Apparitions and thought-transference: an examination of the evidence for telepathy

Fourth Series.

The account of the following six trials at a distance in space and time, which are imperfectly recorded in the Annales, is taken from a letter received from M. Roux, dated the 19th December 1893:—

(10) Paris, 2nd April.—Lemaire having gone out I drew a card from the pack, the 9 Hearts, and tried to transfer it to him. Then I wrote a note to the following effect: "Guess the card that I am thinking of as I write these words," and left it on the table. A few minutes after Lemaire entered and guessed the 7 Hearts.

(11) 3rd April.—Lemaire was out. I drew a card from the pack, the ace Hearts, and tried to transfer it to him. As on the previous day, I left a note on the table and went out immediately. When I came back at midnight I found a line from Lemaire saying he had guessed the ace Hearts.

The four other experiments took place in a country town, at Chateauroux. We lived about 500 or 600 yards apart.

(12) 13th April.—In the morning I saw Lemaire and said to him, "At 2 o'clock you must guess a card that I shall suggest to you." I went home, and at a quarter to twelve I drew from the pack the 5 Hearts. I saw Lemaire again in the evening. He had guessed the 6 Hearts. He was walking in the street with a friend. At about two minutes to 2 P.M. he looked at his watch, remembered the experiment, and immediately the idea of Hearts came to him. A few minutes later, when alone, he tried to guess the exact card, and decided on the 6 Hearts.

(13) 13th April.—I said to Lemaire that on the 14th April, at 9 A.M., he was to guess a card. After going home on the 13th April, at 10 P.M. I drew a card from the pack—4 Clubs. Next day, at 9 A.M., Lemaire guessed 2 Clubs.

(14) July 17th.—Lemaire was to guess a card at 9 o'clock. At 10 minutes to 9, from my house, I tried to transfer the 4 Spades. (I have forgotten to make a note of whether I merely thought of this card or whether I drew it from a pack.) At 9 o'clock Lemaire guessed 5 Spades.

(15) 30th July.—This experiment is more complicated but none the less interesting. On the 30th July, at 11 A.M., Lemaire was to guess a card which I had tried to suggest to him on the 26th July. This card was the Knave Diamonds. But he forgot to do it, and did not remember to guess the card till 7 P.M. on the 30th July. Now on this same day, the 30th July, from 6 to 6.30 P.M. I was myself engaged in guessing a card by clairvoyance, and after many attempts I decided on 7 or 8 Clubs, and Lemaire, guessing the card at 7 P.M., also decided upon 7 Clubs. So that I had suggested the card to him unconsciously.

Thus, omitting the last trial as of doubtful interpretation, we find that in 14 trials the card was guessed correctly twice, the number alone once, and the suit alone nine times, or three times the probable number.

Transference of Visual Impressions.

In the four cases which follow the impression was of a well-marked visual character; reaching, indeed, in the two last to the level of actual hallucination. It should be observed that in none of these four cases is the possibility of chance coincidence so entirely precluded as in many of the experiments at close quarters already cited. In the first of the cases recorded by Dr. Gibotteau (No. 40), and in some of Mr. Kirk's experiments (No. 37), the luminous patches seen by the percipients are not unlike rudimentary hallucinations of a sufficiently common type, and their resemblance in these instances to the objects actually looked at or thought of by the agents should not therefore be pressed very far. In the other cases, however, the percipient received a well-marked impression of a definite object. But here there is a flaw of another kind. The coincidences may have been due, as indeed Miss Campbell (No. 35) is careful to suggest, to a lucky shot on the part of the percipient at the object the agent would be likely to choose. The very distinct nature of the impression produced in each case upon the percipient, as contrasted with the vague images called up, e.g. in Miss Campbell's case, by more or less conscious conjecture, is, however, against this interpretation; and the fact that in the first narrative the experiments quoted were the culmination of a successful series of experiments at close quarters tells in favour of a telepathic explanation for these also.

No. 35.—By MISS CAMPBELL and MISS DESPARD.

A series of experiments in thought-transference at close quarters had been carried on by the narrators at intervals from November 1891 to October 1892. In sending the account of these experiments at a distance, Miss Campbell explains that in the trial on October 25th, "there was first an auditory impression, as if some one had said the word 'gloves,' and then the gloves themselves were visualised."

(No. 1.) "June 22nd, 1892.

"Arranged that R. C. Despard should, when at the School of Medicine in Handel Street, W.C., between 11.50 and 11.55, fix her attention upon some object which C. M. Campbell, at 77 Chesterton Road, W., is by thought-transference to discover."

PERCIPIENT'S ACCOUNT.

"Owing to an unexpected delay, instead of being quietly at home at 11.50 A.M., I was waiting for my train at Baker Street, and as just at that time trains were moving away from both platforms, and there was the usual bustle going on, I thought it hopeless to try on my part; but just while I was thinking this I felt a sort of mental pull-up, which made me feel sure that Miss Despard was fixing her attention, and directly after I felt 'my—compasses—no, scalpel,' seemed to see a flash of light as if on bright steel, and I thought of two scalpels, first with their points together, and then folding together into one; just then my train came up.

"I write this down before having seen Miss Despard, so am still in ignorance whether I am correct in my surmise, but as I know what Miss Despard would probably be doing at ten minutes to twelve, I feel that that knowledge may have suggested the thought to me—though this idea did not occur to me until just this minute, as I have written it down.

"C. M. CAMPBELL.

"77 Chesterton Road, W."

AGENT'S ACCOUNT.

