question of Witchcraft Debated, London, 1671) seems to be the first author who expressly recognises that, in questions of coincidence, allowance must be made for the operation of chance. It must also be borne in mind that the reputed witches possibly included in their ranks a fair sprinkling of the amateur medical practitioners of the time.
2 2See P. Christian, Histoire de la Magie (Paris, 1870), p. 400; he gives quite an elaborate witches’ pharmacopæia. Cf. Sir A. C. Lyall, Asiatic Studies, p. 85. This is a feature of the witch-history which is more prominent in foreign than in English records. In Cannaert (
Op. cit.) and Reuss (
Op. cit.) constant mention is made of bewitched powders; and in the foreign trials generally, more stress is laid on poisoning than on anything else. Reuss is of opinion that the hallucinations were in many cases the result of drugs. At the same time we find that, among the credulous writers of the witch-epoch, a witch and a poisoner were often regarded as synonymous; and the stories of the powders may have rested on much the same evidence as those of the imps. As far as I know, no one ever deposed to having seen the drug administered.
3 3 See Saint André, Op. cit., p. 285.
The above slight sketch may serve to suggest that learned opinion on the question of witchcraft has a history of its own of a rather complex kind; and some recognition of this seems necessary to supplement the view of the decline of the belief so forcibly set forth by Mr. Lecky. As regards the place of witchcraft in the popular regard, the effect of the advancing spirit of rationalism was no doubt more unconscious and indiscriminate—undermining the superstition without exactly attacking it in detail; putting the whole subject, so to speak, out of court, not through a reasonable refutation of its claims, but through a general change of instinct and mood in respect of miraculous events. But professed students still felt it their business to analyse the phenomena, and exercised their minds on the various points in turn. And the consequence is that the works of the abler writers present us with a curious and gradually-shifting medley of à priori convictions and scientific reasonings and of beliefs and disbeliefs, often oddly inconsistent and oddly harmonised in the same mind. Binsfield, who firmly believes in the “Sabbaths,” draws the line at the dancing with Diana and Herodias; because as for Diana, there is no such person, and Herodias, though existing in hell, is a soul only and not a woman.4 4 Op. cit., p. 349. Boguet thinks that witches pursue and eat children, but that they are not really wolves. Majolus and Nynauld believe in transportations, but not in transformations. Wier pours scorn alike on lycanthropy and on the night-rides; but he has not the slightest doubt that the devil can transport people, and that he {i-184} does prevent his votaries from feeling torture.1 1 Op. cit., pp. 236, 238, 242. Cf. Cooper, Mystery of Witchcraft (London, 1617), p. 258. Neither he nor Cotta has grasped the idea that hysterical girls can play tricks, and produce from their mouths objects which they have previously placed there.2 2 A case where the fraud was exposed is given by Hutchinson, Op. cit., p. 283. Perkins considers that such effects as transformation, and injury by the mere power of the eye, quite transcend the devil’s range;3 3 A Discourse of the Damned Art of Witchcraft (Cambridge, 1608), pp. 33, 140. but this view in no way shakes his faith in the reality of magical powers. Méric Casaubon, though so far emancipated as to surmise that “supernatural” things may in time be explained, yet writes expressly to confute “the Sadducism of these times,” disapproves of Scot, and can say nothing harsher of Bodin and Remy than that they were “in some things perchance more credulous than I should be.”4 4 Of Credulity and Incredulity (title of the first edition, London, 1668), pp. 28, 147, 169. His impartiality is quite tantalising. Thus, as regards certain alleged cures, he presents us with four alternatives, quoted from Franciscus à Victoria, from which we may suit ourselves:—either the healers cheat; or they heal by the power of the devil; or by the grace of God; or by some specific natural gift. D’Autun, a writer who wholly repudiates the extremer marvels, and who is remarkable for his humanity, yet cannot resist the evidence of confession, which a modern writer regards with mingled scorn and indignation.5 5 Op. cit., p. 164. Even in the 18th century, Acxtelmeir, who does not lack sense, and who attributes the midnight revels to dream, yet cannot shake off the effect on his mind of the feeble stories about the persons found in the fields in the morning;6 6 Misanthropus Audax (Augsburg, 1710), pp. 32, 36. and a little earlier Wagstaffe, one of the most open-minded of all the writers on the subject—who expressly attributes much of the deception to “want of knowledge in the art of physic”—is yet convinced that there were genuine cases of wounding the witch at a distance by striking at her apparition.7 7 Op. cit., pp. 118, 114. Of the more bizarre ideas, this was perhaps the one that lingered longest among rational writers. The author of A Philosophical Endeavour, &c., p. 128, Clanvil (Op. cit., p. 34), and Mather (Op. cit., p. 106), have, of course, no doubt on the subject. A case in which fraud was afterwards discovered is given by Thacker, Essay on Demonology (Boston, 1831), p. 107. Bayle and La Bruyère, as Mr. Lecky has observed, held a similar uncertain position.
For any wide historical analysis of the grounds of opinion and of certainty in the human mind, no literature could better repay detailed study than that which these brief citations illustrate. But enough has perhaps been said for my present purpose—which is merely to show that, if the gradual tendency of the great body of public opinion on the subject of witchcraft was to put aside evidential questions, and simply to {i-185} turn away from the phenomena as incredible and absurd, there was in the reflective and literary world a strong tendency to cling, wherever possible, to tradition and à priori conceptions, and for that purpose to press to the very utmost such items of evidence as were to be found. Had evidence and inference, necessarily and throughout, gone hand in hand, and had the abnormal occurrences all been of a piece—all of that bizarre and incredible kind which Mr. Lecky’s treatment too much implies—then critical as well as uncritical minds might have drifted away from them in the silent and indifferent way which he depicts. But many of the abnormalities were far too real and tangible to be thus drifted away from; and it often happened that these, through the wrong inferences to which they gave rise, lent a sort of unsound support to the more incredible and the worse-attested incidents. Thus, one author after another, in the gradual recession to the rational standpoint, draws and defends what, to us now, looks like an arbitrary line between fact and fable; but the effect of this more critical treatment was, on the whole, to keep in view the large mass of phenomena which science can still accept as fact, and some of which, indeed—notably those of hysteria, hystero-epilepsy, and hypnotism—are only now beginning to make their full importance felt. And thus the position taken up in the foregoing chapter is maintained. The part of the case for witchcraft which is now an exploded superstition had never, even in its own day, any real evidential foundation; while the part which had a real evidential foundation is now more firmly established than ever. It is with the former part that we would directly contrast, and with the latter that we might in some respects compare, our own evidential case for telepathy.
CHAPTER V.
SPECIMENS OF THE VARIOUS TYPES OF SPONTANEOUS TELEPATHY.
§ 1. WE now come to the actual evidence for spontaneous telepathy. As has been explained, the proof is cumulative, and its strength can only be truly estimated by a patient study of a very large mass of testimony. But to wade through a number of the cases is far from an attractive task. They are very unexciting—monotonous amid all their variety—as different from the Mysteries of Udolpho as from the dignified reports of a learned society, and far more likely to provoke slumber in the course of perusal than to banish it afterwards. And for the convenience of those who desire neither to toil nor to sleep, it will be well to disregard logical arrangement, and to present at once a few preliminary samples. This chapter, therefore, will include a small batch of narratives which may serve as types of the different classes of telepathic phenomena, while further illustrating various important evidential points. At the present stage it will, no doubt, be open to anyone who accepts the facts in these cases as essentially correct to regard every one of the coincidences as accidental. The reasoning that will prevent this conclusion must still be taken on trust; it could not be given now without delaying the concrete illustrations till the reader would be weary of waiting for them. Nor would it be profitable at this place to enter fully into the principles of the classification, which can only be made clear in connection with the evidence. I will therefore sketch here the main headings, without comment, trusting to the further development of the work to justify the arrangement adopted.
We find our most distinct line of classification in the nature of the percipient’s impression. This at once divides the cases into two great families—those (A) where the impression is sensory and externalised, and those (B) where it is not sensory or externalised. In the first division the experience is a percept or quasi-percept—something {i-187} which the person seems to see, hear, or feel, and which he instinctively refers to the outer world. In the second division, the impression is of an inward or ideal kind—either a mental image, or an emotion, or a mere blind impulse towards some sort of action. There is also a small group of cases (C) which it is not easy to assign to either division—those, namely, where the experience of the percipient is sensory, without being an external-seeming affection of sight, hearing, or touch—for instance, a physical feeling of illness or malaise. This small group will be most conveniently treated with the emotional division into which it shades. Further, each of these divisions is represented in sleeping as well as in waking life, so that dreams form a comprehensive class (D) of their own; and the externalised division is also strongly represented in a region of experience which is on the borderland (E) between complete sleep and complete normal wakefulness. Lastly, there are two peculiarities, attaching to certain cases in all or nearly all the above divisions, which are of sufficient importance to form the basis of two separate classes. The first of these is the reciprocal class (F), where each of the persons concerned seems to exercise a telepathic influence on the other; and the second is the collective class (G), where more percipients than one take part in a single telepathic incident.
§ 2. Now the logical starting-point for the following inquiry will naturally be found in the cases which present most analogy to the results of experimental thought-transference. All those results, it will be remembered, were of the non-externalised type. I shall therefore start with inward impressions, ideal and emotional, and shall advance, through dreams—where each of us has, so to speak, an outer as well as an inner world of his own—to the “borderland” and waking impressions which seem to fall on the senses in an objective way from the outer world that is common to us all.
But though the impressions received by the percipient in the experimental cases had no external quality, a good many of them were distinctly sensory—one important branch being transference of pains. And if the parallel between experimental and spontaneous effects be a just one, we might fairly expect to find cases where a localised pain has been similarly transferred from one person to another at a distance. I will open this preliminary batch of narratives with just such a case, the simplest possible specimen of group C, and as pure an instance of transference of sensation, unattended by any idea {i-188} or image, as can well be conceived. The parties concerned are Mr. Arthur Severn, the distinguished landscape-painter, and his wife; and the narrative was obtained through the kindness of Mr. Ruskin.
Mrs. Severn says:—
“Brantwood, Coniston.
“October 27th, 1883.
(17) “I woke up with a start, feeling I had had a hard blow on my mouth, and with a distinct sense that I had been cut, and was bleeding under my upper lip, and seized my pocket-handkerchief, and held it (in a little pushed lump) to the part, as I sat up in bed, and after a few seconds, when I removed it, I was astonished not to see any blood, and only then realised it was impossible anything could have struck me there, as I lay fast asleep in bed, and so I thought it was only a dream!—but I looked at my watch, and saw it was seven, and finding Arthur (my husband) was not in the room, I concluded (rightly) that he must have gone out on the lake for an early sail, as it was so fine.
“I then fell asleep. At breakfast (half-past nine), Arthur came in rather late, and I noticed he rather purposely sat farther away from me than usual, and every now and then put his pocket-handkerchief furtively up to his lip, in the very way I had done. I said, ‘Arthur, why are you doing that?’ and added a little anxiously, ‘I know you have hurt yourself! but I’ll tell you why afterwards.’ He said, ‘Well, when I was sailing, a sudden squall came, throwing the tiller suddenly round, and it struck me a bad blow in the mouth, under the upper lip, and it has been bleeding a good deal and won’t stop.’ I then said, ‘Have you any idea what o’clock it was when it happened?’ and he answered, ‘It must have been about seven.’
“I then told what had happened to me, much to his surprise, and all who were with us at breakfast.
“It happened here about three years ago at Brantwood, to me.
“JOAN R. SEVERN.”
In reply to inquiries Mrs. Severn writes:—
“There was no doubt about my starting up in bed wide awake, as I stuffed my pocket-handkerchief into my mouth, and held it pressed under my upper lip for some time before removing it to ‘see the blood,’—and was much surprised that there was none. Some little time afterwards I fell asleep again. I believe that when I got up, an hour afterwards, the impression was still vividly in my mind, and that as I was dressing I did look under my lip to see if there was any mark.”
Mr. Severn’s account, dated Nov. 15, 1883, is as follows:—
“Early one summer morning, I got up intending to go and sail on the lake; whether my wife heard me going out of the room I don’t know; she probably did, and in a half-dreamy state knew where I was going.
“When I got down to the water I found it calm, like a mirror, and remember thinking it quite a shame to disturb the wonderful reflections of the opposite shore. However, I soon got afloat, and as there was no wind, contented myself with pulling up my sails to dry, and putting my boat in order. Soon some slight air came, and I was able to sail about a mile below Brantwood, then the wind dropped, and I was left becalmed for {i-189} half-an-hour or so, when, on looking up to the head of the lake, I saw a dark blue line on the water. At first I couldn’t make it out, but soon saw that it must be small waves caused by a strong wind coming. I got my boat as ready as I could, in the short time, to receive this gust, but some how or other she was taken aback, and seemed to spin round when the wind struck her, and in getting out of the way of the boom I got my head in the way of the tiller, which also swung round and gave me a nasty blow in the mouth, cutting my lip rather badly, and having become loose in the rudder it came out and went overboard. With my mouth bleeding, the mainsheet more or less round my neck, and the tiller gone, and the boat in confusion, I could not help smiling to think how suddenly I had been humbled almost to a wreck, just when I thought I was going to be so clever! However, I soon managed to get my tiller, and, with plenty of wind, tacked back to Brantwood, and, making my boat snug in the harbour, walked up to the house, anxious of course to hide as much as possible what had happened to my mouth, and getting another handkerchief walked into the breakfast-room, and managed to say something about having been out early. In an instant my wife said, ‘You don’t mean to say you have hurt your mouth?’ or words to that effect. I then explained what had happened, and was surprised to see some extra interest on her face, and still more surprised when she told me she had started out of her sleep thinking she had received a blow in the mouth! and that it was a few minutes past seven o’clock, and wondered if my accident had happened at the same time; but as I had no watch with me I couldn’t tell, though, on comparing notes, it certainly looked as if it had been about the same time.
“ARTHUR SEVERN.”
Considering what a vivid thing pain often is, it might seem likely that this form of telepathy, if it exists, would be comparatively common, in comparison with the more ideal or intellectual forms which are connected with the higher senses. This, however, is not so. It is conceivable, of course, that instances occur which go unnoticed. For, apart from injury, even a sharp pain is soon forgotten; and unless the copy reproduced the original with excruciating fidelity, a sudden pang might be referred to some ordinary cause, and the coincidence would never be noted. We, however, can only go by what is noted. I mentioned that even in experimental trials the phenomenon has been little observed except with hypnotised “subjects”; and on the evidence we must allow its spontaneous appearance to be even rarer. The stock instance is that of the brothers, Louis and Charles Blanc, the latter of whom professed to have experienced a strong physical shock at the time that his brother was felled in the streets of Paris by (as was supposed) some Bonapartist bully.11I received this version of the incident from Mrs. Crawford, of 60, Boulevard de Courcelles, Paris, to whom Louis Blanc narrated it in 1871, in a long and intimate tête-à-tête. Charles made his appearance in Paris, unexpectedly, some days after the event alleging as the reason of his visit the anxiety which the shock had caused him; and his brother at any rate, who knew him thoroughly, accepted this as the true reason. The case affords an interesting instance of the transformations which a story that becomes at all celebrated is almost sure to undergo. See, e.g., A Memoir of G. Mayne Young (1871), pp. 341–2, where the injury is localised as a stab in the arm, and the parts of the brothers are inverted. The lady who gave the account to the subject of the memoir professed to have heard it from Louis Blanc, at Dr. Ashburner’s dinner-table; and also to have been shown the scar on Charles Blane’s arm after dinner! A parallel case—where the absent husband was struck by a ball in the forehead, and the wife felt the wound—is recorded by Borel, Historiarum et Observationum Medicophysicarum Centuriœ [sic] iv. (Paris, 1656), Cent. ii., obs. 47; but only on the authority of “persons worthy of credit.” This is the earliest record that I can recall of a non-externalised telepathic impression of at all a definite sort. But this is a third-hand story at best; and the above is our {i-190} only first-hand instance where the pain was of an unusual kind, and was very exactly localised. It is specially for cases of this sort—most interesting to science, but with neither pathos nor dignity to keep them alive—that the chance of preservation will, we trust, be improved by the existence of a classified collection, where they may at once find their proper place.
