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which was most prejudicial to their chance of scientific acceptance
§ 3. Hints of thought-transference between persons in a normal state were obtained by Professor Barrett in 1876; and just at that time the attention of others had been attracted to certain phenomena of the “willing-game,” which were not easily explicable (as almost all the so-called “willing” and “thought-reading” exhibitions are) by unconscious muscular guidance. But the issue could never be definitely decided by cases where the two persons concerned were in any sort of contact
§ 4. And even where contact is excluded, other possibilities of unconscious guidance must be taken into account; as also must the possibility of conscious collusion . Anyone who is unable to obtain conviction as to the bona fides of experiments by himself acting as agent or percipient (and so being himself one of the persons who would have to take part in the trick, if trick it were), may fairly demand that the responsibility for the results shall be spread over a considerable group of persons—a group so large that he shall find it impossible to extend to all of them the hypothesis of deceit (or of such imbecility as would take the place of deceit) which he might apply to a smaller number
§ 5. Experiments with the Creery family; earlier trials
More conclusive experiments, in which knowledge of what was to be transferred (usually the idea of a particular card, name, or number) was confined to the members of the investigating committee who acted as agents; with a table of results, and an estimate of probabilities
In many cases reckoned as failures there was a degree of approximate success which was very significant
The form of the impression in the percipient’s mind seems to have been sometimes visual and sometimes auditory
§ 6. Reasons why these experiments were not accessible to a larger number of observers; the chief reason being the gradual decline of the percipient faculty
§ 7. In a course of experiments of the same sort conducted by M. Charles Richet, in France, the would-be percipients were apparently not persons of any special susceptibility; but a sufficient number of trials were made for the excess of the total of successes over the total most probable if chance alone acted to be decidedly striking
The pursuit of this line of inquiry on a large scale in England has produced results which involve a practical certainty that some cause other than chance has acted
§ 8. Experiments in the reproduction of diagrams and rough drawings. In a long series conducted by Mr. Malcolm Guthrie, two percipients and a considerable number of agents were employed
Specimens of the results
§ 9. Professor Oliver J. Lodge’s experiments with Mr. Guthrie’s “subjects,” and his remarks thereon
§ 10. Experiments in the transference of elementary sensations—tastes, smells, and pains
§ 11. A different department of experiment is that where the transference does not take effect in the percipient’s consciousness, but is exhibited in his motor system, either automatically or semi-automatically. Experiments in the inhibition of utterance
§ 12. The most conclusive cases of transference of ideas which, nevertheless, do not affect the percipient’s consciousness are those where the idea is reproduced by the percipient in writing , without his being aware of what he has written. Details of a long series of trials carried out by the Rev. P. H. and Mrs. Newnham
The intelligence which acted on the percipient’s side in these experiments was in a sense an unconscious intelligence—a term which needs careful definition
§ 13. M. Richet has introduced an ingenious method for utilising what he calls “mediumship”—i.e ., the liability to exhibit intelligent movements in which consciousness and will take no part—for purposes of telepathic experiment. By this method it has been clearly shown that a word on which the agent concentrates his attention may be unconsciously reproduced by the percipient
And even that a word which has only an unconscious place in the agent’s mind may be similarly transferred
These phenomena seem to involve a certain impulsive quality in the transference
§ 14. Apart from serious and systematic investigation, interesting results are sometimes obtained in a more casual way, of which some specimens are given. It is much to be wished that more persons would make experiments, under conditions which preclude the possibility of unconscious guidance. At present we are greatly in the dark as to the proportion of people in whom the specific faculty exists
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CHAPTER III.
THE TRANSITION FROM EXPERIMENTAL TO SPONTANEOUS TELEPATHY.
§ 1. There is a certain class of cases in which, though they are experiments on the agent’s part, and involve his conscious concentration of mind with a view to the result, the percipient is not consciously or voluntarily a party to the experiment. Such cases may be called transitional . In them the distance between the two persons concerned is often considerable
§ 2. Spurious examples of the sort are often adduced; and especially in connection with mesmerism, results are often attributed to the operator’s will , which are really due to some previous command or suggestion. Still, examples are not lacking of the induction of the hypnotic trance in a “subject” at a distance, by the deliberate exercise of volition
§ 3. Illustrations of the induction or inhibition of definite actions by the agent’s volition, directed towards a person who is unaware of his intent
The relation of the will to telepathic experiments is liable to be misunderstood. The idea, which we encounter in romances, that one person may acquire and exercise at a distance a dangerous dominance over another’s actions, seems quite unsupported by evidence. An extreme example of what may really occur is given
§ 4. Illustrations of the induction of definite
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