"At ten minutes to twelve I concentrated my mind on an object that happened to be in front of me at the time—two scalpels, crossed with their points together—but in about five minutes, as it occurred to me that the knowledge that I was then at the School of Medicine might suggest a similar idea to Miss Campbell, I tried to bring up a country scene, of a brook running through a field, with a patch of yellow marsh marigolds in the foreground. This second idea made no impression on Miss Campbell—perhaps owing to the bustle around her at the time.

"R. C. DESPARD."

(No. 2.) "October 25th, 1892.

"At 3.30 P.M. R. C. Despard is to fix her attention on some object, and C. M. Campbell, being in a different part of London, is by thought-transference to find out what that object is."

PERCIPIENT'S ACCOUNT.

"At 3.30 I was at home at 77 Chesterton Road, North Kensington, alone in the room.

"First my attention seemed to flit from one object to another while nothing definite stood out, but soon I saw a pair of gloves, which became more distinct till they appeared as a pair of baggy tan-coloured kid gloves, certainly a size larger than worn by either R. C. D. or myself, and not quite like any of ours in colour. After this I saw a train going out of a station (I had just returned from seeing some one off at Victoria), almost immediately obliterated by a picture of a bridge over a small river, but I felt that I was consciously thinking and left off the experiment, being unable to clear my mind sufficiently of outside things."

AGENT'S ACCOUNT.

"At 3.30 on October 25th I was at 30 Handel Street, Brunswick Square, W.C. C. M. C. and myself had arranged beforehand to make an experiment in thought-transference at that hour, I to try to transfer some object to her mind, the nature of which was entirely unspecified. I picked up a pair of rather old tan-coloured gloves—purposely not taking a pair of my own—and tried for about five minutes to concentrate my attention on them and the wish to transfer an impression of them to C. M. C.'s mind. After this I fixed my attention on a window, but felt my mind getting tired and therefore rather disturbed by the constant sound of omnibuses and waggons passing the open window.

"R. C. DESPARD.
"October 25th, 1892."

Miss Campbell writes later:—

"77 CHESTERTON ROAD, NORTH KENSINGTON, W.,
November 24th, 1892.

"With regard to the distant experiments, the notes sent to you were the only ones made. In the first experiment (scalpels) I wrote my account before Miss Despard's return, and when Miss Despard returned, before seeing what I had written [she] told me what she had thought of, and almost directly wrote it down.

"In the second experiment (gloves), I was just going to write my account when Miss Despard returned home, and she asked me at once, 'Well, what did I think of?' and I told her a pair of tan gloves—then sat down and wrote my account, and, when she read it through, she said, 'Yes, you have exactly described Miss M.'s gloves, which I was holding while I fixed my attention on them,' and then she wrote her account."

The next account is taken from the Annales des Sciences Psychiques, vol. iii. pp. 114-116. M. Hennique, the agent, had acted as agent in four experiments at a distance with another percipient in the previous year (Annales, vol. i. pp. 262-265). In the first the percipient saw vague lights, and finally a vase of flowers (very clear); the agent was looking at a lamp covered by a transparent shade, with a vase of flowers painted on it. In the second the percipient again saw vague lights, and then a luminous sphere; the agent was looking at the lamp globe placed on the table in full light. In the third, the percipient only saw brilliant lights, like stars or jewels; the agent was looking at the word Dieu, in big letters. In the fourth the percipient, to his astonishment, saw nothing; the agent had willed him to see nothing. In each case the percipient's impression was recorded in writing before any communication was received from the agent. In the present case, it will be seen, the percipient received, not the impression which the agent wished to transfer, but the image of another object within the agent's field of vision, and which had entered his thoughts in connection with this very experiment.

No. 36.—From M. LEON HENNIQUE and M. D.

"On Friday, the 8th of July last, my friend Hennique and I made a further experiment in telepathy. Hennique was away from Paris, and separated from me by a distance of 171 kilomètres. At midnight I wrote to Hennique the following letter:—

"'PARIS, July 8th, 1892, midnight.

"'MY DEAR HENNIQUE,—A friend came unexpectedly to dinner. At 10.30, looking through the open window at the blue sky under the full moon, I thought all of a sudden of the experiment planned by us, of the telepathic meeting that we had fixed for eleven o'clock this evening, and my brain received at the same time the impression of a puppet. It seemed to me that you were trying to show me a little cardboard man fitted with strings to make his arms and legs move.

"'Reminded by this impression of my telepathic duty, I said good-night to my friend, and at eleven o'clock I waited, with my eyes closed, in the darkness of the dining-room. Nothing happened till twelve or fifteen minutes past eleven, when there appeared to me for an instant a small black silhouette, a Chinese shadow, as if you had cut out a little black figure and placed it in front of a light; for the round part, which seemed to be its head, was surrounded by a bluish halo. It was mostly this little black sphere—which I thought was a head—that I saw; the body I rather deduced than saw. 'D.'

"M. Hennique replied to me as follows:—

"'RIBEMONT (AISNÉ), Sunday, 10th July 1892.

"'MY DEAR FRIEND,—It was a bottle full of water, surmounted by its cut-glass stopper, a large stopper, very bright, that served for our experiment. But the most curious part of the affair is that about four inches from the bottle there was actually hanging on the wall a nigger-doll, of the kind which you describe, belonging to my daughter. Was it reflected on the crystal? A mystery! For one second, but scarcely for a second, I had intended to telepathise the jumping-jack to you before choosing the water-bottle. It is certainly very odd!