What has been said of pains applies, mutatis mutandis,
with due alteration of details to all affections of the lower senses. In the first place, it is the exception and not the rule for the spontaneous transferences to reproduce in the percipient the exact sensation of the agent (p. 111); and, in the second place, such reproduction (or at any rate the evidence for it) seems almost wholly confined to the higher senses of sight and hearing. Thus, though we found that transference of tastes had been a very successful branch of the experimental work, we have no precisely analogous record in the spontaneous class. The nearest approach is a case which concerned the sense of smell, but where there was no direct transference of sensation as such. The case is, however, worth quoting here on another ground, as illustrating one of the evidential points of the last chapter—namely, that the strength of any evidence, in the sense of the assurance which it produces that the facts are correctly reported, is a very different thing from its strength as a contribution to the proof of telepathy. Thus, no one probably will care to dispute the facts in the following narrative; but the coincidence recorded is little, if at all, more striking than most of us occasionally encounter; and recourse to the telepathic explanation can only be justified by our knowledge that the two persons concerned have, on other occasions, given very much more conclusive signs of their power of super-sensuous communication.11 See pp. 63–9. Mr. Newnham has further told us that coincidences of thought of a more or less striking kind occur to himself and his wife as matters of daily experience. But to differentiate these from the numerous domestic cases which pure accident will account for (Chap. vi, § 1), a written record would have to be accurately kept from day to day. The Rev. P. H. Newnham, of Maker Vicarage, Devonport, writes to us:—
{i-191}
“January 26th, 1885.
(18) “In March, 1861, I was living at Houghton, Hants. My wife was at the time confined to the house, by delicacy of the lungs. One day, walking through a lane, I found the first wild violets of the spring, and took them home to her.
“Early in April I was attacked with a dangerous illness; and in June left the place. I never told my wife exactly where I found the violets, nor, for the reasons explained, did I ever walk with her past the place where they grew, for many years.
“In November, 1873, we were staying with friends at Houghton; and myself and wife took a walk up the lane in question. As we passed by the place, the recollection of those early violets of 12½ years ago flashed upon my mind. At the usual interval of some 20 or 30 seconds my wife remarked, ‘It’s very curious, but if it were not impossible, I should declare that I could smell violets in the hedge.’
“I had not spoken, or made any gesture or movement of any kind, to imdicate [sic] what I was thinking of. Neither had my memory called up the perfume. All that I thought of was the exact locality on the hedge bank; my memory being exceedingly minute for locality.”
Mr. Newnham’s residence at Houghton lasted only a few months, and with the help of a diary he can account for nearly every day’s walking and work. “My impression is,” he says, “that this was the first and only time that I explored this particular ‘drive’; and I feel certain that Mrs. Newnham never saw the spot at all until November, 1873. The hedges had then been grubbed, and no violets grew there.”
The following is Mrs. Newnham’s account:—
“May 28th, 1885.
“I perfectly remember our walking one day in November, 1873, at Houghton, and suddenly finding so strong a scent of violets in the air that I remarked to my husband, ‘If it were not so utterly impossible, I should declare I smelt violets!’ Mr. Newnham then reminded me of his bringing me the first violets in the spring of 1861, and told me that this was just about the spot where he had found them. I had quite forgotten the circumstance till thus reminded.”
§ 3. We may now pass to illustrations of Class B—the class of ideal and emotional impressions. The following is a well-attested case of the transference of an idea. It was sent to us, in 1884, by our friend, the Rev. J. A. Macdonald, who wrote:—
“19, Heywood Street, Cheetham, Manchester.
(19) “When I was in Liverpool, in 1872, I heard from my friend, the late Rev. W. W. Stamp, D.D., a remarkable story of the faculty of second sight possessed by the Rev. John Drake, of Arbroath, in Scotland. I visited Arbroath in 1874, and recounted to Mr. Drake the story of Dr. Stamp, which Mr. Drake assented to as correct, and he called his faculty ‘clairvoyance.’ Subsequently, in 1881, I had the facts particularly verified by Mrs. Hutcheon, who was herself the subject of this clairvoyance of Mr. Drake.
{i-192}
“When the Rev. John Drake was minister of the Wesleyan Church at Aberdeen, Miss Jessie Wilson, the daughter of one of the principal lay office bearers in that church, sailed for India, to join the Rev. John Hutcheon, M.A., then stationed as a missionary at Bangalore, to whom she was under engagement to be married. Mr. Drake, one morning, came down to Mr. Wilson’s place of business and said, ‘Mr. Wilson, I am happy to be able to inform you that Jessie has had a pleasant voyage, and is now safely arrived in India.’ Mr. Wilson said, ‘How do you know that, Mr. Drake?’ to which Mr. Drake replied, ‘I saw it.’ ‘But,’ said Mr. Wilson, ‘it cannot be, for it is a fortnight too soon. The vessel has never made the voyage within a fortnight of the time it is now since Jessie sailed.’ To this Mr. Drake replied: ‘Now you jot it down in your book that John Drake called this morning, and told you that Jessie has arrived in India this morning after a pleasant voyage.’ Mr. Wilson accordingly made the entry, which Mrs. Hutcheon assures me she saw, when she returned home, and that it ran thus: ‘Mr. Drake. Jessie arrived India morning of June 5th, 1860.’ This turned out to have been literally the case. The ship had fair winds all the way, and made a quicker passage by a fortnight than ever she had made before.”
The above account was sent by Mr. Macdonald to Mr. Drake for verification, and the following reply was received from the Rev. Crawshaw Hargreaves, of the Wesleyan Manse, Arbroath:—
“April 29th, 1885.
“MY DEAR SIR,—Mr. Drake is sorry your communication of the 2nd inst. has been so long unanswered; but two days after receiving it he had a paralytic seizure, which has not only confined him to bed, but taken from him the use of one side.
“He now desires me to answer your inquiries, and to say that the account, which you enclosed and which he now returns to you, is correct, except that he has no recollection of ever calling it ‘clairvoyance.’ It was neither a ‘dream,’ nor a ‘vision,’ but an impression that he received between the hours of 8 and 10 in the morning, when his mind was as clear as ever it was, an impression which he believes was given him by God for the comfort of the family. Moreover this impression was so clear and satisfactory to himself that when Mr. Wilson said, ‘It cannot be,’ Mr. Drake replied, ‘You jot it down,’ as warmly as if his statement of any ordinary circumstances had been doubted by a friend.
“Mr. Drake hopes these particulars will be enough for your purpose.—Believe me, dear sir, yours very truly,
“C. HARGREAVES”
The following is Mrs. Hutcheon’s account of the incident, given quite independently:—
“Weston-super-Mare.
“February 20th, 1885.
“The facts are simply these. I sailed for India on March 3rd, 1860, in the ‘Earl of Hardwicke,’ a good, but slow, sailing-vessel. About 16 weeks were usually allowed for the voyage, so that we were not due in Madras till about the middle of June. Our voyage, however, being an uncommonly rapid one, we cast anchor in the roads of Madras on the morning of June 5th, taking our friends there quite by surprise.
{i-193}
“On this same morning, my former pastor, an able and much esteemed Wesleyan minister, called on my father at an unusually early hour, when the following conversation passed:—
“‘Why, Mr. D., what takes you abroad at this early hour?’
“‘I have come to bring you good news, Mr. W. Your daughter Jessie has reached India this morning, safe and well.‘
“‘That would indeed be good news, if we could believe it; but you forget that the ship is not due at Madras before the middle of June. Besides, how could you get to know that?’
“‘Such, however, is the fact,’ replied Mr. D., and seeing my father’s incredulous look, he added: ‘You do not believe what I say, Mr. W., but just take a note of this date.’
“To satisfy him, my father wrote in his memo book: ‘Rev. J. D. and Jessie. Tuesday, 5th June, 1860.’
“In due time, tidings confirming Mr. D.’s statement arrived, greatly to the astonishment of my friends. He, however, manifested no surprise, but simply remarked, ‘Had I not known it for a fact, I certainly should not have told you of it.’
“These particulars I received by letter at the time, and on our return home 7 years later, we heard it from my father’s own lips. He is no longer with us, but the above are the plain facts as he gave them, and the little memo, in his handwriting, which he gave me as a curiosity, lies before me now.
“JESSIE HUTCHEON.”
In answer to inquiries, Mrs. Hutcheon adds:—
“March 23rd.
“I felt inclined to smile at the idea that I could possibly be mistaken as to a date so memorable in my life’s history, and immediately preceding my marriage. However, to render assurance doubly sure, I have referred to both my husband’s diary and my own, in each of which my landing in India on the 5th of June has an important place.
“The entry made by my husband is as follows: ‘N.B.—5th June, 1860; a memorable day! The ‘Hardwicke’ has arrived. What a quick voyage! Miss Wilson and mission party well.’”
[Mr. Macdonald tells us that he believes Mr. Drake had many such experiences, but that he found him so reticent that he despaired of getting an account of them from him. And Mr. Drake’s death has now made the attempt impossible.]
As regards the facts here, the narrative will probably be accepted as trustworthy. As regards the inference that may be drawn, the case is eminently of a sort where the character of the professing percipient (in other points than the mere desire to be truthful) ought to be taken into account. From a person “given to little surprises,” or who posed as a diviner if one out of a hundred guesses hit the mark, the evidence would deserve no attention; from a person of grave and reticent character, it is at any rate worthy of careful record.
In the last example, the idea apparently transferred was of a somewhat abstract kind—the impression of a mere event, without any {i-194} concrete imagery. But the ideal class includes many instances of a distinctly pictorial kind, where a scene is as clearly presented to the inward eye as the image of a card or diagram in some of our experimental cases. The following account of a vivid mental picture of this sort was received from Mrs. Bettany, of 2, Eckington Villas, Ashbourne Grove, Dulwich.
“November, 1884.
(20) “When I was a child I had many remarkable experiences of a psychical nature, which I remember to have looked upon as ordinary and natural at the time.
“On one occasion (I am unable to fix the date, but I must have been about 10 years old) I was walking in a country lane at A., the place where my parents then resided. I was reading geometry as I walked along, a subject little likely to produce fancies or morbid phenomena of any kind, when, in a moment, I saw a bedroom known as the White Room in my home, and upon the floor lay my mother, to all appearance dead. The vision must have remained some minutes, during which time my real surroundings appeared to pale and die out; but as the vision faded, actual surroundings came back, at first dimly, and then clearly.
“I could not doubt that what I had seen was real, so, instead of going home, I went at once to the house of our medical man and found him at home. He at once set out with me for my home, on the way putting questions I could not answer, as my mother was to all appearance well when I left home.
“I led the doctor straight to the White Room, where we found my mother actually lying as in my vision. This was true even to minute details. She had been seized suddenly by an attack at the heart, and would soon have breathed her last but for the doctor’s timely advent. I shall get my father and mother to read this and sign it.
“JEANIE GWYNNE-BETTANY.”
Mrs. Bettany’s parents write:—
“We certify that the above is correct.
“S. G. GWYNNE.
“J. W. GWYNNE.”
In answer to inquiries, Mrs. Bettany says:—
(1) “I was in no anxiety about my mother at the time I saw the vision I described. She was in her usual health when I left her.
(2) “Something a little similar had once occurred to my mother. She had been out riding alone, and the horse brought her to our door hanging half off his back, in a faint. This was a long time before, and she never rode again. Heart-disease had set in. She was not in the habit of fainting unless an attack of the heart was upon her. Between the attacks she looked and acted as if in health.
(3) “The occasion I described was, I believe, the only one on which I saw a scene transported apparently into the actual field of vision, to the exclusion of objects and surroundings actually present.
“I have had other visions in which I have seen events happening as they really were, in another place, but I have been also conscious of real surroundings.
{i-195}
In answer to further inquiries, she adds:—
(1) “No one could tell whether my vision preceded the fact or not. My mother was supposed to be out. No one knew anything of my mother’s being ill, till I took the doctor and my father, whom I had encountered at the door, to the room where we found my mother as I had seen her in my vision.
(2) “The doctor is dead. He has no living relation. No one in A. knew anything of these circumstances.
(3) “The White Room in which I saw my mother, and afterwards actually found her, was out of use. It was unlikely she should be there.
“She was found lying in the attitude in which I had seen her. I found a handkerchief with a lace border beside her on the floor. This I had distinctly noticed in my vision. There were other particulars of coincidence which I cannot put here.”
Mrs. Bettany’s father has given the following fuller account:—
“I distinctly remember being surprised by seeing my daughter, in company with the family doctor, outside the door of my residence; and I asked ‘Who is ill?’ She replied, ‘Mamma.’ She led the way at once to the ‘White Room,’ where we found my wife lying in a swoon on the floor. It was when I asked when she had been taken ill, that I found it must have been after my daughter had left the house. None of the servants in the house knew anything of the sudden illness, which our doctor assured me would have been fatal had he not arrived when he did.
“My wife was quite well when I left her in the morning.
“S. G. GWYNNE.”
If this vision suggests clairvoyance, owing to the amount of detail presented, we must still notice that it includes nothing which was not, or had not recently been, within the consciousness of the supposed agent. This point will claim further notice at a later stage. But the case is chiefly useful as illustrating an evidential point, which it will be very important to bear in mind in studying the mass of narratives in the sequel—namely, that possible inaccuracy as to details may leave the substantial fact which makes for telepathy quite untouched. It might, no doubt be fairly urged that the vision described may have assumed its distinctness of detail in the percipient’s mind only after the details of the actual scene had met her eyes. A child’s mind might easily be undiscriminating in this respect; and moreover Mrs. Bettany is by nature a good visualiser; which may perhaps be supposed to involve a slight tendency to retrospective hallucination—to mistaking vividly-conceived images for memories of actual experiences. But even if this hypothesis be pressed to the uttermost, the fact that she unexpectedly fetched the doctor remains; and if her whole impression of her mother’s critical condition was only a subsequent fancy, this very exceptional {i-196} step must have been taken without a reason. That is to say, we can only reject what is the substantial part of the evidence by supposing a distinctly improbable thing to have happened. And that being so, the evidence is a true stick in the telepathic faggot (p. 169).
