Phantasms of the Living - Volume I.. Frank Podmore

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 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 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 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.

      Catherine Smith.—“Catherine Shaw” was said.

      Henry Cowper.—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 СКАЧАТЬ