"'LEON HENNIQUE.'

"M. Hennique added to this letter a water-colour drawing of the above-mentioned 'nigger-doll.' The head is a black circle, in which only the lips are red; the arms and legs are black; the chest is white, crossed with red; arms, thighs, and legs are jointed, and can be worked by a string.

"I wrote to my friend to ask him if, at 10.30—that is to say, at the moment when I had conceived of a jumping-jack, he had not, on his part, thought at the same moment, of the same object. He answered me:—

"'RIBEMONT, 14th July 1892.

"'No; at 10.30 I was not thinking in the least of the jumping-jack; but, if I remember rightly, once or twice last year I wished to make use of it. It was only at the moment of choosing a simple object for the experiment that for an instant the idea of that little man came into my head; it was, you see, before beginning our experiment. This puppet was not four inches, but only two inches away from the water-bottle. There is something very curious in it, a physical or psychical effect, which I can't account for. The more so that this doll, in cardboard mounted on strings, is always fixed to the wall, above the table from which I am sending you my good wishes. It must have been about 9 o'clock, while tidying the before-mentioned table, that I had the idea of transmitting to you the image of the jumping-jack.

"'LEON HENNIQUE.'"

No. 37.—By MR. JOSEPH KIRK and MISS G.

During the year 1890 and onwards, Mr. Joseph Kirk, of 2 Ripon Villas, Plumstead, has carried on with a friend, Miss G., a series of experiments in thought-transference at a distance varying from 400 yards to about 200 miles. Some account of these experiments will be found in the Journal of the S.P.R. for February and July 1891 and January 1892. There are 22[68] trials in the transference of diagrams, etc., there recorded. The object looked at by Mr. Kirk was generally a square or oblong card, or a white disc with or without a picture, diagram, or letter on it. The object was always illuminated by a strong light.

Notes of the experiments were in every case made independently in writing by agent and percipient. In each case, with the exception of two occasions (on which Mr. Kirk's notes record his anticipation of failure), the percipient saw luminous appearances, often taking the form of round or square patches of light, in correspondence with the shape of the surface looked at by the agent. When Miss G. was at Pembroke or Ilfracombe (Mr. Kirk remaining at Plumstead) the correspondence did not go beyond this; but in two or three cases, when Miss G. was also at Plumstead, at a distance of only 400 yards, the percipient appears to have seen some details of the diagram on the card, and in one instance a fairly accurate reproduction of the diagram was given. Mr. Kirk on this occasion, 5th June 1891, was trying to impress three percipients—of whom Miss G. was one—and used three diagrams, viz., a Maltese cross, a white oval plate with the figure 3 on it, and a full-sized drawing of a man's hand in black on white. Miss G.'s report is as follows:—

"5/6/91. Sat last night from 11.15 to 11.45. After a few minutes wavy clouds appeared [these are drawn as a group of roundish objects], followed by a pale bluish light very bright in centre. [This is drawn of an indefinite oval shape with roundish white spot in centre.] Near the end of experiment saw a larger luminous form, lasting only a moment but reappearing three or four times; it had lines or spikes about half an inch wide darting from it in varied positions."

Appended are reproductions of Miss G.'s original drawings of her impression, which bear, it will be seen, a marked likeness to a man's hand.

It should be added that Miss G. has not had any hallucinations of the kind except at times when Mr. Kirk was experimenting; and the amount of correspondence between her visions and the images which Mr. Kirk endeavoured to transfer would certainly seem beyond what chance could produce.

No. 38.—By MR. KIRK and MISS G.

A further series of seven trials with the same percipient in April-June 1892 produced some interesting results. Full notes of the experiments were, as in the previous cases, made by Mr. Kirk and Miss G. independently. Mr. Kirk wrote his notes immediately after the conclusion of the experiments, which were made late in the evening, at a time previously agreed upon. Miss G., who was in the dark, and as a rule in bed, wrote her notes on the following morning before hearing from Mr. Kirk. No diagrams were used in this series, "the object being," in Mr. Kirk's words, "to test the possibility of influencing the imagination, and inducing the percipient to visualise hallucinatory figures of persons or animals thought of by the agent." Miss G. knew only that diagrams would not be used. The distance between agent and percipient was about 400 yards.

In the first three trials (April 10th, 17th, and 24th, 1892) Mr. Kirk pictured to himself some ducks in a room, a witch, and other figures. On the 17th Miss G. saw at one time a small sunlike light, but with this exception she had no impression at all on any of the three occasions.

At the fourth trial (1st May) Miss G. records the same night that she saw "a broken circle , then only patches of faint light, not cloudlike, but flat, which alternated with vertical streaks of pale light." Afterwards, however, she had another vision, which she thus records on the following morning before meeting Mr. Kirk:—

"Soon after lying down last night, I had a rapid but most realistic glimpse of Mr. Kirk leaning against his dining-room mantelpiece; the room seemed brightly lighted, and he looked rather bothered, and just as I saw him he appeared to say, 'Doctor,[69] I haven't got my pipe.' This seems very absurd, the more so as I do not know whether Mr. Kirk ever smokes a pipe. I see him occasionally with a cigar or cigarette, but cannot remember ever seeing him with a pipe; if I have, it must have been years ago. I do not know whether my eyes were open or closed, but the vividness of the impression quite startled me. This occurred just after the expiration of time appointed for experiment (10.45-11.15)."