I will supplement these two last cases by a third, in which their respective points, the abstract idea of an event and the concrete picture of a scene, were both presented. This case will also illustrate an evidential point. It occasionally happens that a number of occurrences, perhaps trivial in character, and each of them likely enough to be dismissed as merely a very odd coincidence, fall to the experience of one person; and if he is observant of his impressions, he may gradually become conscious of a certain similarity between them, which leads him to regard them as telepathic, or at any rate as something more than accidental. Before it can be worth while to consider such evidence, we must have reason to believe that the witness is a good observer, and alive to the very general mistake of noting hits and not misses in these matters. Such an observer we believe that we have found in Mr. Keulemans, of 34, Matilda Street, Barnsbury, N., a well-known scientific draughtsman, of whose care and accuracy we have had several examples. He has experienced so many of these coincidences that, even before our inquiries quickened his interest in the matter, he had been accustomed to keep a record of his impressions—which, according to his own account, were invariably justified by fact. Some more of his cases will be given in the sequel. The one here quoted is trivial enough (except perhaps to the baby who fell out of bed), and of little force if it were a single experience. Yet it will be seen that the impression was precise in character, was at once written down, and proved to be completely correct. We may perhaps assume Mrs. Keulemans to have been the agent.
“October 16th, 1883.
(21) “My wife went to reside at the seaside on September 30th last, taking with her our youngest child, a little boy 13 months old.
“On Wednesday, October 3rd, I felt a strong impression that the little fellow was worse (he was in weak health on his departure). The idea then prevailed on my mind that he had met with a slight accident; and immediately the picture of the bedroom in which he sleeps appeared in my mind’s eye. It was not the strong sensation of awe or sorrow, as I had often experienced before on such occasions; but, anyhow, I fancied he had fallen out of the bed, upon chairs, and then rolled down upon the floor. This was about 11 a.m., and I at once wrote to my wife, asking her to let me know how the little fellow was getting on. I thought it rather bold to tell my wife that the baby had, to my conviction, really met with an {i-197} accident, without being able to produce any confirmatory evidence. Also I considered that she would take it as an insinuation of carelessness on her part; therefore I purposely wrote it as a post scriptum.
“I heard no more about it, and even fancied that this time my impression was merely the consequence of anxiety. But on Saturday last I went to see my wife and child, and asked whether she had taken notice of my advice to protect the baby against such an accident. She smiled at first, and then informed me that he had tumbled out of bed upon the chairs placed at the side, and then found his way upon the floor, without being hurt. She further remarked, ‘You must have been thinking of that when it was just too late, because it happened the same day your letter came, some hours previously.’ I asked her what time of the day it happened. Answer: ‘About 11 a.m.’ She told me that she heard the baby fall, and at once ran upstairs to pick him up.
“I am certain, without the shadow of a doubt, that I wrote immediately after the impression; and that this was between 11 and 11.30 in the morning.”
I have seen the letter which Mr. Keulemans wrote to his wife. The envelope bears the post-mark of Worthing, October 3rd; and the postcript contained the following words:—
“Mind little Gaston does not fall out of bed. Put chairs in front of it. You know accidents soon happen. The fact is, I am almost certain he has met with such a mishap this very morning.”
Mrs. Keulemans’ aunt supplied the following testimony a day or two after Mr. Keulemans’ letter of October 16th.
“36, Teville Street, Worthing.
“Mrs. Keulemans (my niece) and her baby are staying at my house. The baby had fallen out of bed the morning of the day the letter [i.e., Mr. Keulemans’ letter] was received.
“C. GRAY”
The next account illustrates an emotional impression, with a certain amount of physical discomfort. The experience appears to have been of a very unusual sort, and the coincidence of time to have been exact; the case is therefore a strong example of a weak class. The narrator is Miss Martyn, of Long Melford Rectory, Suffolk.
“September 4th, 1884.
(22) “On March 16th, 1884, I was sitting alone in the drawing-room, reading an interesting book, and feeling perfectly well, when suddenly I experienced an undefined feeling of dread and horror; I looked at the clock and saw it was just 7 p.m. I was utterly unable to read, so I got up and walked about the room trying to throw off the feeling, but I could not: I became quite cold, and had a firm presentiment that I was dying.11 Cf. cases 70 and 76. The feeling lasted about half-an-hour, and then passed off, leaving me a good deal shaken all the evening; I went to bed feeling very weak, as if I had been seriously ill.
“The next morning I received a telegram telling me of the death of a near and very dear cousin, Mrs. K., in Shropshire, with whom I had been {i-198} most intimately associated all my life, but for the last two years had seen very little of her. I did not associate this feeling of death with her or with anyone else, but I had a most distinct impression that something terrible was happening. This feeling came over me, I afterwards found. [sic] just at the time when my cousin died (7 p.m.). The connection with her death may have been simply an accident. I have never experienced anything of the sort before. I was not aware that Mrs. K. was ill, and her death was peculiarly sad and sudden.
“K. M.”
Mr. White Cooper, through whose kindness we obtained this account, writes as follows:—
“19, Berkeley Square, W.
“April 7th, 1885.
“I have asked Miss Martyn whether she had told anyone about her feeling of horror on March 16th, before she heard of the death of her cousin. She told me she had. She was quite convinced, and perfectly remembered telling Miss Mason the same evening, after Miss Mason had come from church, that she had had a peculiar feeling of horror and dread for which she could give no account. I then questioned Miss Mason, and enclose what she dictated.”
Miss Mason says:—
“The Rectory, Long Melford, Suffolk.
“April 5th, 1885.
“I well remember Miss Martyn telling me that a feeling of horror and an indescribable dread came over her on Sunday evening, March 16th, 1884, while we were in church, and she was alone in the drawing-room; that she was unable to shake it off, and felt very restless, and got up and walked about the room. She did not refer to anyone, and could give no cause for this peculiar feeling. I am under the impression that she told me the same evening (Sunday), and before she heard of the death of her cousin, bnt I am not certain whether it was Sunday or Monday that she told me about it.
“ANNA M. MASON.”
We have verified the date of the death in two local newspapers. The day was a Sunday, which is in accordance with the evidence.
§ 4. The next case illustrates the class of dreams (D). I am aware that the very mention of this class is apt to raise a prejudice against our whole inquiry. I shall explain later why it is extremely difficult to draw conclusive evidence of telepathy from dreams, and why we mark off the whole class of dreams, which are simply remembered as such, from the cases on which we rest our argument; but I shall also hope to show that dreams, though needing to be treated with the greatest caution, have a necessary and instructive place in the conspectus of telepathic phenomena. As to the evidential force of the present case, it will be enough to point out that the percipient states the experience to have been unique in his life; and that the violence of the effect produced, leading to the very unusual entry in the diary, puts the vision outside the common run of dreams which {i-199} may justly be held to afford almost limitless scope for accidental coincidences. The narrative is from Mr. Frederick Wingfield, of Belle Isle en Terre, Côtes du Nord, France.
“20th December, 1883.
(23) “I give you my most solemn assurance that what I am about to relate is the exact account of what occurred. I may remark that I am so little liable to the imputation of being easily impressed with a sense of the supernatural11 This expression cannot be excluded, when the words of our informants are quoted. We, ourselves, of course, regard all these occurrences as strictly natural. that I have been accused, and with reason, of being unduly sceptical upon matters which lay beyond my powers of explanation.
“On the night of Thursday, the 25th of March, 1880, I retired to bed after reading till late, as is my habit. I dreamed that I was lying on my sofa reading, when, on looking up, I saw distinctly the figure of my brother, Richard Wingfield-Baker, sitting on the chair before me. I dreamed that I spoke to him, but that he simply bent his head in reply, rose and left the room. When I awoke, I found myself standing with one foot on the ground by my bedside, and the other on the bed, trying to speak and to pronounce my brother’s name. So strong was the impression as to the reality of his presence and so vivid the whole scene as dreamt, that I left my bedroom to search for my brother in the sitting-room. I examined the chair where I had seen him seated, I returned to bed, tried to fall asleep in the hope of a repetition of the appearance, but my mind was too excited, too painfully disturbed, as I recalled what I had dreamed. I must have, however, fallen asleep towards the morning, but when I awoke, the impression of my dream was as vivid as ever—and I may add is to this very hour equally strong and clear. My sense of impending evil was so strong that I at once made a note in my memorandum book of this ‘appearance,’ and added the words, ‘God forbid.’
“Three days afterwards I received the news that my brother, Richard Wingfield-Baker, had died on Thursday evening, the 25th of March, 1880, at 8.30 p.m., from the effects of the terrible injuries received in a fall while hunting with the Blackmore Vale hounds.
“I will only add that I had been living in this town some 12 months; that I had not had any recent communication with my brother; that I knew him to be in good health, and that he was a perfect horseman. I did not at once communicate this dream to any intimate friend—there was unluckily none here at that very moment—but I did relate the story after the receipt of the news of my brother’s death, and showed the entry in my memorandum book. As evidence, of course, this is worthless; but I give you my word of honour that the circumstances I have related are the positive truth.
“FRED. WINGFIELD.”
“February 4th, 1884.
“I must explain my silence by the excuse that I could not procure till to-day a letter from my friend the Prince de Lucinge-Faucigny, in which he mentions the fact of my having related to him the particulars of my dream on the 25th of March, 1880. He came from Paris to stay a few {i-200} days with me early in April, and saw the entry in my note-book, which I now enclose for your inspection. You will observe the initials R. B. W. B., and a curious story is attached to these letters. During that sleepless night I naturally dwelt upon the incident, and recalled the circumstances connected with the apparition. Though I distinctly recognised my brother’s features, the idea flashed upon me that the figure bore some slight resemblance to my most intimate and valued friend, Colonel Bigge, and in my dread of impending evil to one to whom I am so much attached, I wrote the four initials, R. B. for Richard Baker, and W. B. for William Bigge. When the tidings of my brother’s death reached me I again looked at the entry, and saw with astonishment that the four letters stood for my brother’s full name, Richard Baker
Wingfield-Baker, though I had always spoken of him as Richard Baker in common with the rest of my family. The figure I saw was that of my brother; and in my anxious state of mind I worried myself into the belief that possibly it might be that of my old friend, as a resemblance did exist in the fashion of their beards. I can give you no further explanations, nor can I produce further testimony in support of my assertions.
“FRED. WINGFIELD.”
With this letter, Mr. Wingfield sent me the note-book, in which, among a number of business memoranda, notes of books, &c., I find the entry—‘Appearance—Thursday night, 25th of March, 1880. R. B. W. B. God forbid!”
The following letter was enclosed:—
“Coat-an-nos, 2 février, 1884.
“Mon cher ami,—Je n’ai aucun effort de mémoire à faire pour me rappeler le fait dont vous me parlez, car j’en ai conservé un souvenir très net et tres précis. [Translation]"My dear friend,
It costs me no effort to recall to memory the event you mention, for I still have a very clear and precise remembrance of it.
“Je me souviens parfaitement que le dimanche, 4 avril, 1880, étant arrivé de Paris le matin même pour passer ici quelques jours, j’ai été déjeûner avec vous. Je me souviens aussi parfaitement que je vous ai trouvé fort ému de la douloureuse nouvelle qui vous était parvenue quelques jours11 The words “quelques jours auparavant,” coupled with the fact that the number of the day is right, suggest that février is a mere slip of the pen for mars. [This and the following superscript refer to the same footnote. —Ed.] auparavant, de la mort de I’un des messieurs vos frères. Je me rappelle aussi comme si le fait s’était passé hier, tant j’en ai été frappé, que quelques jours avant d’apprendre la triste nouvelle, vous aviez un soir, étant déjà couché, vu, ou cru voir, mais en tous cas très distinctement, votre frère, celui dont vous veniez d’apprendre la mort subite, tout près de votre lit, et que, dans la conviction où vous ètiez que céetait bien lui que vous perceviez, vous vous étiez levé et lui aviez addressé la parole, et qu’à ce moment vous aviez cessé de le voir comme s’il s’était évanoui ainsi qu’un spectre. Je me souviens encore que, sous l’impression de l’émotion bien naturelle qui avait été la suite de cet évènement, vous l’aviez inscrit dans un petit carnet où vous avez l’habitude d’écrire les faits saillants de votre très paisible existence, et que vous m’avez fait voir ce carnet. Cette apparition, cette vision, ou ce songe, comme vous voudrez l’appeler, est inscrit, si j’ai bon souvenir, à la date du 24 ou du 25 février,11 The words “quelques jours auparavant,” coupled with the fact that the number of the day is right, suggest that février is a mere slip of the pen for mars. [This and the preceding superscript refer to the same footnote. —Ed.] et ce n’est que deux ou trois {i-201} jours après que vous avez reçu la nouvelle officielle de la mort de votre frère. [Translation]I remember perfectly that on Sunday, April 4, 1880, having arrived from Paris that same morning in order to spend a few days here, I went to lunch with you. I also remember perfectly that I found you deeply affected by the painful news you had received some days earlier of the death of one of your brothers. Because I was so struck by it, I also remember, as though it were yesterday, that after having gone to bed one evening several days before hearing that sad news, you saw distinctly, or thought you saw, the brother whose sudden death you had learned of, right by your bed. You were convinced it was indeed he you were seeing, and so you got up and spoke to him. At that moment you could no longer see him; it was as though he had vanished like a ghost. I also remember that, while under the quite natural emotional effects of this incident, you wrote it down in a small notebook in which you had the habit of writing down the major facts of your very quiet existence, and I remember your showing it to me. If memory serves, this apparition, or vision, or dream, however you wish to call it, was registered under February 24 or 25, and it was only two or three days later that you received formal notice of the death of your brother.
“J’ai été d’autant moins surpris de ce que vous me disiez alors, et j’en ai aussi conservé un souvenir d’autant plus net et précis, comme je vous le disais en commençant, que j’ai dans ma famille des faits similaires auxquels je crois absolument. [Translation]My surprise at what you told me then was all the less, and my memory all the clearer and more precise, as I told you at the outset, for my having in my own family similar phenomena, in which I believe absolutely.
“Des faits semblables arrivent, croyez-le bien, bien plus souvent qu’on ne le croit généralement; seulement on ne veut pas toujours les dire, parceque l’on se méfie de soi ou des autres. [Translation]Believe, me, this sort of thing happens much more often than is generally thought, but people don't always want to let on, out of mistrust, either of oneself, or of others.
“Au revoir, cher ami, à bientôt, je l’espère, et croyez bien à l’expression des plus sincères sentiments de votre tout devoué [Translation]Farewell, dear friend; I hope to see you soon, and I remain yours sincerely . . .
“FAUCIGNY, PRINCE LUCINGE.”
In answer to inquiries, Mr. Wingfield adds:—
“I have never had any other startling dream of the same nature, nor any dream from which I woke with the same sense of reality and distress, and of which the effect continued long after I was well awake. Nor have I upon any other occasion had a hallucination of the senses.”
The Times obituary for March 30th, 1880, records the death of Mr. R. B. Wingfield-Baker, of Orsett Hall, Essex, as having taken place on the 25th. The Essex Independent gives the same date, adding that Mr. Baker breathed his last about 9 o’clock.
