Phantasms of the Living - Volume I.. Frank Podmore

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 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 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.”

      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.

No. 1. ORIGINAL DRAWING.

      No. 1. REPRODUCTION.

      No. 2. ORIGINAL DRAWING.

      No. 2. REPRODUCTION.

      No. 3. ORIGINAL DRAWING.

      No. 3. REPRODUCTION.

      No. 4. ORIGINAL DRAWING.

      No. 4. REPRODUCTION.

      No. 5. ORIGINAL DRAWING.

      No. 5. REPRODUCTION.

      No. 6. ORIGINAL DRAWING.

      No. 6. REPRODUCTION.

      No. 7. ORIGINAL DRAWING.

      No. 7. REPRODUCTION.

      No. 8. ORIGINAL DRAWING.

      No. 8. REPRODUCTION.

      No. 9. ORIGINAL DRAWING.

      No. СКАЧАТЬ