Mr. Kirk reports in his account of the trial, written on the 1st May, that he tried to transfer an image of himself, sitting on a low chair, and also the part of the room facing him in the light of the lamp. But after seeing Miss G.'s report, he adds—

"The fact that I had another experiment to make [i.e., after the trial with Miss G.] enables me to trace minutely my actions before beginning it. Immediately the time had expired with Miss G., I got up and rapidly lit the gas and three pieces of candle, which I had ready in the cardboard box-cover, to illuminate the diagram. The room was therefore brilliantly lighted. I now rested with my right shoulder against the mantelpiece, with my face towards Miss G., but with my eyes bent on the carpet. In this position I thought intensely of myself and the whole room, and feeling really anxious to make a success, for at least six minutes. By this time my shoulder was aching very much with the constrained attitude and the pressure on the mantelpiece, and I broke off, using words (talking to myself) very similar to those given by Miss G. What I muttered, as nearly as I can remember, was, 'Now, Doctor, I'll get my pipe.'... Until within the last few weeks I have not smoked a pipe for many years, and I do not think it probable that Miss G. has ever seen me use one; but it is an absolute certainty that she was not aware I had taken to smoke one recently."

In the fifth experiment of the series, made on the 9th May, the impression which appears to have been transferred was fortunately recorded beforehand. Mr. Kirk's report of that date, after describing an attempt to transfer an image of the room, and of an imaginary witch, runs as follows:—

"Continued to influence her some minutes after limit of time for experiment (11.30 P.M.). During this time I was much bothered by a subcurrent of thought, which I in vain strove to cast off. In the morning, just before time to get up, I had a vivid dream of my lost dog ('Laddie').[70] I dreamt he had returned, and that my wife, Miss G., and myself, made much of him. I thought of him all day, and tried to suppress the thought, fearing it would interfere with the success of experiment; feel worried and irritated at this, being really anxious to make an impression. Do not expect favourable result. Written same night. "J. K."

Miss G.'s report is as follows:—

"Experiment last night (9-5-92) most unsatisfactory. Saw only a glow of light and once for a few seconds a figure [of a vase]. Some minutes after 11.30 (time for conclusion of experiment) it seemed as if the door of my room were open, and on the landing I saw a very large dog, moving as though it had just come upstairs. I cannot conceive what suggested this, nor can I understand why I thought of Laddie during time of experiment. I do not think we have mentioned him recently. My door was locked as usual. "L. G."

The sixth experiment (15th May 1892) was, in the words of Mr. Kirk's contemporary report, "devoted to making hypnotic passes, done with great energy and concentration of mind. The passes were made, not only over Miss G.'s [imagined] face and arms, but specially over her hands," with the view of inducing hypnotic sleep.

Miss G. reports that she "fell asleep before the time arranged had expired. But it was only to awake again very soon, through dreaming I was in a basement room ... making frantic efforts to strike a match, prevented doing so by some one behind clasping my wrists. The sensation was so unpleasantly real that it awoke me." The time fixed for the experiment had then passed. This was the only occasion in this series on which Miss G. went to sleep during an experiment.

In the seventh experiment (5th June 1892) Mr. Kirk again made passes to send Miss G. to sleep. Miss G., on her side, saw only something "like the varied but regular movements one sees in turning a kaleidoscope, only without the colouring; it was simply luminous, and lasted more or less distinctly from 15 to 20 minutes." This impression may conceivably have been due, as Mr. Kirk suggests, to the regular movements of his hands in making the hypnotic passes.

In estimating the value of the coincidences between Mr. Kirk's thought and Miss G.'s impressions in the fourth and fifth trials, it should not be overlooked that the percipient's impressions were not vague images, such as are wont to crowd through our minds on the near approach of sleep, but clear-cut visions, approximating to visual hallucinations.

No. 39.—By MR. KIRK and MISS PRICKETT.

Mr. Kirk conducted another short series of experiments in March 1892, with Miss L. M. Prickett, the distance between agent and percipient being about twelve miles. The results are given below. It is to be noted that the percipient's impressions in this series seem generally to have been deferred. But in weighing the amount of correspondence between the diagrams and the percipient's reproductions, it should be observed that of the four diagrams employed, three were reproduced with substantial accuracy, and in their chronological order; and that even on the second and third evenings the percipient's impressions—rectilinear figures inscribed in a circle—bore a general resemblance to the diagram actually selected. It is perhaps unfortunate that three out of the four diagrams included circles or figures akin to circles, but as the percipient had not seen any of the diagrams beforehand, this circumstance does not in any way invalidate the results, though it weakens the argument against chance-coincidence.

Mr. Kirk has conducted several other series of experiments in the transfer of diagrams and ideas and in the induction of hypnotic sleep at a distance, with Miss G., Miss Porter, of 16 Russell Square, Mr. F. W. Hayes, and others. In one case the percipient was at Cambridge, a distance of more than fifty miles from Plumstead. The results in nearly all these cases raise a certain presumption of thought-transference, though the presumption is in most cases—owing partly to the conditions of the experiments—not so strong as in the two series last quoted. It is to be remarked that the series of experiments between Plumstead and Cambridge were perhaps the least successful of any, a result which may perhaps be attributed partly to the distance, partly to the fact that the agent and percipient were not personally acquainted.

It should be recorded that Mr. Kirk is strongly of opinion, as the result of a careful analysis of the experiments conducted by him, that telepathy, in these cases at any rate, operates as a rule subconsciously, and that we ought to be prepared to find the most striking proofs of its action in such undesigned coincidences as are quoted in Nos. 4 and 5 of the second series with Miss G.

No. 40.—From DR. GIBOTTEAU.