It will be seen here that the impression followed the death by a few hours—a feature which will frequently recur. The fact, of course, slightly detracts from the evidential force of a case, as compared with the completely simultaneous coincidences; inasmuch as the odds against the accidental occurrence of a unique impression of someone’s presence within a few hours of his death, enormous as they are, are less enormous than the odds against a similar accidental occurrence within five minutes of the death. But the deferment of the impression, though to this slight extent affecting a case as an item of telepathic evidence, is not in itself any obstacle to the telepathic explanation. We may recall that in some of the experimental cases the impression was never a piece of conscious experience at all; while in others the latency and gradual emergence of the idea was a very noticeable feature (pp. 56, 63–71, 84). This justifies us in presuming that an impression which ultimately takes a sensory form may fail in the first instance to reach the threshold of attention. It may be unable to compete, at the moment, with the vivid sensory impressions, and the crowd of ideas and images, that belong to normal seasons of waking life; and it may thus remain latent till darkness and quiet give a chance for its development. This view seems at any rate supported by the fact that it is usually at night that the delayed impression—if such it be—emerges into the percipient’s consciousness. It is {i-202} supported also by analogies which recognised psychology supplies. I may refer to the extraordinary exaltation of memory sometimes observed in hypnotic and hystero-epileptic “subjects”; or even to the vivid revival, in ordinary dreaming, of impressions which have hardly affected the waking consciousness.
Mr. Wingfield’s vision had another unusual feature besides the violence of its effect on him. It represented a single figure, without detail or incident. It was, so to speak, the dream of an apparition; and in this respect bears a closer affinity to “borderland” and waking cases than to dreams in general. It will be worth while to quote here one dream-case of a more ordinary type so far as its content is concerned, but resembling the last in its unusual and distressing vividness. The supposed agent in this instance experienced nothing more than a brief sense of danger and excitement, which, however, may have been sufficiently intense during the moments that it lasted. The account is from Mrs. West, of Hildegarde, Furness Road, Eastbourne.
“1883.
(24) “My father and brother were on a journey during the winter. I was expecting them home, without knowing the exact day of their return. The date, to the best of my recollection, was the winter of 1871–2. I had gone to bed at my usual time, about 11 p.m. Some time in the night I had a vivid dream, which made a great impression on me. I dreamt I was looking out of a window, when I saw father driving in a Spids sledge, followed in another by my brother. They had to pass a cross-road, on which another traveller was driving very fast, also in a sledge with one horse. Father seemed to drive on without observing the other fellow, who would without fail have driven over father if he had not made his horse rear, so that I saw my father drive under the hoofs of the horse. Every moment I expected the horse would fall down and crush him. I called out ‘Father! father!’ and woke in a great fright. The next morning my father and brother returned. I said to him, ‘I am so glad to see you arrive quite safely, as I had such a dreadful dream about you last night.’ My brother said, ‘You could not have been in greater fright about him than I was,’ and then he related to me what had happened, which tallied exactly with my dream. My brother in his fright, when he saw the feet of the horse over father’s head, called out, ‘Oh! father, father!’
“I have never had any other dream of this kind, nor do I remember ever to have had another dream of an accident happening to anyone in whom I was interested. I often dream of people, and when this happens I generally expect to receive a letter from them, or to hear of them in the course of the next day. I dreamt of Mrs. G. Bidder the night before I received her letter asking me for an account of this dream; and I told Mr. West, before we went down to breakfast, that I should have a letter that day from her. I had no other reason to expect a letter from her, nor had I received one for some time, I should think some years, previously.
“HILDA WEST.”
{i-203}
Mrs. West’s father, Sir John Crowe, late Consul-General for Norway, is since dead; but her brother, Mr. Septimus Crowe, of Librola, Mary’s Hill Road, Shortlands, sends us the following confirmation:—
“I remember vividly, on my return once with my father from a trip to the north of Norway in the winter time, my sister meeting us at the hall-door as we entered, and exclaiming how pleased she was to see us, and that we were safe, as she said at once to me that she had had such an unpleasant dream the evening before. I said, ‘What was it?’ She then minutely explained to me the dream, as she related it to you, and which is in accordance with the facts. It naturally astonished my father and myself a good deal, that she so vividly in her sleep saw exactly what happened, and I should say, too, she dreamt it at the very time it happened, about 11.30 p.m.
“Septimus Crowe.”11 Our friend Mrs. Bidder, the wife of Mr. G. Bidder, Q.C., sends us the following recollection of the narrative as told at her table by Mr. S. Crowe, who is her husband’s brother-in-law.
“Ravensbury Park, Mitcham, Surrey.
“10th January, 1883.
“The following was related at our table by my husband’s brother-in-law, Mr. Septimus Crowe. His father, since dead, was Sir John Crowe, Consul-General for Norway.
“‘My father and I were travelling one winter in Norway. We had our carrioles as sledges, and my father drove first, I following. One day we were driving very quickly down a steep hill, at the bottom of which ran a road, at right angles with the one we were on. As we neared the bottom of the hill we saw a carriole, going as quickly as ourselves, just ready to cross our path. My father reined in suddenly, his horse reared and fell over, and I could not, at first, see whether he was hurt or not. He, luckily, had sustained no injury, and in due time we reached home. My sister, on our approach, rushed out, exclaiming: “Then you are not hurt? I saw the horse rear, but I could not see whether you were hurt or not.”’”
It will be seen that if Mrs. Bidder’s report is strictly accurate, there is a discrepancy as to which of the two horses it was that reared. But even eye-witnesses of a sudden and confusing accident might afterwards differ in such a point as this.
This, again, is a good example of a weak class. But in the present instance we at any rate possess Mrs. West’s testimony that her experience was unique; and we have, further, Mr. Crowe’s testimony that the dream was accurately described before the facts were known. It was described, no doubt, in a conversation with him—a person whose mind was full of the facts, and he probably did not keep silence during the whole course of his sister’s narration: I have already noted that the unprepared actors in these cases are not likely to conduct themselves at the moment with a deliberate eye to the flawlessness of their evidence for our purposes some years afterwards. But it would be straining a sceptical hypothesis too far to assume that his interposed comments formed the real basis of the scene in Mrs. West’s memory, while he himself remained completely unconscious that he was supplying the information which he appeared to be receiving.
§ 5. We now come to an example of the “borderland” class (E)—the class where the percipient, though not asleep, was not, or cannot be {i-204} proved to have been, in a state of complete normal wakefulness. The case was first published in the Spiritual Magazine for 1861, by Dr. Collyer, who wrote from Beta House, 8, Alpha Road, St. John’s Wood, N.W.
“April 15th, 1861.
(25) “On January 3rd, 1856, my brother Joseph being in command of the steamer ‘Alice,’ on the Mississippi, just above New Orleans, she came in collision with another steamer. The concussion caused the flagstaff or pole to fall with great violence, which, coming in contact with my brother’s head, actually divided the skull, causing, of necessity, instant death. In October, 1857, I visited the United States. When, at my father’s residence, Camden, New Jersey, the melancholy death of my brother became the subject of conversation, my mother narrated to me that at the very time of the accident, the apparition of my brother Joseph was presented to her. This fact was corroborated by my father and four sisters. Camden, New Jersey, is distant from the scene of the accident, in a direct line, over 1,000 miles, and nearly double that distance by the mail route. My mother mentioned the fact of the apparition on the morning of the 4th of January to my father and sisters; nor was it until the 16th, or 13 days after, that a letter was received confirming in every particular the extraordinary visitation. It will be important to mention that my brother William and his wife lived near the locality of the dreadful accident, now being in Philadelphia; they have also corroborated to me the details of the impression produced on my mother.”
Dr. Collyer then quotes a letter from his mother, which contains the following sentences:—
“Camden, New Jersey, United States.
“March 27th, 1861.
“My beloved Son,—On the 3rd of January, 1856, I did not feel well, and retired to bed early. Some time after, I felt uneasy and sat up in bed; I looked round the room, and to my utter amazement, saw Joseph standing at the door, looking at me with great earnestness, his head bandaged up, a dirty night-cap on, and a dirty white garment on, something like a surplice. He was much disfigured about the eyes and face. It made me quite uncomfortable the rest of the night. The next morning, Mary came into my room early. I told her that I was sure I was going to have bad news from Joseph. I told all the family at the breakfast table; they replied, ‘It was only a dream, and all nonsense,’ but that did not change my opinion. It preyed on my mind, and on the 16th of January I received the news of his death; and singular to say, both William and his wife, who were there, say that he was exactly attired as I saw him.
“Your ever affectionate Mother,
“ANNE E. COLLYER.”
Dr. Collyer continues:—
“It will no doubt be said that my mother’s imagination was in a morbid state, but this will not account for the fact of the apparition of my brother presenting himself at the exact moment of his death. My mother had never seen him attired as described, and the bandaging of the head did not take place until hours after the accident. My brother William told me that his head was nearly cut in two by the blow, and that his face was dreadfully disfigured, and the night-dress much soiled.
{i-205}
“I cannot wonder that others should be sceptical, as the evidences I have had could not have been received on the testimony of others; we must, therefore, be charitable towards the incredulous.
“Robert H. Collyer, M.D., F.C.S., &c.”
On our applying to Dr. Collyer, he replied as follows:—
“25, Newington Causeway, Borough, S.E.
“March 15th, 1884.
“In replying to your communication, I must state that, strange as the circumstances narrated in the Spiritual Magazine of 1861 are, I can assure you that there is not a particle of exaggeration. As there stated, my mother received the mental impression of my brother on January 3rd, 1856. My father, who was a scientific man, calculated the difference of longitude between Camden, New Jersey, and New Orleans, and found that the mental impression was at the exact time of my brother’s death. I may mention that I never was a believer in any spiritual intercourse, or that any of the phenomena present during exalted conditions of the brain are spiritual. I am, and have been for the last 40 years, a materialist, and think that all the so-called spiritual manifestations admit of a philosophical explanation, on physical laws and conditions. I do not desire to theorise, but to my mind the sympathetic chord of relationship existed between my mother and my brother (who was her favourite son), when that chord was broken by his sudden death, she being at the time favourably situated to receive the shock.
“In the account published in the Spiritual Magazine, I omitted to state that my brother Joseph, prior to his death, had retired for the night in his berth; his vessel was moored alongside the levee, at the time of the collision by another steamer coming down the Mississippi. Of course, my brother was in his nightgown. He ran on deck on being called and informed that a steamer was in close proximity to his own. These circumstances were communicated to me by my brother William, who was on the spot at the time of the accident. I do not attempt to account for the apparition having a bandage, as that could not have been put for some time after death. The difference of time between Camden, New Jersey, and New Orleans is nearly 15°, or one hour.
“My mother retired for the night on 3rd January, 1856, at 8 p.m., which would mark the time at New Orleans 7 p.m. as the time of my brother’s death.”
Mr. Podmore says:—
“I called upon Dr. Collyer on 25th March, 1884. He told me that he received a full account of the story verbally from his father, mother, and brother in 1857. All are now dead; but two sisters—to one of whom I have written—are still living. Dr. Collyer was quite certain of the precise coincidence of time.”
The following is from one of the surviving sisters:—
“Mobile, Alabama, 12th May, 1884.
“I resided in Camden, New Jersey, at the time of my brother’s death. He lived in Louisiana. His death was caused by the collision of two steamers on the Mississippi. Some part of the mast fell on him, splitting his head open, causing instantaneous death. The apparition appeared to my mother at the foot of her bed. It stood there for some time gazing at her {i-206} and disappeared. The apparition was clothed in a long white garment, with its head bound in a white cloth. My mother was not a superstitious person, nor did she believe in Spiritualism. She was wide awake at the time. It was not a dream. She remarked to me when I saw her in the morning, ‘I shall hear bad news from Joseph,’ and related to me what she had seen. Two or three days1 [☼]1 This is probably incorrect, as it differs from Dr. Collyer’s and the mother’s statement; but the point does not seem important. For a piece of independent testimony respecting Captain Collyer’s death, see the “Additions and Corrections” which precede Chap. I.[☼] The hour there mentioned is 10 p.m.; but this can hardly weigh against Dr. Collyer’s evidence. After 30 years’ interval, a mistake of 3 hours might easily be made as to the time of an event which occurred after dark on a winter’s night. from that time we heard of the sad accident. I had another brother who was there at the time, and when he returned home I inquired of him all particulars, and how he was laid out. His description answered to what my mother saw, much to our astonishment.
“A. E. COLLYER.”
Here we have no direct proof of the exactness of the coincidence; but Dr. Collyer is clear on the fact that the matter was carefully inquired into at the time. As to the alleged resemblances between the phantasm and the real figure, we shall find reason further on to think that the impression of the white garment may have been really transferred. But the criticism made above in respect of Mrs. Bettany’s narrative again applies: we cannot account it certain that points were not read back into the vision, after Mrs. Collyer had learnt the actual aspect which the dead man presented. It will be observed, too, that the more striking details—especially that of the bandage—could not in any case help the telepathic argument. For if the son who was killed was the “agent” of his mother’s impression, any correspondence of the phantasmal appearance with features of reality which did not come into existence till after death must plainly have been accidental. We shall afterwards encounter plenty of instances where the percipient supplements the impression that he receives with elements from his own mind, and especially, in death-cases, with elements symbolic of death; and it is not impossible that in the present instance the white garment and bandaged head were a dim representation of grave-clothes.
Mrs. Collyer would probably have affirmed that at the time of her vision she was completely awake. That the percipient in the next example was completely awake is, I think, nearly certain; but as he was in bed, the account may serve as a transition to the cases where the matter admits of no doubt. Mr. Marchant, of Linkfield Street, Redhill, formerly a large farmer, wrote to us in the summer of 1883:—
{i-207}
(26) “About 2 o’clock on the morning of October 21st, 1881, while I was perfectly wide awake, and looking at a lamp burning on my washhand-stand, a person, as I thought, came into my room by mistake, and stopped, looking into the looking-glass on the table. It soon occurred to me it represented Robinson Kelsey, by his dress and wearing his hair long behind. When I raised myself up in bed and called out, it instantly disappeared.11 As to the disappearance on sudden speech or movement, see Vol. ii., p. 91, first note. The next day22 This means the day following the night of the experience; but, two lines lower, that day should no doubt be the next day, as Oct. 21, 1881, was a Friday. I mentioned to some of my friends how strange it was. So thoroughly convinced was I, that I searched the local papers that day (Saturday) and the following Tuesday, believing his death would be in one of them. On the following Wednesday, a man, who formerly was my drover, came and told me Robinson Kelsey was dead. Anxious to know at what time he died, I wrote to Mr. Wood, the family undertaker at Lingfield; he learnt from the brother-in-law of the deceased that he died at 2 a.m. He was my first cousin, and was apprenticed formerly to me as a miller; afterwards he lived with me as journeyman; altogether, 8 years. I never saw anything approaching that before. I am 72 years old, and never feel nervous; I am not afraid of the dead or their spirits. I hand you a rough plan of the bedroom, &c.”
In answer to inquiries, Mr. Marchant replied:—
“Robinson Kelsey had met with an accident. His horse fell with him, and from that time he seemed at times unfit for business. He had a farm at Penshurst, in Kent. His friends persuaded hin to leave it. He did, and went to live on his own property, called Batnors Hall, in the parish of Lingfield, Surrey. I had not been thinking about him, neither had I spoken to him for 20 years. About 3 or 4 years before his death I saw him, but not to speak to him. I was on the up-side platform of Redhill Station, and I saw him on the opposite down-side. In the morning after seeing the apparition, I spoke about it to a person in the house. In the evening, I again spoke about it to two persons, how strange it was. It was several days after our conversation about what I had seen that I heard of the death. These people will confirm my statement, for after I heard of his death I spoke of it to the same people, that my relation died the same night as I saw the apparition. When I spoke to these three persons I did not know of his death, but had my suspicions from what I had seen. As the apparition passed between my bed and the lamp I had a full view of it; it was unmistakeable. When it stopped looking in the glass I spoke to it, then it gently sank away downwards.
“Probably it was 10 days before I found out, through Mr. Wood, the hour he died, so that these persons I spoke to knew nothing of his death at the time.
“GEORGE MARCHANT.”
We have received the following confirmation of this incident:—
“July 18th, 1883.
“We are positive of hearing Mr. Marchant one day say that he saw the apparition of Robinson Kelsey during the previous night.
“ANN LANGERIDGE, Linkfield Street, Redhill.
“MATILDA FULLER, Station Road, Redhill.
“WILLIAM MILES, Station Road, Redhill.”
{i-208}
Mr. Anthony Kelsey, of Lingfield, Surrey, brother-in-law and cousin of Robinson Kelsey, has confirmed October 21st, 1881, as the date of the death (which we have also verified in the Register of Deaths), but he has forgotten the hour; and Mr. Robinson Kelsey’s widow having since died, Mr. Marchant’s recollection on this point cannot now be independently confirmed. As to the hour of the apparition, again, Mr. Marchant’s statement is only a conclusion, drawn from his regular habit of waking once in the middle of the night at about 2. But there can be no reasonable doubt that the day of the death and of the vision was the same.
On February 12th, 1884, I had an interview with Mr. Marchant, who is a very vigorous and sensible old man, with a precise mind. He went through all the details of his narrative in a methodical manner, and his description corresponded in every particular with the written account, which was sent to me many months before. Mr. Marchant was positive that he never had any other hallucination of the senses, and laughed at the very idea of such things. He quite realised the ordinary criticisms which might be made about a nocturnal vision, e.g., that he had had a glass too much, and also realised their absurdity as applied to his own case. I cannot doubt his statement that he has been a most temperate man. He showed me in his bedroom the precise line that the figure took; appearing at his right hand, then passing along in front of a lamp which was on the washhand-stand, and finally standing between the foot of his bed and the dressing-table. He described Kelsey’s long and bushy black hair as a very distinct peculiarity. In answer to inquiries on this point he says: “I have not any doubt whatever that Robinson Kelsey did have that peculiarity of the hair at the day of his death. My recollection of him is as clear as if I had his photo before me.” The figure was visible, he thinks, for nearly a minute; but the length of time in such cases is of course likely to be over-estimated.
I likewise saw Mrs. Langeridge, a sensible person, without any belief in “ghosts,” who at once volunteered the remark that Mr. Marchant described his vision to her next morning.
This case is remarkable from the fact that there was no immediate interest between the two parties—though it is of course possible that the dying man’s thoughts reverted to his kinsman and old employer. But comments on this point must be reserved.
§ 6. We now come to examples of the most important class of all, Class A—externalised impressions, occurring to persons who are up, and manifestly in the full possession of their waking senses. Of this class the most important examples are visual impressions, or apparitions. But I will first give a case which is on the line between Classes A and B, a vision not absolutely externalised in space, but where the mental image took on a sort of vividness and objectivity which the percipient believes to have been unexampled in his experience. The coincidence with the death of the agent was {i-209} apparently quite exact; and we have the testimony of a third person to the fact that the percipient mentioned his impression immediately on its occurrence. The narrator is Mr. Rawlinson, of Lansdown Court West, Cheltenham.
“September 18th, 1883.
(27) “I was dressing one morning in December, 1881, when a certain conviction came upon me that someone was in my dressing-room. On looking round, I saw no one, but then, instantaneously (in my mind’s eye, I suppose), every feature of the face and form of my old friend, X., arose. This, as you may imagine, made a great impression on me, and I went at once into my wife’s room and told her what had occurred, at the same time stating that I feared Mr. X. must be dead. The subject was mentioned between us several times that day. Next morning, I received a letter from X.’s brother, then Consul-General at Odessa, but who I did not know was in England, saying that his brother had died at a quarter before 9 o’clock that morning. This was the very time the occurrence happened in my dressing-room. It is right to add that we had heard some two months previously that X. was suffering from cancer, but still we were in no immediate apprehension of his death. I never on any other occasion had any hallucination of the senses, and sincerely trust I never again shall.
“ROB. RAWLINSON.”
The following is Mrs. Rawlinson’s account:—
“June 18th, 1883.
“My husband was dressing, a few months ago, one morning about a quarter to 9 o’clock, when he came into my room, and said: ‘I feel sure X.’ (an old friend of his) ‘is dead.’ He said all at once he felt as if there was someone in the room with him, and X.’s face came vividly before his mind’s eye; and then he had this extraordinary conviction of X.’s death. He could not get the idea out of his mind all day. Strange to say, the next morning he had a letter saying X. had died the morning before, at a quarter to 9, just the very time my husband came into my room. About two months before, we had heard that X. had an incurable complaint, but we had heard nothing more, and his name had not been mentioned by anyone for weeks. I ought to tell you that my husband is the last person in the world to imagine anything, and he had always been particularly unbelieving as to anything supernatural.”11 See p. 199, note. ‘X.’ in the above accounts is our own substitution for the real name.
A reference to the Consul’s letter, and to the Times obituary, has fixed the date of the death as December 17th; but the date of the vision was not written down at the time: we therefore have to trust to Mr. and Mrs. Rawlinson’s memory for the fact that it took place on the day before the letter was received. Not, however—be it observed—to their memory now, but to their memory at the time when the letter was received; and considering the effect that the {i-210} occurrence had on their minds, we can scarcely suppose them to have agreed in referring it to the preceding day, if several days had really intervened.
In the next case the coincidence was certainly close to within a very few minutes, and may have been exact. The impression was again completely unique in the percipient’s experience, and was at once communicated to a third person, whose testimony to that point we have obtained. “N. J. S.,” who, though he uses the third person, is himself the narrator, is personally known to us. Occupying a position of considerable responsibility, he does not wish his name to be published; but it can be given to inquirers, and he “will answer any questions personally to anyone having a wish to arrive at the truth.” The account was received within a few weeks of the occurrence.
(28) “N. J. S. and F. L. were employed together in an office, were brought into intimate relations with one another, which lasted for about eight years, and held one another in very great regard and esteem. On Monday, March 19th, 1883, F. L., in coming to the office, complained of having suffered from indigestion; he went to a chemist, who told him that his liver was a little out of order, and gave him some medicine. He did not seem much better on Thursday. On Saturday he was absent, and N. J. S. has since heard he was examined by a medical man, who thought he wanted a day or two of rest, but expressed no opinion that anything was serious.
“On Saturday evening, March 24th, N. J. S., who had a headache, was sitting at home. He said to his wife that he was what he had not been for months, rather too warm; after making the remark he leaned back on the couch, and the next minute saw his friend, F. L., standing before him, dressed in his usual manner. N. J. S. noticed the details of his dress, that is, his hat with a black band, his overcoat unbuttoned, and a stick in his hand; he looked with a fixed regard at N. J. S., and then passed away. N. J. S. quoted to himself from Job, ‘And lo, a spirit passed before me, and the hair of my flesh stood up.’ At that moment an icy chill passed through him,11 See Vol. ii., p. 37, first note, and the addition thereto in the “Additions and Corrections” at the beginning of Vol. ii.[☼] and his hair bristled. He then turned to his wife and asked her the time; she said, ‘12 minutes to 9.’ He then said, ‘The reason I ask you is that F. L. is dead. I have just seen him.’ She tried to persuade him it was fancy, but he most positively assured her that no argument was of avail to alter his opinion.
“The next day, Sunday, about 3 p.m., A. L., brother of F. L., came to the house of N. J. S., who let him in. A. L. said, ‘I suppose you know what I have come to tell you?’ N. J. S. replied, ‘Yes, your brother is dead.’ A. L. said, ‘I thought you would know it.’ N. J. S. replied, ‘Why?’ A. L. said, ‘Because you were in such sympathy with one another.’
N. J. S. afterwards ascertained that A. L. called on Saturday to see his brother, and on leaving him noticed the clock on the stairs was 25 minutes to 9 p.m. F. L.’s sister, on going to him at 9 p.m., found him dead from rupture of the aorta.
{i-211}
“This is a plain statement of facts, and the only theory N. J. S. has on the subject is that at the supreme moment of death, F. L. must have felt a great wish to communicate with him, and in some way by force of will impressed his image on N. J. S.’s senses.”
In reply to our inquiries Mr. S. says:—
“May 11th, 1883.
“(1) My wife was sitting at a table in the middle of the room under a gas chandelier, either reading or doing some wool work. I was sitting on a couch at the side of the room in the shade; she was not looking in the direction I was. I studiously spoke in a quiet manner to avoid alarming her; she noticed nothing particular in me.
“(2) I have never seen any appearance before, but have disbelieved in them, not seeing any motive.
“(3) Mr. A. L. told me that in coming to inform me of his brother’s death, he wondered what would be the best way of breaking the matter to me, when, without any reason except the knowledge of our strong mutual regard, it seemed to flash upon his mind that I might know it.
“There had been no instances of thought-transmission between us.
“There are many slight details which it is nearly impossible to describe in writing, so I may say that I shall be most willing to give you a personal account and answer any questions at any time you should be in town.
“There is one thing which strikes me as singular—the instant certainty I felt that my friend was dead, as there was nothing to lead up to the idea; and also that I seemed to accept all that passed without feeling surprise, and as if it were an ordinary matter of course.
“N. J. S.”
Mrs. S. supplies the following corroboration:—
“September 18th, 1883.
“On the evening of the 24th March last, I was sitting at a table reading, my husband was sitting on a couch at the side of the room; he asked me the time, and on my replying 12 minutes to 9, he said, ‘The reason why I ask is that L. is dead, I have just seen him.’ I answered, ‘What nonsense, you don’t even know that he is ill; I dare say when you go to town on Tuesday you will see him all right.’ However, he persisted in saying he had seen L., and was sure of his death. I noticed at the time that he looked very much agitated and was very pale
“MARIA S.”
We find from the Times obituary that F. L.’s death took place on March 24th, 1883.
In a later communication Mr. S. says:—
“February 23rd, 1885.
“In compliance with your request, I have asked Mr. A. L. to send you the statement of what came to his knowledge with reference to the time of his brother’s death.
“I have often thought the matter over since. I am unable to satisfy my own mind as to the why of the occurrence, but I still adhere to every particular, having nothing to add or withdraw.”
{i-212}
Mr. L.’s brother corroborates as follows:—
“Bank of England.
“February 24th, 1885.
“Mr. S. having informed me that you have expressed a wish that I should corroborate some statements made by him relative to my brother Frederick’s sudden death, I beg to send you the following particulars.
“On Saturday, March 24th, 1883, my brother having been absent from business, I called about 8 p.m. to see him, and found him sitting up in his bedroom. I left him, apparently much better, and came down to the dining-room about 8.40, where I remained with my sister for about half-an-hour, when I left, and she, going upstairs, immediately upon my departure, found her brother lying dead upon the bed, so that the exact time of his death will never be known. On my way over to Mr. S. the next day, to break the news to him, the thought occurred to me—knowing the strong sympathy between them—‘I should not be surprised if he has had some presentiment of it’; and when he came to the door to meet me, I felt certain from his look that it was so, hence I said, ‘You know what I have come for,’ and he then told me that he had seen my brother Frederick in a vision a little before 9 on the previous evening. I must tell you I am no believer in visions, and have not always found presentiments correct; yet I am perfectly certain of Mr. S.’s veracity, and having been asked to confirm him, willingly do so, though I strengthen a cause I am not a disciple of.
“A. C. L.”
An attempt to form a numerical estimate of the probability (or improbability) that the coincidence in this case was accidental will be found in a subsequent chapter on “The Theory of Chance-Coincidence” (Vol. II, pp. 18–20).
The next case again exhibits the slight deferment of the percipient’s experience which I have already mentioned (p. 201). But its chief interest is as illustrating what may be called a local, as distinct from a personal, rapport between the parties concerned.11 As to this point, see Vol. ii., pp. 268 and 301–2. The percipient, at the moment of his impression, was contemplating a spot with which the agent was specially connected, and which may even have had a very distinct place in her dying thoughts; and it is natural to find in this fact a main condition why he, of all people, should have been the one impressed. The case was thus narrated to us by the Rev. C. T. Forster, Vicar of Hinxton, Saffron Walden:—
“August 6th, 1885.
(29) “My late parishioner, Mrs. de Fréville, was a somewhat eccentric lady, who was specially morbid on the subject of tombs, &c.
“About two days after her death, which took place in London, May 8th, in the afternoon, I heard that she had been seen that very night by Alfred Bard. I sent for him, and he gave me a very clear and circumstantial account of what he had seen.
{i-213}
“He is a man of great observation, being a self-taught naturalist, and I am quite satisfied that he desires to speak the truth without any exaggeration.
“I must add that I am absolutely certain that the news of Mrs. de Fréville’s death did not reach Hinxton till the next morning, May 9th. She was found dead at 7.30 p.m. She had been left alone in her room, being poorly, but not considered seriously or dangerously ill.
“C. T. FORSTER.”
The following is the percipient’s own account:—
“July 21st, 1885.
“I am a gardener in employment at Sawston. I always go through Hinxton churchyard on my return home from work. On Friday, May 8th, 1885, I was walking back as usual. On entering the churchyard, I looked rather carefully at the ground, in order to see a cow and donkey which used to lie just inside the gate. In so doing, I looked straight at the square stone vault in which the late Mr. de Fréville was at one time buried. I then saw Mrs. de Fréville leaning on the rails, dressed much as I had usually seen her, in a coal-scuttle bonnet, black jacket with deep crape, and black dress. She was looking full at me. Her face was very white, much whiter than usual. I knew her well, having at one time been in her employ. I at once supposed that she had come, as she sometimes did, to the mausoleum in her own park, in order to have it opened and go in. I supposed that Mr. Wiles, the mason from Cambridge, was in the tomb doing something. I walked round the tomb looking carefully at it, in order to see if the gate was open, keeping my eye on her and never more than five or six yards from her. Her face turned and followed me. I passed between the church and the tomb (there are about four yards between the two), and peered forward to see whether the tomb was open, as she hid the part of the tomb which opened. I slightly stumbled on a hassock of grass, and looked at my feet for a moment only. When I looked up she was gone. She could not possibly have got out of the churchyard, as in order to reach any of the exits she must have passed me.11 See the remark within brackets, which follows the case. So I took for granted that she had quickly gone into the tomb. I went up to the door, which I expected to find open, but to my surprise it was shut and had not been opened, as there was no key in the lock. I rather hoped to have a look into the tomb myself, so I went back again and shook the gate to make sure, but there was no sign of any one’s having been there. I was then much startled and looked at the clock, which marked 9.20. When I got home I half thought it must have been my fancy, but I told my wife that I had seen Mrs. de Fréville.