Dr. Gibotteau, in the year 1888, made the acquaintance, at a crèche in connection with a Paris hospital, of a peasant woman named Bertha J. Bertha was a good hypnotic, and Dr. Gibotteau succeeded on many occasions in inducing sleep at a distance. But Bertha claimed also to have the power of influencing others telepathically—a power which in her case seems to have been hereditary, as her mother had a reputation for sorcery. Bertha professed to be able, by the exercise of her will, to cause persons to stumble, or to lose their way, or to prevent them from proceeding in any given direction. She gave Dr. Gibotteau several illustrations of these powers, and he believes her pretensions to be well founded (Annales des Sciences Psychiques, vol. ii. pp. 253-267, and pp. 317-337). The following instances of hallucinatory effects of a more ordinary kind are taken from the same paper. In the last case, it will be observed, the experience was collective. In none of the three cases were the percipients aware of Bertha's intention to experiment. It will be seen that in the second case she succeeded in producing the emotional effect desired, though the imaginary object by which she intended to inspire terror was hardly of a kind calculated to frighten a hospital surgeon. Dr. Gibotteau writes:—

"I am a good sleeper, and I do not remember ever waking of my own accord in the middle of my sleep. One night, about 2 or 3 o'clock, I was abruptly awoke. With my eyes still shut I thought, 'This is one of B.'s tricks. What is she going to make me see?' I then looked at the opposite wall; I saw a circular luminous spot, and in the centre a brilliant object, about the size of a melon, that I stared at for several seconds, being wide awake, before it disappeared. I could not distinguish any form clearly, nor any detail, but the object was round, and parts of it appeared to be less luminous. I imagined that she had wished to show me a skull, but I could not recognise it; the wall was lighted up in that place as if by a strong lamp; the room was not completely dark, because the window had outside blinds, and the curtains were drawn back; but this brilliant object did not seem to give out any light beyond the area of which it occupied the centre on the wall. That was all. I waited a moment without seeing anything else, then I went fast asleep again. The next day I found Bertha, who had come to visit the hospital, and I questioned her cautiously. She had tried to show me first of all some dogs round my bed, then some men quarrelling, and finally a lantern. That was all. It will be seen that though the first two attempts failed, the third succeeded perfectly.

"After that, Bertha very often tried to hallucinate me; but I have never either seen or heard anything.

"I was more sensible to transmissions of a vague and general character. I have written elsewhere of illusions of the sense of space: I had a complete illusion of this kind, and P. a very curious commencement of an hallucination. I have also described the causeless terror that Bertha could inspire.

"Here is another account of a fright. One evening I was entering my house, at midnight. On the landing, as I was putting my hand on the door-handle, I said to myself, 'What a nuisance! here is another of B.'s tricks! She is going to make me see something terrifying in the passage; it is very disagreeable.' I was really a bit nervous. I opened the door suddenly, with my eyes shut, and seized a match; in a few minutes I was in bed, and, blowing out my candle, I put my head under the bed-clothes, like a child. The next day Bertha asked me if I had not seen a skeleton in the passage or in my room, and been very much frightened. It need hardly be said that a skeleton was the last thing in the world that could frighten me; and frankly, I think that I am not more of a coward than the common run of men."

On another occasion Dr. Gibotteau was in the company of a friend, M. P. They had just parted from Bertha.

"After having deposited B. near her home, we went back to the Latin Quarter with the carriage. On reaching the Rue de Vaugirard, before the gate of the Luxembourg, I felt myself seized by a terror intense as it was absurd. The street was admirably lighted, there was not a single passer-by, and the Quarter at that hour (just about midnight) is perfectly safe. Moreover, this fright did not seem to depend on any cause. It was fear just for fear. 'It is absurd,' said I, 'I am frightened, very much frightened; it is certainly a trick of B.'s.' My friend laughed at me, and almost immediately, 'Why, it is taking hold of me also. I am trembling with fear. It is very disagreeable.' The impression lasted until we were in front of the gate of the Luxembourg Palace; we got out of the carriage at the corner of the Rue Soufflot and the Boulevard Saint-Michel. As soon as we set foot on the ground: 'Look,' said P., 'don't you see something white floating in the air, there, just in front of our eyes; it has gone.' I saw nothing, but I felt very strongly the influence of B.

"The next day I met her at the hospital. 'Well! you saw nothing?' I begged her to tell me what we ought to have seen. This was her answer: 'First, your driver lost his way—oh! not you, you felt nothing; he took you by all sorts of queer ways.' It is a fact that our carriage, from the Rue de Babylone, had gone by a very complicated way, and one which, at the time, did not seem to me the right one, but I should not like to say anything definite about it. 'After that you were frightened.' (Which of us?) 'You at first, M. P. afterwards. Oh, yes! afraid of nothing at all, without any reason, but you were very frightened. Then you saw some white pigeons flying round you, quite near.' I had never heard her speak of this hallucination. As to the fright, that subject was familiar to her, and she has frightened me several times, deliberately, as I have related."

CHAPTER VI.

If the reader has been able to accept my estimate of the evidence brought forward in the preceding chapters, the possibility of the transmission of ideas and sensations, otherwise than through the known channels of the senses, must be held to be proved by the experiments there recorded. That proof can be impugned only on the ground that the precautions taken against communication between agent and percipient by normal means were insufficient. For if the precautions are admitted to have been sufficient, there can be no question that the results were not due to chance. It is not necessary here to enter into nice calculations of the probabilities. If, for instance, the odds in favour of some other cause than chance for the results recorded on pp. 66-69 were to be expressed in figures, the total sum would compete with or outstrip the stupendous ciphers employed by the astronomer to denote the distance of Sirius, or the weight of the Sun. But the kind of evidence now to be considered—the coincidence of some spontaneous affection of the percipient with some event in the life-history of the person presumed to be the agent, as when one sees the apparition of a friend at the time of his death—is of inferior cogency in two ways. The coincidences are neither so numerous nor so exact; and the risk of error in the record is far greater. On the one hand, therefore, there is a greater probability that the percipient's affection, even if correctly described, was unconnected with the state of the person supposed to be the agent; on the other hand we have, in most cases, less assurance that the description given of his experience is in its essential features accurate. The part played by coincident hallucination in the question of telepathy may be illustrated from another branch of scientific inquiry. For some years the "Germ Theory" rested mainly on observations of the distribution of certain diseases, their periodic character and their mode of propagation and development; phenomena which, though sufficiently striking, are not in themselves susceptible of exact interpretation. It was not until the minute organisms, whose existence had been so long suspected, had been actually isolated in the laboratory, and had been proved capable of reproducing the disease, that the connection of certain maladies with the presence of certain microbes in the body became, from a plausible hypothesis, an accepted conclusion of Science. So here it is important to bear in mind that dreams, visions, and apparitions, however captivating to the imagination, do not form the main argument for believing in some new mode of communication between human minds. If all the cases of the kind hitherto recorded could be shown one by one to be explicable by more familiar causes,—though the result would indeed be to add a remarkable chapter to the history of human error; though it would be a singular paradox that so many intelligent witnesses should have been so mistaken, and with such undesigned unanimity; and that a whole class of alleged phenomena should have sprung up without any substantial basis,—the grounds for the belief in telepathy would not be seriously affected; we should merely have to modify our conceptions of its nature, and restrict its boundaries. But in fact there is no reason to anticipate so lame a conclusion. The incidents, of which examples will be adduced in the succeeding chapters, though their value will be differently estimated by different minds, are yet in their aggregate not such as can plausibly be attributed to misrepresentation or chance coincidence. And, first, it is important to note that the cases must be considered in the aggregate. Separately, no doubt, each particular case is susceptible of more or less adequate explanation by some well-known cause; and in the last resort it would be unreasonable to stake the credit of any single witness, however eminent, against what Hume would call the uniform experience of mankind. But as a matter of fact the experience of mankind is not uniform in this matter; and when we are forced by the mere accumulation of testimony to go on adding one strained and improbable explanation to another, and to assume at last an epidemic of misrepresentation, perhaps even an organised conspiracy of falsehood, a point is at length reached in which the sum of improbabilities involved in the negation of thought-transference must outweigh the single improbability of a new mode of mental affection. If to any reader that point should seem not yet to have been reached—and the position could scarcely be held an unreasonable one—I would remind him that the cases quoted in this book form but a small part of the evidence so far accumulated; and I would ask that he should reserve his judgment until he has studied the whole of the evidence recorded in Phantasms of the Living, in the Proceedings of the American Society for Psychical Research, the scattered cases appearing from time to time in the pages of various English and Continental periodicals dealing with this subject, and the ever-growing mass of testimony printed in the Proceedings and Journal of the Society for Psychical Research in this country.[71] He will then perhaps be prepared to endorse the verdict of a shrewd and genial critic on the evidence presented in Phantasms of the Living, viz., that it "can only be rejected as a whole by one who is prepared to repeat at his leisure what David is reported to have said in his haste."[72]

It is of course not possible with our present knowledge to estimate with any precision the probabilities for the coincidence by chance of such a vision as that recorded by Dr. Dupré (No. 47), or such a dream as Mr. Hamilton's (No. 58), with the event represented. Neither the nature of the percipient's impression in these and similar cases, nor the event to which the impression corresponds, are sufficiently well defined to admit of any numerical argument being based upon them. We can only recognise that whilst dreams and mind's-eye pictures are not very uncommon experiences, dreams and visions which faithfully reflect external events of an unlikely kind occur, if rarely, with sufficient frequency to give us pause. The common sense which in such cases leads us to infer a connection between the event and the corresponding mental experience is our only guide. But one large class of our spontaneous evidences is susceptible of more exact treatment. Sensory hallucinations are affections at once well marked and unusual. If we can ascertain their relative frequency it is possible to calculate with more or less exactness the probabilities of the coincidence by chance with some definite event. Such a calculation has been attempted in Chapter IX. with regard to hallucinations of a certain well-defined type coinciding with the death of the person represented. The conclusion there reached is that such coincidences are far too numerous to be ascribed to chance. This part of the evidence cannot therefore be summarily dismissed, as suggested by more than one recent critic, on the plea that hallucinations which coincide with a death may be set off against hallucinations which occur without any coincidence, and both alike be regarded as purely subjective and without significance. Our own estimate of the probabilities is, of course, provisional, and may ultimately prove to be wide of the mark. But, meanwhile, it is at least proof against assault by conjectural statistics or the obiter dicta of amateur psychologists.

But in fact the criticism commonly made is not that, happening as described, visions and hallucinations happened by chance; but that they did not happen as described. This objection deserves careful consideration. It must, I think, be admitted that a proportion, perhaps a large proportion, even of the cases obtained at first-hand are so far inaccurate as to have comparatively small value for scientific purposes; and of the residue, in which the central fact of an unusual subjective experience on the part of the percipient and its coincidence with some external event is fairly well established, it is possible that the details are frequently—and where the record is not made until some years after the event, generally—untrustworthy. In order to estimate the nature and probable extent of these defects, it is proposed briefly to pass in review the various kinds of error to which testimony is liable, and to note their bearings on the question at issue.