“Next day, when my little boy told me that she was dead, I gave a start, which my companion noticed, I was so much taken aback.
“I have never had any other hallucination whatever.
“ALFRED BARD.”
Mrs. Bard’s testimony is as follows:—
“July 8th, 1885.
“When Mr. Bard came home he said, ‘I have seen Mrs. de Fréville to-night, leaning with her elbow on the palisade, looking at me. I turned again to look at her and she was gone. She had cloak and bonnet on.’ {i-214} He got home as usual between 9 and 10; it was on the 8th of May, 1885
“SARAH BARD.”
The Times obituary confirms the date of the death.
[Mr. Myers was conducted over Hinxton churchyard by Mr. Forster, and can attest the substantial accuracy of Mr. Bard’s description of the relative position of the church, the tomb, and the exits. The words “must have passed me,” however, give a slightly erroneous impression; “must have come very near me” would be the more correct description.]
The next case is of a more abnormal type. We received the first account of it—the percipient’s evidence—through the kindness of Mrs. Martin, of Ham Court, Upton-on-Severn, Worcester.
“Antony, Torpoint, December 14th, 1882.
(30) “Helen Alexander (maid to Lady Waldegrave) was lying here very ill with typhoid fever, and was attended by me. I was standing at the table by her bedside, pouring out her medicine, at about 4 o’clock in the morning of the 4th October, 1880. I heard the call-bell ring (this had been heard twice before during the night in that same week), and was attracted by the door of the room opening,11 See p. 102, note. and by seeing a person entering the room whom I instantly felt to be the mother of the sick woman. She had a brass candlestick in her hand, a red shawl over her shoulders, and a flannel petticoat on which had a hole in the front. I looked at her as much as to say, ‘I am glad you have come,’ but the woman looked at me sternly, as much as to say, ‘Why wasn’t I sent for before?’ I gave the medicine to Helen Alexander, and then turned round to speak to the vision, but no one was there. She had gone. She was a short, dark person, and very stout. At about 6 o’clock that morning Helen Alexander died. Two days after her parents and a sister came to Antony, and arrived between 1 and 2 o’clock in the morning; I and another maid let them in, and it gave me a great turn when I saw the living likeness of the vision I had seen two nights before. I told the sister about the vision, and she said that the description of the dress exactly answered to her mother’s, and that they had brass candlesticks at home exactly like the one described. There was not the slightest resemblance between the mother and daughter.
“FRANCES REDDELL.”
This at first sight might be taken for a mere delusion of an excitable or over-tired servant, modified and exaggerated by the subsequent sight of the real mother. If such a case is to have evidential force, we must ascertain beyond doubt that the description of the experience was given in detail before any knowledge of the reality can have affected the percipient’s memory or imagination. This necessary corroboration has been kindly supplied by Mrs. Pole-Carew, of Antony, Torpoint, Devonport.
“December 31st, 1883.
“In October, 1880, Lord and Lady Waldegrave came with their Scotch maid, Helen Alexander, to stay with us. [The account then describes how Helen was discovered to have caught typhoid fever.] She did not seem to be very ill in spite of it, and as there seemed no fear of danger, and Lord {i-215} and Lady Waldegrave had to go a long journey the following day (Thursday), they decided to leave her, as they were advised to do, under their friends’ care.
“The illness ran its usual course, and she seemed to be going on perfectly well till the Sunday week following, when the doctor told me that the fever had left her, but the state of weakness which had supervened was such as to make him extremely anxious. I immediately engaged a regular nurse, greatly against the wish of Reddell, my maid, who had been her chief nurse all through the illness, and who was quite devoted to her. However, as the nurse could not conveniently come till the following day, I allowed Reddell to sit up with Helen again that night, to give her the medicine and food, which were to be taken constantly.
“At about 4.30 that night, or rather Monday morning, Reddell looked at her watch, poured out the medicine, and was bending over the bed to give it to Helen, when the call-bell in the passage rang. She said to herself, ‘There’s that tiresome bell with the wire caught again.’ (It seems it did occasionally ring of itself in this manner.) At that moment, however, she heard the door open, and looking round, saw a very stout old woman walk in. She was dressed in a nightgown and red flannel petticoat, and carried an old-fashioned brass candlestick in her hand. The petticoat had a hole rubbed in it. She walked into the room, and appeared to be going towards the dressing-table to put her candle down. She was a perfect stranger to Reddell, who, however, merely thought, ‘This is her mother come to see after her,’ and she felt quite glad it was so, accepting the idea without reasoning upon it, as one would in a dream. She thought the mother looked annoyed, possibly at not having been sent for before. She then gave Helen the medicine, and turning round, found that the apparition had disappeared, and that the door was shut. A great change, meanwhile, had taken place in Helen, and Reddell fetched me, who sent off for the doctor, and meanwhile applied hot poultices, &c., but Helen died a little before the doctor came. She was quite conscious up to about half-an-hour before she died, when she seemed to be going to sleep.
“During the early days of her illness Helen had written to a sister, mentioning her being unwell, but making nothing of it, and as she never mentioned anyone but this sister, it was supposed by the household, to whom she was a perfect stranger, that she had no other relation alive. Reddell was always offering to write for her, but she always declined, saying there was no need, she would write herself in a day or two. No one at home, therefore, knew anything of her being so ill, and it is, therefore, remarkable that her mother, a far from nervous person, should have said that evening going up to bed, ‘I am sure Helen is very ill.’
“Reddell told me and my daughter of the apparition, about an hour after Helen’s death, prefacing with, ‘I am not superstitious, or nervous, and I wasn’t the least frightened, but her mother came last night,’ and she then told the story, giving a careful description of the figure she had seen. The relations were asked to come to the funeral, and the father, mother, and sister came, and in the mother Reddell recognised the apparition, as I did also, for Reddell’s description had been most accurate, even to the expression, which she had ascribed to annoyance, but which was due to deafness. It was judged best not to speak about it to the mother, but Reddell told the sister, who said the description of the figure corresponded {i-216} exactly with the probable appearance of her mother if roused in the night; that they had exactly such a candlestick at home, and that there was a hole in her mother’s petticoat produced by the way she always wore it. It seems curious that neither Helen nor her mother appeared to be aware of the visit. Neither of them, at any rate, ever spoke of having seen the other, nor even of having dreamt of having done so.
“F. A. POLE-CAKEW.”
Frances Reddell states that she has never had any hallucination, or any odd experience of any kind, except on this one occasion. The Hon. Mrs. Lyttelton, of Selwyn College, Cambridge, who knows her, tells us that “she appears to be a most matter-of-fact person, and was apparently most impressed by the fact that she saw a hole in the mother’s flannel petticoat, made by the busk of her stays, reproduced in the apparition.”
Mrs. Pole-Carew’s evidence goes far to stamp this occurrence as having been something more than a mere subjective hallucination. But it will be observed that there is some doubt as to who was the agent. Was it the mother? If so, we find nothing more definite on the agent’s part, as a basis for the distant effect, than a certain amount of anxiety as to her daughter’s condition; while the fact that Reddell and she were totally unknown to one another, would show, even more conclusively than the two preceding narratives, that a special personal rapport between the parties is not a necessary condition for spontaneous telepathic transference. Thus regarded, the case would considerably resemble the instance of local rapport last quoted—the condition of the telepathic impression being presumably the common occupation of the mind of both agent and percipient with one subject, the dying girl. But it is also conceivable that Helen herself was the agent; and that in her dying condition a flash of memory of her mother’s aspect conveyed a direct impulse to the mind of her devoted nurse.
The last five cases have all been recent. I will now give an example which is 70 years old. It will show the value that even remote evidence may have, if proper care is exercised at the time; and it points the moral which must be enforced ad nauseam, as to the importance of an immediate written record on the percipient’s part. The account was received from Mrs. Browne, of 58, Porchester Terrace, W. On May 29th, 1884, Mr. Podmore wrote:—
“May 29th, 1884.
(31) “I called to-day on Mrs. Browne, and saw (1) a document in the handwriting of her mother, Mrs. Carslake (now dead), which purported to be a copy of a memorandum made by Mrs. Browne’s father, the late Captain John Carslake, of Sidmouth. Appended to this was (2) a note, {i-217} also in Mrs. Carslake’s handwriting, and signed by her; and (3) a copy also in Mrs. Carslake’s handwriting, of a letter from the Rev. E. B——r, of Sidmouth.
“Mrs. Browne told me that, as far as she knows, the originals of (1) and (3) are no longer in existence.
“Document (4) is a note from Mrs. Browne herself.
“The Middleburg referred to is apparently the town of that name in the Netherlands.”
(1)
“Thursday, July the 6th, 1815.—On returning to-day from Middleburg with Captain T., I was strongly impressed with the idea that between 2 and 3 I saw my uncle John cross the road, a few paces before me, and pass into a lane on the left leading to a mill, called Olly Moulin, and that when he arrived at the edge of the great road, he looked round and beckoned to me.
“Query.—As he has long been dangerously ill, may not this be considered as an omen of his having died about this time?
“JOHN CARSLAKE.”
(2)
“He had not been thinking of his uncle, but talking with Captain T. about a sale where they had been; he was quite silent afterwards, and would not tell the reason. On going on board, he went to his cabin and wrote the time he saw his uncle, and wrote to Mr. B.
“T. CARSLAKE.”
(3)
“Long, in all probability, before this can reach you, you will have been informed that, precisely at the minute in which his apparition crossed your path in the neighbourhood of Middleburg, your dear and venerable uncle expired. I think it proves, beyond all contradiction, that his last and affectionate thoughts were fixed on you. The fact you have stated is the strongest of the kind, in which I could place such full confidence in the parties, that I ever knew.—E. B.”
[Judging from Mr. Carslake’s own account, it seems unlikely that the writer of this can have known the coincidence to have been as close as he describes.]
(4)
“May 29th, 1884.
“I remember more than once hearing this story, exactly as it is told here, from my father’s own lips. I remember that he added that the figure wore a peculiar hat, which he recognised as being like one worn by his uncle.
“T. L. BROWNE.”
The next example repeats the peculiarity that the percipient’s impression, though unique in his experience, did not at the moment suggest the agent; but it differs, as will be seen, from Frances Reddell’s case. We received it from the Rev. Robert Bee, now residing at 12, Whitworth Road, Grangetown, near Southbank, Yorkshire.
{i-218}
“Colin Street, Wigan.
“December 30th, 1883.
(32) “On December 18th, 1873, I left my house in Lincolnshire to visit my wife’s parents, then and now residing in Lord Street, Southport. Both my parents were, to all appearance, in good health when I started. The next day after my arrival was spent in leisurely observation of the manifold attractions of this fashionable seaside resort. I spent the evening in company with my wife in the bay-windowed drawing-room upstairs, which fronts the main street of the town. I proposed a game at chess, and we got out the board and began to play. Perhaps half-an-hour had been thus occupied by us, during which I had made several very foolish mistakes. A deep melancholy was oppressing me. At length I remarked: ‘It is no use my trying to play, I cannot for the life think about what I am doing. Shall we shut it up and resume our talk? I feel literally wretched.’
“‘Just as you like,’ said my wife, and the board was at once put aside.
“This was about half-past 7 o’clock; and after a few minutes’ desultory conversation, my wife suddenly remarked: ‘I feel very dull to-night. I think I will go downstairs to mamma, for a few minutes.’
“Soon after my wife’s departure, I rose from my chair, and walked in the direction of the drawing-room door. Here I paused for a moment, and then passed out to the landing of the stairs.
“It was then exactly 10 minutes to 8 o’clock. I stood for a moment upon the landing, and a lady, dressed as if she were going on a business errand, came out, apparently, from an adjoining bedroom, and passed close by me. I did not distinctly see her features, nor do I remember what it was that I said to her.
“The form passed down the narrow winding stairs, and at the same instant my wife came up again, so that she must have passed close to the stranger, in fact, to all appearance, brushed against her.
“I exclaimed, almost immediately, ‘Who is the lady, Polly, that you passed just now, coming up?’
“Never can I forget, or account for, my wife’s answer. ‘I passed nobody,’ she said.
“‘Nonsense,’ I replied; ‘You met a lady just now, dressed for a walk. She came out of the little bedroom. I spoke to her. She must be a visitor staying with your mother. She has gone out, no doubt, at the front door.’
“‘It is impossible,’ said my wife. ‘There is not any company in the house. They all left nearly a week ago. There is no one in fact at all indoors, but ourselves and mamma.’
“‘Strange,’ I said; ‘I am certain that I saw and spoke to a lady, just before you came upstairs, and I saw her distinctly pass you;11 In conversation Mr. Bee reiterated to me his certainty as to having seen the two figures simultaneously. so that it seems incredible that you did not perceive her.’
“My wife positively asserted that the thing was impossible. We went downstairs together, and I related the story to my wife’s mother, who was busy with her household duties. She confirmed her daughter’s previous statement. There was no one in the house but ourselves.
{i-219}
“The next morning, early, a telegram reached me from Lincolnshire; it was from my elder sister, Julia (Mrs T. W. Bowman, of Prospect House, Stechford, Birmingham), and announced the afflicting intelligence that our dear mother had passed suddenly away the night before; and that we (i.e., myself and wife) were to return home to Gainsborough by the next train. The doctor said it was heart-disease, which in a few minutes had caused her death.”
After giving some details of his arrival at home, and of the kindness of friends, Mr. Bee continues:—
“When all was over and Christmas Day had arrived, I ventured to ask my brother the exact moment of our mother’s death.
“‘Well, father was out,’ he said, ‘at the school-room, and I did not see her alive. Julia was just in time to see her breathe her last. It was, as nearly as I can recollect, 10 minutes to 8 o’clock.’
“I looked at my wife for a moment, and then said: ‘Then I saw her in Southport, and can now account, unaccountably, for my impressions.’
“Before the said 19th of December I was utterly careless of these things; I had given little or no attention to spiritual apparitions or impressions.
“ROBT. BEE.”
In answer to inquiries, Mr. Bee adds:—
“My mother died in her dress and boots; she was taken ill in the street, and had to be taken to a neighbour’s house in Gainsborough a few paces from her own house. The figure resembled my mother exactly as to size, dress, and appearance, but it did not recall her to my mind at the time. The light was not so dim that, if my mother had actually passed me in flesh and blood, I should not have recognised her.”
We learn from the obituary notice in the Lincolnshire Chronicle that Mr. Bee’s mother died on December 19, 1873, in Mr. Smithson’s shop, in Gainsborough, of heart-disease; and that her usual health was pretty good.
In answer to the question whether this is the only case of hallucination that he has experienced, Mr. Bee answers “Yes.”
He further adds:—
“The gas light over the head of the stairway shone within a frosted globe, and was probably not turned on fully.
“The fact is, there was ample light to see the figure in, but just as the face might have been turned to me, or was turned to me, I could not, or did not, clearly discern it. Many, many times, my regret and disappointment when I recall this fact have been deeply felt.”
Mrs. Bee writes to us as follows:—
“January 9th, 1884.