Errors of Observation.

Errors of observation are here of very little importance. The thing to be observed is, of course, the percipient's own sensations. In subsequent conversation he may exaggerate the exceptional nature of the impression; but he can hardly make a mistake at the time in observing what is purely subjective. If a man calls green what we call red, we may conclude that he is colour-blind; and if he asserts that he sees a human figure where we see none, that he is hallucinated; but in neither case have we warrant for saying that he is making an erroneous statement about his own sensations.

Errors of Inference.

But his interpretation of what he sees is a different matter. Not indeed that the mistake commonly made of taking a hallucination at the time for a figure of flesh and blood, and subsequently for a hypothetical entity of another kind, directly affects the percipient's testimony. So long as the witness accurately describes what he saw, it matters little whether he believes in telepathic hallucinations, or in black magic, ghosts, or the Himalayan Brothers. But there are one or two errors of inference of sufficient importance to deserve notice.

A real figure seen under exceptional circumstances may at the time or in the light of subsequent events be regarded as a hallucination. Such a mistake is, as a rule, possible only out of doors; and the commonest form of it is when a figure is seen by the percipient resembling some friend believed to be at a distance, or in circumstances which make it difficult to suppose that the figure was of flesh and blood. A curious instance came under my notice recently. It was reported to me that a lady had seen in a certain provincial town the ghost of a friend at about the time of her death. The figure, accompanied by another figure, was seen in broad daylight at a distance of a few feet only; it was clearly recognised, and the proof of its non-reality lay in the complete absence of recognition in return. It was subsequently ascertained that the friend in question had actually been present in the flesh, with a companion, at the spot where the figures were seen, but that for sufficient reasons she desired to avoid recognition. Her death within a few days of the encounter was merely an odd coincidence.

Another kind of erroneous inference is worth noting. Cases are not infrequently quoted, as presumably telepathic, of a dream or vision embodying information demonstrably not within the conscious knowledge of the percipient. The inference that he cannot have obtained the information by normal means is clearly unsound, unless it can be shown that it was impossible for the information to have been received unconsciously. For it is well established that intelligence, even of events closely affecting the percipient, may enter through the external organs of sense and lie latent for days before emerging into consciousness. It is obvious that, for instance, many of the cases quoted in which an invalid became aware of news (e.g., of the death of a relative) which had been studiously withheld from him by those around may be thus explained. Whispers heard in sleep, or hints unconsciously received, may have betrayed the secret.[73]

Errors of Narration.

Of much greater importance than errors of observation or inference are those due to defects either in narration or memory. Deliberate deception amongst educated persons is no doubt comparatively rare, though it would perhaps be unwise to hold out any pecuniary inducement for the production of evidence. But there are those, like Colonel Capadose in Mr. Henry James' story The Liar, who tell ghost stories for art's sake, and on a slender basis of fact build up a large superstructure of fiction. And there are many more who, with a natural and almost pardonable desire to appear as the hero, or at least the raconteur, of a good story, or from the mere love of the marvellous, allow themselves to exaggerate the coincidences, adjust the dates, elaborate the details, or otherwise improve the too bare facts of an actual experience. This kind of embellishment, however, is probably more frequent in second-hand accounts, where the narrator speaks with less sense of responsibility, and, it may be added, of reality.

Again, a common form of inaccuracy is to quote as the experience of a friend one of those weird stories which are passed on from mouth to mouth in ordinary society—the inconvertible currency of psychical research. We all know these old friends—at a distance, for no one has ever succeeded in making their nearer acquaintance. There is the ghost at No. 50 B—— Square; the driver of the dream-hearse, recognised a year later in a lift, which fell straightway, with all its passengers, to the bottom of the hotel; the Form which accompanies the priest, or Quaker, or godly merchant to save him from robbery on his lonely nocturnal journeyings; the young lady who took part in some tableaux vivants whilst her body was lying cold in death—and all the rest of the phantom throng. Only a few months ago I heard one of them—it was the ghost of the lift—from the son of a doctor, who assured me that the incident occurred to one of his father's patients, and gave me the name of the foreign hotel which had been the scene of the disaster.[74]

Sometimes a story is improved by the narrator that it may the better serve for instruction and edification. This tendency is especially liable to distort the evidence in cases connected with death. It must be remembered that though we may view a coincident hallucination, for instance, as merely an instance of an idea transferred from a living mind, to the percipient it frequently represents the spirit of the dead. From a certain class of witnesses the account of such an incident is as little to be trusted as the text of an apocryphal gospel. It inevitably becomes a Tendenz-schrift, which reflects not the facts as they occurred, but the narrator's conception of what the facts ought to have been.

It is not necessary to dwell on these sources of error, for they are probably apparent to all; and to give illustrative cases would be superfluous, and perhaps invidious. But it is important to observe that stories so improved, whether from a desire to reinforce some theological tenet, or from the mere love of sensation, are apt to betray their origin in many different ways. Narrators of this kind rarely content themselves with the finer touches; the added ornaments are apt to be gross and palpable; the "spirit" will be made to speak words of warning or comfort; to intimate his testamentary dispositions; or even—in somewhat bolder flight of fancy—to leave a solid memento behind him. Now the authentic phantom is seldom either dramatic or edifying.