“If anything I can say to you will be of any use, I will willingly give my testimony to all my husband has said. I remember perfectly ten years ago my visit to my mother’s, and my husband’s unaccountable restlessness on the particular evening mentioned, also Mr. Bee asking me, after I had been downstairs, if I had met a lady on the stairs. I said, ‘No, I do not think there is any one in the house but us.’ Mr. Bee then said, ‘Well, a lady has passed me just now on the landing; she came out of the small {i-220} bedroom and went downstairs; she was dressed in a black bonnet and shawl.’ I said, ‘Nonsense, you must be mistaken.’ He said, ‘I am certain I am not, and I assure you I feel very queer.’ I then went to ask mamma if there was anyone in the house, and she said no, only ourselves; still Mr. Bee insisted someone had passed him on the landing, although we tried to reason him out of it.
“In the morning while we were in bed, we received a telegram stating that Mrs. Bee had died suddenly the night before. I said at once, ‘Robert, that was your mother you saw last night.’ He said it was. When we got to Gainsborough we asked what time she died; we were told about 10 minutes to 8, which was the exact time; also that she was taken suddenly ill in the street (wearing at the time a black bonnet and shawl) and died in 10 minutes.
“MARY ANN BEE.”
Mrs. Bourne, a sister of Mr. Bee’s, writes to us:—
“Eastgate Lodge, Lincoln.
“October 2nd, 1885.
“My mother died on December 19th, 1873, about 10 minutes to 8 in the evening; it might be a little later or a little earlier. Her attack resembled a fainting fit, and lasted from 30 to 40 minutes. At the commencement of it, she said a few words to my sister, when I was not present; afterwards I believe she never opened her eyes or spoke again, though we tried our utmost to induce her to do so.
“MARIAN BOURNE.”
If this case is accurately reported, the figure seen cannot be supposed to have been a real person; for—to say nothing of the unlikelihood that a strange lady would be on the upper floor on some unknown errand—Mrs. Bee, who seemed to her husband to come into actual contact with the figure, could hardly have failed to observe that some one passed her on the stairs. The fact that the form did not at the moment suggest Mr. Bee’s mother tends, no doubt, to weaken the case as evidence for telepathy, to this extent,—that if a person has the one hallucination of his life at the moment that a near relative dies, this singular coincidence may with less violence be ascribed to accident if the hallucination is merely an appearance—an unrecognised figure—than if it is the appearance of that; particular relative. The phantasm not being individualised, the conditions for the operation of chance are so far widened. Still, there are two strong evidential points. The coincidence of time seems to have been precise; and the resemblance to the supposed agent “as to size, dress, and appearance” is described as exact. As for any theoretic difficulty that might be felt in the fact of non-recognition, I will make at this point only one remark.
{i-221}
If we are prepared (as experiment has prepared us) to admit that telepathic impressions need not even affect consciousness at all—if it is possible for some of them to remain completely unfelt—it does not seem specially surprising that others should issue on the mental stage with various degrees of distinctness and completeness.
§ 7. So much for visual examples. I will now give an illustration of externalised impressions of the auditory sort. The case differs in another respect from the foregoing visual examples; for though, as in most of them, the agent died, the percipient’s experience preceded the death by some hours; and that being so, we must clearly connect this experience with the serious condition in which her friend actually was, not with that in which he was about to be. The narrative is from a lady who prefers that her name and address should not be published. She is a person of thorough good sense, and with no appetite for marvels.
“1884.
(33) “On the morning of October 27th, 1879, being in perfect health and having been awake for some considerable time, I heard myself called by my Christian name by an anxious and suffering voice, several times in succession. I recognised the voice as that of an old friend, almost playfellow, but who had not been in my thoughts for many weeks, or even months. I knew he was with his regiment in India, but not that he had been ordered to the front, and nothing had recalled him to my recollection. Within a few days I heard of his death from cholera on the morning I seemed to hear his call. The impression was so strong I noted the date and fact in my diary before breakfast.”
In answer to inquiries, the narrator says:—
“I was never conscious of any other auditory hallucination whatever. I do not think I mentioned the subject to any one, as I believe we had friends with us. I still have my diary preserved.”
The present writer has seen the page of the diary, and the reference to the strange experience, under the date of Monday, October 27th, 1879.
“We find from the East India Service Register for January, 1880, that the death of Captain John B., Native Infantry (Bombay Division), took place on October 27th, 1879, at Jhelum.
(This is the gentleman referred to in the account.) The
Times obituary of November 4th, 1879, mentions that the death was due to cholera.
Our informant was requested to find out the exact hour of the death, and learnt that it took place, not in the morning, as she had supposed, but at 10 p.m. (about 5 p.m. in England). She adds: “So that would not make the time agree with the hour of hearing his call, The cry may have come, however, when the illness began first.”
In the last-quoted visual example, the figure seen was unrecognised. {i-222} I will now give a parallel auditory case, where the sound heard by the percipient suggested at the moment no particular person. The account is from a gentleman of good position, whom I must term Mr. A. Z. He is as far removed as possible from superstition, and takes no general interest in the subject. He has given us the full names of all the persons concerned, but is unwilling that they should be published, on account of the painful character of the event recorded.
“May, 1885.
(34) “In 1876, I was living in a small agricultural parish in the East of England, one of my neighbours at the time being a young man, S. B.,11These are not the right initials of the name. who had recently come into the occupation of a large farm in the place. Pending the alteration of his house, he lodged and boarded with his groom at the other end of the village, furthest removed from my own residence, which was half a mile distant and separated by many houses, gardens, a plantation, and farm buildings. He was fond of field sports, and spent much of his spare time during the season in hunting. He was not a personal friend of mine, only an acquaintance, and I felt no interest in him except as a tenant on the estate. I have asked him occasionally to my house, as a matter of civility, but to the best of my recollection was never inside his lodgings.
“One afternoon in March, 1876, when leaving, along with my wife, our railway station to walk home, I was accosted by S. B.; he accompanied us as far as my front gate, where he kept us in conversation for some time, but on no special subject. I may now state that the distance from this gate, going along the carriage drive, to the dining and breakfast room windows is about 60 yards; both the windows of these rooms face the north-east and are parallel with the carriage drive.22 The position of the house, as I found on visiting it, is particularly retired and quiet. On S. B. taking leave of us my wife remarked, ‘Young B. evidently wished to be asked in, but I thought you would not care to be troubled with him.’ Subsequently—about half-an-hour later—I again met him, and, as I was then on my way to look at some work at a distant part of the estate, asked him to walk with me, which he did. His conversation was of the ordinary character; if anything, he seemed somewhat depressed at the bad times and the low prices of farming produce. I remember he asked me to give him some wire rope to make a fence on his farm, which I consented to do. Returning from our walk, and on entering the village, I pulled up at the crossroads to say good evening, the road to his lodgings taking him at right angles to mine. I was surprised to hear him say, ‘Come and smoke a cigar with me to-night.” To which I replied, ‘I cannot very well, I am engaged this evening.’ ‘Do come,’ he said. ‘No,’ I replied, ‘I will look in another evening.’ And with this we parted. We had separated about 40 yards when he turned around and exclaimed, ‘Then if you will not come, good-bye.’ This was the last time I saw him alive.
“I spent the evening in my dining-room in writing, and for some hours I may say that probably no thought of young B. passed through my mind. The night was bright and clear, full or nearly full moon, still, and without {i-223} wind. Since I had come in slight snow had fallen, just sufficient to make the ground show white.
“At about 5 minutes to 10 o’clock I got up and left the room, taking up a lamp from the hall table, and replacing it on a small table standing in a recess of the window in the breakfast-room. The curtains were not drawn across the window. I had just taken down from the nearest bookcase a volume of ‘Macgillivray’s British Birds’ for reference, and was in the act of reading the passage, the book held close to the lamp, and my shoulder touching the window shutter, and in a position in which almost the slightest outside sound would be heard, when I distinctly heard the front gate opened and shut again with a clap, and footsteps advancing at a run up the drive; when opposite the window the steps changed from sharp and distinct on gravel to dull and less clear on the grass slip below the window, and at the same time I was conscious that someone or something stood close to me outside, only the thin shutter and a sheet of glass dividing us. I could hear the quick panting laboured breathing of the messenger, or whatever it was, as if trying to recover breath before speaking. Had he been attracted by the light through the shutter? Suddenly, like a gunshot, inside, outside, and all around, there broke out the most appalling shriek—a prolonged wail of horror, which seemed to freeze the blood. It was not a single shriek, but more prolonged, commencing in a high key, and then less and less, wailing away towards the north, and becoming weaker and weaker as it receded in sobbing pulsations of intense agony. Of my fright and horror I can say nothing—increased tenfold when I walked into the dining-room and found my wife sitting quietly at her work close to the window, in the same line and distant only 10 or 12 feet from the corresponding window in the breakfast-room. She had heard nothing. I could see that at once; and from the position in which she was sitting, l knew she could not have failed to hear any noise outside and any footstep on the gravel. Perceiving I was alarmed about something, she asked, ‘What is the matter?’ ‘Only someone outside,’ I said. ‘Then why do you not go out and see? You always do when you hear any unusual noise.’ I said, ‘There is something so queer and dreadful about the noise. I dare not face it. It must have been the Banshee shrieking.’
“Young S. B., on leaving me, went home to his lodgings. He spent most of the evening on the sofa, reading one of Whyte Melville’s novels. He saw his groom at 9 o’clock and gave him orders for the following day. The groom and his wife, who were the only people in the house besides S. B., then went to bed.
“At the inquest the groom stated that when about falling asleep, he was suddenly aroused by a shriek, and on running into his master’s room found him expiring on the floor. It appeared that young B. had undressed upstairs, and then came down to his sitting-room in trousers and nightshirt, had poured out half-a-glass of water, into which he emptied a small bottle of prussic acid (procured that morning under the plea of poisoning a dog, which he did not possess). He walked upstairs, and on entering his room drank off the glass, and with a scream fell dead on the floor. All this happened, as near as I can ascertain, at the exact time when I had been so much alarmed at my own house. It is utterly impossible that any sound short of a cannon shot could have reached me from B.’s lodgings, {i-224} through closed windows and doors, and the many intervening obstacles of houses and gardens, farmsteads and plantations, &c.
“Having to leave home by the early train, I was out very soon on the following morning, and on going to examine the ground beneath the window found no footsteps on grass or drive, still covered with the slight sprinkling of snow which had fallen on the previous evening.
“The whole thing had been a dream of the moment—an imagination, call it what you will; I simply state these facts as they occurred, without attempting any explanation, which, indeed, I am totally unable to give. The entire incident is a mystery, and will ever remain a mystery to me. I did not hear the particulars of the tragedy till the following afternoon, having left home by an early train. The motive of suicide was said to be a love affair.”
In a subsequent letter dated June 12th, 1885, Mr. A. Z. says:—
“The suicide took place in this parish on Thursday night, March 9th, 1876, at or about 10 p.m. The inquest was held on Saturday, 11th, by ——, the then coroner. He has been dead some years, or I might perhaps have been able to obtain a copy of his notes then taken. You will probably find some notice of the inquest in the —— of March 17th. I did not myself hear any particulars of the event till my return home on Friday afternoon, 17 hours afterwards. The slight snow fell about 8 o’clock—not later. After this the night was bright and fine, and very still. There was also a rather sharp frost. I have evidence of all this to satisfy any lawyer.
“I went early the next morning under the window to look for footsteps, just before leaving home for the day. Perhaps it is not quite correct to call it snow; it was small frozen sleet and hail, and the grass blades just peeped through, but there was quite enough to have shown any steps had there been any.
“I was not myself at the inquest, so in that case only speak from hearsay. In my narrative I say the groom was awoke by ‘a shriek.’ I have asked the man [name given], and cross-questioned him closely on this point; and it is more correct to say by ‘a series of noises ending in a crash’ or ‘heavy fall.’ This is most probably correct, as the son of the tenant [name given], living in the next house, was aroused by the same sort of sound coming through the wall of the house into the adjoining bedroom in which he was sleeping.
“I do not, however, wish it to be understood that any material noises heard in that house or the next had any connection with the peculiar noises and scream which frightened me so much, as anyone knowing the locality must admit at once the impossibility of such sounds travelling under any conditions through intervening obstacles. I only say that the scene enacted in the one was coincident with my alarm and the phenomena attending it in the other.
“I find by reference to the book of ——, chemist, of ——, that the poison was purchased by young S. B., on March 8th. I enclose a note from Mrs. A. Z., according to your request.”
The enclosed note, signed by Mrs. A. Z., also dated June 12th, 1885, is as follows:—
{i-225}
“I am able to testify that on the night of March 9th, 1876, about 10 o’clock, my husband, who had gone into the adjoining room to consult a book, was greatly alarmed by sounds which he heard, and described as the gate clapping, footsteps on the drive and grass, and heavy breathing close to the window—then a fearful screaming.
“I did not hear anything. He did not go to look round the house, as he would have done at any other time, and when I afterwards asked him why he did not go out, he replied, ‘Because I felt I could not.’ On going to bed he took his gun upstairs; and when I asked him why, said, ‘Because there must be someone about.’
“He left home early in the morning, and did not hear of the suicide of Mr. S. B. until the afternoon of that day.”
An article which we have seen in a local newspaper, describing the suicide and inquest, confirms the above account of them.
Asked if he had had any similar affections which had not corresponded with reality, Mr. A. Z. replied in the negative.
The criticism made on Mr. Bee’s case will of course apply again here; the percipient’s failure to connect his impression with the agent is, pro tantoto that extent an evidential defect. But the fact remains that he received an impression of a vividly distressful and horrible kind—of a type, too, rarely met with as a purely subjective hallucination among sane and healthy persons11 See Chapter xi., § 4.—at the very time that his companion of a few hours back was in the agony of a supreme crisis.
§ 8. Telepathic impressions of the sense of touch are naturally hard to establish, unless some other sense is also affected. In the cases in our collection, at all events, a mere impression of touch has rarely, if ever, been sufficiently remarkable or distinctive for purposes of evidence. The case, therefore, which I select to illustrate tactile impression is one where the sense of hearing was also concerned. And the example, as it happens, will serve a double purpose; for it will also illustrate the phenomenon of reciprocality, which, as I have said, we make the basis of a separate class (F). The narrator is again the Rev. P. H. Newnham, of whose telepathic rapport with his wife we have had such striking experimental proof, and who describes himself as “an utter sceptic, in the true sense of the word.”
(35) “In March, 1854, I was up at Oxford, keeping my last term, in lodgings. I was subject to violent neuralgic headaches, which always culminated in sleep. One evening, about 8 p.m., I had an unusually violent one; when it became unendurable, about 9 p.m., I went into {i-226} my bedroom, and flung myself, without undressing, on the bed, and soon fell asleep.
“I then had a singularly clear and vivid dream, all the incidents of which are still as clear to my memory as ever. I dreamed that I was stopping with the family of the lady who subsequently became my wife. All the younger ones had gone to bed, and I stopped chatting to the father and mother, standing up by the fireplace. Presently I bade them goodnight, took my candle, and went off to bed. On arriving in the hall, I perceived that my fiancée had been detained downstairs, and was only then near the top of the staircase. I rushed upstairs, overtook her on the top step, and passed my two arms round her waist, under her arms, from behind. Although I was carrying my candle in my left hand, when I ran upstairs, this did not, in my dream, interfere with this gesture.
“On this I woke, and a clock in the house struck 10 almost immediately afterwards.
“So strong was the impression of the dream that I wrote a detailed account of it next morning to my fiancée.
“Crossing my letter, not in answer to it, I received a letter from the lady in question: ‘Were you thinking about me, very specially, last night, just about 10 o’clock? For, as I was going upstairs to bed, I distinctly heard your footsteps on the stairs, and felt you put your arms round my waist.’
“The letters in question are now destroyed, but we verified the statement made therein some years later, when we read over our old letters, previous to their destruction, and we found that our personal recollections had not varied in the least degree therefrom. The above narratives may, therefore, be accepted as absolutely accurate.
‘P. H. NEWNHAM.”
Asked if his wife has ever had any other hallucinations, Mr. Newnham replied, ‘No, Mrs. N. never had any fancy of either myself or any one else being present on any other occasion.”
The following is Mrs. Newnham’s account:—
“June 9th, 1884.
“I remember distinctly the circumstance which my husband has described as corresponding with his dream. I was on my way up to bed, as usual, about 10 o’clock, and on reaching the first landing I heard distinctly the footsteps of the gentleman to whom I was engaged, quickly mounting the stairs after me, and then I as plainly felt him put his arms round my waist. So strong an impression did this make upon me that I wrote the very next morning to the gentleman, asking if he had been particularly thinking of me at 10 o‘clock the night before, and to my astonishment I received (at the same time that my letter would reach him) a letter from him describing his dream, in almost the same words that I had used in describing my impression of his presence.
“M. NEWNHAM.”
[It is unfortunate that the actual letters cannot be put in evidence. But Mr. Newnham’s distinct statement that the letters were examined, and the coincidence verified, some years after the occurrence, strongly confirms his own and his wife’s recollections of the original incident.]
{i-227}
In this case it would, no doubt, be possible to suppose that Mr. Newnham was the sole agent, and that his normal dream was the source of his fiancée’s abnormal hallucination. But it is at least equally natural to suppose a certain amount of reciprocal percipience—a mutual influence of the two parties on one another. We shall meet with more conclusive examples of the mutual effect further on; and it need in no way disturb our conception of telepathy. For if once the startling fact that A’s mind can affect B’s at a distance be admitted, there seems no à priori reason for either affirming or denying that the conditions of this affection are favourable to a reverse telepathic communication from B’s mind to A’s. Indeed, if in our ignorance of the nature of these conditions any sort of surmise were legitimate, it might perhaps rather lean to the probability of the reciprocal influence; and the natural question might seem to be, not why this feature is present, but why it is so generally absent. Meanwhile it is enough to note the type, and observe that the telepathic theory, as so far evolved, will sufficiently cover it.
§ 9. Finally, the class of collective percipience (G) may be illustrated by an instance which (since visual cases have preponderated in this chapter) I will again select from the auditory group. It was received in the summer of 1885, from Mr. John Done, of Stockley Cottage, Stretton, Warrington.
(36) “My sister-in-law, Sarah Eustance, of Stretton, was lying sick unto death, and my wife was gone over to there from Lowton Chapel (12 or 13 miles off), to see her and tend her in her last moments. And on the night before her death (some 12 or 14 hours before) I was sleeping at home alone, and awaking, heard a voice distinctly call me. Thinking it was my niece, Rosanna, the only other occupant of the house, who might be sick or in trouble, I went to her room and found her awake and nervous. I asked her whether she had called me. She answered, ‘No; but something awoke me, when I heard someone calling!’
“On my wife returning home after her sister’s death, she told me how anxious her sister had been to see me, ‘craving for me to be sent for,’ and saying, ‘Oh, how I want to see Done once more!’ and soon after became speechless. But the curious part was that about the same time she was ‘craving,’ I and my niece heard the call.
“John Done.”
In a subsequent letter Mr. Done writes:—
“In answer to your queries respecting the voice or call that I heard on the night of July 2nd, 1866, I must explain that there was a strong sympathy and affection between myself and my sister-in-law, of pure brotherly and sisterly love; and that she was in the habit of calling me by the title of ‘Uncle Done,’ in the manner of a husband calling his wife {i-228} ‘mother’ when there are children, as in this case. Hence the call being ‘Uncle, uncle, uncle!’ leading me to think that it was my niece (the only-other occupant of the house that Sunday night) calling to me.
“Copy of funeral card: ‘In remembrance of the late Sarah Eustance, who died July 3rd, 1866, aged 45 years, and was this day interred at Stretton Church, July 6th, 1866.’
“My wife, who went from Lowton that particular Sunday to see her sister, will testify that as she attended upon her (after the departure of the minister), during the night she was wishing and craving to see me, repeatedly saying, ‘Oh, I wish I could see Uncle Done and Rosie once more before I go!’ and soon after then she became unconscious, or at least ceased speaking, and died the next day; of which fact I was not aware until my wife returned on the evening of the 4th of July.
“I hope my niece will answer for me; however, I may state that she reminds me that she thought I was calling her and was coming to me, when she met me in the passage or landing, and I asked her if she called me.
“I do not remember ever hearing a voice or call besides the above case.”
On August 7th, 1885, Mr. Done writes:—
“My wife being sick and weak of body, dictates the following statement to me:—
“I, Elizabeth Done, wife of John Done, and aunt to Rosanna Done (now Sewill), testify that, on the 2nd of July, 1866, I was attending upon my dying sister, Sarah Eustance, at Stretton, 12 miles from my home at Lowton Chapel, Newton le Willows; when during the night previous to her death, she craved for me to send for my husband and niece, as she wished to see them once more before she departed hence, saying often ‘Oh, I wish Done and Rosie were here. Oh, I do long to see Uncle Done.’ Soon after she became speechless and seemingly unconscious, and died some time during the day following.
“ELIZABETH DONE.”
Mr. Done adds:—
“Several incidents have come to my mind, one of which is that, feeling unsettled in my mind during the day after having heard the voice calling me, and feeling a presentiment that my dear sister-in-law was dead, I, towards evening, set off to meet a train at Newton Bridge, which I believed my wife would come by, returning home, if her sister was dead as I expected. There was an understanding that she was to stay at Stretton to attend upon Mrs. Eustance until her demise or convalescence.
“I met my wife some few hundred yards from the station, and could see by her countenance that my surmises were correct. She then told me the particulars of her sister’s death, how she longed to see me and Rosanna. I then told her of our being called by a voice resembling hers some time in the night previous, when she (my wife) said she (Mrs. Eustance) often repeated our names during the night before becoming unconscious.”
The niece, Mrs. Sewill, writes as follows:—
“11, Smithdown Lane, Paddington, Liverpool.
“August 21st, 1885.
“At my uncle’s and your request, I write to confirm the statement of uncle respecting the voice I heard, as follows: I was awakened suddenly without apparent cause, and heard a voice call me distinctly, thus: ‘Rosy, {i-229} Rosy, Rosy!’11 Each of the percipients, it will be noted, heard his or her own name. This point receives its explanation in Chap. xii., § 5. Thinking it was my uncle calling, I rose and went out of my room, and met my uncle coming to see if I was calling him.22 Mrs. Sewill, (who was 14 or 15 at the time) is certain that she is correct on this point; and in conversation with her uncle, I found that his memory agrees with hers. We were the only occupants of the house that night, aunt being away attending upon her sister. The night I was called was between 2nd and 3rd of July, 1866. I could not say the time I was called, but I know it was the break of day. I never was called before or since.
“ROSANNA SEWILL.”
[The last words—an answer to the question whether the narrator had ever experienced any other hallucination—perhaps need correction, as I learnt in conversation that on another occasion she (and two other persons in the same house) had been woke by a voice resembling that of a deceased relative. But she is by no means a fanciful or superstitious witness.]
The percipients in this case may perhaps have been in a somewhat anxious and highly-wrought state. Now that is a condition which—as we shall see in the sequel—tends occasionally to produce purely subjective hallucinations of the senses. It is true that the impression of a call which was imagined to be that of a healthy person close at hand, and was in no way suggestive of the dying woman, does not seem a likely form for subjective hallucination due to anxiety about her to take; still, the presence of the anxiety would have prevented us from including such a case in our evidence, had only a single person been impressed. But it must be admitted as a highly improbable accident that two startling impressions, so similar in character, and each unique in the life of the person who experienced it, should have so exactly coincided.
§ 10. The above may serve as examples of the several groups classified with reference to the nature of the percipient’s impression. But it will be seen that the agent has also been exhibited in a great variety of conditions—in normal waking health, in apparently dreamless sleep (pp. 103–9), in dream, in physical pain, in a swoon, in the excitement of danger, in dangerous illness, and in articulo mortis,
at the moment of death the death being in one case accidental and instantaneous, in another the result of a sudden seizure, and in others the conclusion of a prolonged illness. And amid this variety the reader will, no doubt, have been struck by the large proportion of death cases—a proportion which duly represents their general preponderance among alleged cases of spontaneous telepathy. They constitute about half of our whole collection. Now this fact raises a question with respect to the interpretation of the phenomena which may be conveniently noticed at once since it bears an equal relation to nearly all the {i-230} chapters that follow, while such answer as I can give to it depends to some extent on what has preceded.
We are, of course, accustomed to regard death as a completely unique and incomparably important event; and it might thus seem, on a superficial glance, that if spontaneous telepathy is possible, and the conditions and occasions of its occurrence are in question, no more likely occasion than death could be suggested. But on closer consideration, we are reminded that the actual psychical condition that immediately precedes death often does not seem to be specially or at all remarkable, still less unique; and that it is this actual psychical condition—while it lasts, and not after it has ceased—that really concerns us here. Our subject is phantasms of the living: we seek the conditions of the telepathic impulse on the hither side of the dividing line, in the closing passage of life; not in that huge negative fact—the apparent cessation or absence of life—on which the common idea of death and of its momentous importance is based. And the
(36) “My sister-in-law, Sarah Eustance, of Stretton, was lying sick unto death, and my wife was gone over to there from Lowton Chapel (12 or 13 miles off), to see her and tend her in her last moments. And on the night before her death (some 12 or 14 hours before) I was sleeping at home alone, and awaking, heard a voice distinctly call me. Thinking it was my niece, Rosanna, the only other occupant of the house, who might be sick or in trouble, I went to her room and found her awake and nervous. I asked her whether she had called me. She answered, ‘No; but something awoke me, when I heard someone calling!’
“On my wife returning home after her sister’s death, she told me how anxious her sister had been to see me, ‘craving for me to be sent for,’ and saying, ‘Oh, how I want to see Done once more!’ and soon after became speechless. But the curious part was that about the same time she was ‘craving,’ I and my niece heard the call.
“John Done.”
In a subsequent letter Mr. Done writes:—
“In answer to your queries respecting the voice or call that I heard on the night of July 2nd, 1866, I must explain that there was a strong sympathy and affection between myself and my sister-in-law, of pure brotherly and sisterly love; and that she was in the habit of calling me by the title of ‘Uncle Done,’ in the manner of a husband calling his wife {i-228} ‘mother’ when there are children, as in this case. Hence the call being ‘Uncle, uncle, uncle!’ leading me to think that it was my niece (the only-other occupant of the house that Sunday night) calling to me.
“Copy of funeral card: ‘In remembrance of the late Sarah Eustance, who died July 3rd, 1866, aged 45 years, and was this day interred at Stretton Church, July 6th, 1866.’
“My wife, who went from Lowton that particular Sunday to see her sister, will testify that as she attended upon her (after the departure of the minister), during the night she was wishing and craving to see me, repeatedly saying, ‘Oh, I wish I could see Uncle Done and Rosie once more before I go!’ and soon after then she became unconscious, or at least ceased speaking, and died the next day; of which fact I was not aware until my wife returned on the evening of the 4th of July.
“I hope my niece will answer for me; however, I may state that she reminds me that she thought I was calling her and was coming to me, when she met me in the passage or landing, and I asked her if she called me.
“I do not remember ever hearing a voice or call besides the above case.”
On August 7th, 1885, Mr. Done writes:—
“My wife being sick and weak of body, dictates the following statement to me:—
“I, Elizabeth Done, wife of John Done, and aunt to Rosanna Done (now Sewill), testify that, on the 2nd of July, 1866, I was attending upon my dying sister, Sarah Eustance, at Stretton, 12 miles from my home at Lowton Chapel, Newton le Willows; when during the night previous to her death, she craved for me to send for my husband and niece, as she wished to see them once more before she departed hence, saying often ‘Oh, I wish Done and Rosie were here. Oh, I do long to see Uncle Done.’ Soon after she became speechless and seemingly unconscious, and died some time during the day following.
“ELIZABETH DONE.”
Mr. Done adds:—
“Several incidents have come to my mind, one of which is that, feeling unsettled in my mind during the day after having heard the voice calling me, and feeling a presentiment that my dear sister-in-law was dead, I, towards evening, set off to meet a train at Newton Bridge, which I believed my wife would come by, returning home, if her sister was dead as I expected. There was an understanding that she was to stay at Stretton to attend upon Mrs. Eustance until her demise or convalescence.
“I met my wife some few hundred yards from the station, and could see by her countenance that my surmises were correct. She then told me the particulars of her sister’s death, how she longed to see me and Rosanna. I then told her of our being called by a voice resembling hers some time in the night previous, when she (my wife) said she (Mrs. Eustance) often repeated our names during the night before becoming unconscious.”
The niece, Mrs. Sewill, writes as follows:—
“11, Smithdown Lane, Paddington, Liverpool.
“August 21st, 1885.
“At my uncle’s and your request, I write to confirm the statement of uncle respecting the voice I heard, as follows: I was awakened suddenly without apparent cause, and heard a voice call me distinctly, thus: ‘Rosy, {i-229} Rosy, Rosy!’11 Each of the percipients, it will be noted, heard his or her own name. This point receives its explanation in Chap. xii., § 5. Thinking it was my uncle calling, I rose and went out of my room, and met my uncle coming to see if I was calling him.22 Mrs. Sewill, (who was 14 or 15 at the time) is certain that she is correct on this point; and in conversation with her uncle, I found that his memory agrees with hers. We were the only occupants of the house that night, aunt being away attending upon her sister. The night I was called was between 2nd and 3rd of July, 1866. I could not say the time I was called, but I know it was the break of day. I never was called before or since.
“ROSANNA SEWILL.”
[The last words—an answer to the question whether the narrator had ever experienced any other hallucination—perhaps need correction, as I learnt in conversation that on another occasion she (and two other persons in the same house) had been woke by a voice resembling that of a deceased relative. But she is by no means a fanciful or superstitious witness.]
The percipients in this case may perhaps have been in a somewhat anxious and highly-wrought state. Now that is a condition which—as we shall see in the sequel—tends occasionally to produce purely subjective hallucinations of the senses. It is true that the impression of a call which was imagined to be that of a healthy person close at hand, and was in no way suggestive of the dying woman, does not seem a likely form for subjective hallucination due to anxiety about her to take; still, the presence of the anxiety would have prevented us from including such a case in our evidence, had only a single person been impressed. But it must be admitted as a highly improbable accident that two startling impressions, so similar in character, and each unique in the life of the person who experienced it, should have so exactly coincided.