Errors of Memory.

More insidious and more difficult to guard against are errors of memory. There is a natural and almost inevitable tendency to dramatic unity and completeness which leads to the unconscious suppression of some details, and the insertion of others. Probably of all errors due to this cause a nice adjustment of the dates is the commonest. In perhaps the majority of second-hand cases, and in some of the more remote first-hand narratives, the coincidence is said to be exact to the minute. "At that very moment my friend passed away" is a common phrase. As a matter of fact, in the best attested recent cases it can rarely be shown that the coincidence is precise, and the impression frequently follows the death by some hours. But there is risk also of the actual transformation of the experience itself. A dream after the lapse of years will be recalled as a hallucination,[75] a vague feeling of discomfort as a vivid emotion, or even a mental vision; a hallucination not recognised at the moment will in the retrospect seem to have been identified with some person who died at about that time; and details, such as clothes worn or words spoken by the phantom, will be borrowed from later knowledge and read back into the image preserved in the memory. There will further be a gradual simplifying and rounding off of the incident, a deepening of the main lines, and a suppression of what is not obviously relevant or coherent. With many persons there can be no doubt that this process is almost, if not wholly, unconscious; and it need hardly be said that in that very fact lies the special danger against which we have to guard.[76]

As an instance of the gradual approximation of dates, I may cite a case recorded in the Proceedings of the American S.P.R. (pp. 401, 527). The narrator wrote to Dr. Hodgson:—"I once dreamed that W. T. H. was dead; and the same night he was thrown down several feet on to an engine, ... when he was taken up it was thought he was dead." From later inquiries it was ascertained that the accident did indeed occur as alleged—but a week or ten days after the dream![77] As an illustration of a different kind of metamorphosis, a case may be given which I recently received from a lady and her daughter—an account of a "ghost" seen twenty-five years ago by the latter and her nurse. The younger lady described to me the figure seen; the mother told me that she had received a similar description from both nurse and daughter at the time of the incident. Both ladies were clear-headed and sensible witnesses, and it was impossible to doubt that they believed what they said. But in her childish diary, which the younger lady kindly unearthed for my inspection, the only entry referring to the matter—an entry written in pencil and obviously as an afterthought—ran: "Ellen saw a ghost." If the diarist had herself shared the experience, it is difficult to believe that even the modesty natural to her age and sex would have withheld her from recording the fact for her private glorification.

It would be easy to multiply cases of this kind. But those who demand most proof of the action of telepathy will probably be least exacting of evidence for the untrustworthiness of ancient memories. As a matter of fact, we have the evidence of statistics to show that the imagination does tend after a certain lapse of time to magnify coincidences in matters of this kind, and even to invent coincidences where none existed. It will be shown in Chapter IX., in the discussion on the results obtained from an inquiry into the distribution of sensory hallucinations, that whereas non-coincidental hallucinations tend to be forgotten after the passing of a few years, the records of coincidental hallucinations—or at least of those which are alleged to have coincided with the death of the person seen—are proportionately more frequent ten years ago than at the present time, the inference being that a certain number of coincidences have been unconsciously improved or invented in the interval.

Pseudo-presentiment.

In a letter published in Mind (April 1888) Professor Royce, of Harvard, U.S.A., hazarded a hypothesis that there may occur "instantaneous and irresistible hallucinations of memory which make it seem to one that something which now excites or astonishes him has been prefigured in a recent dream, or in the form of some other warning." In support of that hypothesis Professor Royce appeals to the analogy of the well-known cases of double memory,—the impression of having at some previous time looked on a scene now present, or heard a conversation now taking place; and to two or three instances of undoubted hallucination of memory amongst the insane, recorded by Krafft-Ebing and Kraepelin. As regards the latter, it is sufficient to remark that the hallucinations occurred to persons whose minds were admittedly diseased; that the hallucinations themselves were apparently slow of growth, whereas the hypothesis requires that they should be more or less instantaneous; and that in other respects they do not present by any means a perfect parallel to the presumably telepathic cases with which he compares them. In default, therefore, of more precise analogies, the hypothesis of pseudo-presentiment must be regarded as, at best, a plausible guess. And even if it were fully substantiated it would only, as pointed out by Mr. Gurney (Mind, July 1888), apply to certain classes of telepathic cases, and those the weakest from the evidential standpoint. At most the theory would account for dreams and indefinite impressions of various kinds not mentioned beforehand. In some cases of this kind, and in a large class of so-called "prophetic" dreams, I am inclined to regard Mr. Royce's explanation as possibly true, in the modified form suggested by Dr. Hodgson (Proc. American S.P.R., pp. 540 et seq.)—i.e., if it is restricted to cases where there is a vague memory of some actual dream or other impression, bearing a more or less remote resemblance to the event; in other words, if we assume an illusion rather than a hallucination of memory. But it need hardly be said that no serious investigator would treat the uncorroborated accounts of dreams and vague feelings of this kind as evidence for anything whatever. To extend the hypothesis, as Professor Royce suggests, to cases where there is evidence that the percipient's experience was mentioned beforehand, is to suppose not one kind of pseudo-memory, but two,—a pseudo-memory on the part of the percipient that he has had a certain subjective experience, and a pseudo-memory on the part of some other person that this experience was mentioned to him before the news of the event to which it related. In recent cases, at any rate, the assumption of a double mistake of this kind seems unwarranted.[78] And to apply this explanation to cases of actual sense-hallucination involves even more violent improbabilities. It would require far more evidence than Professor Royce can offer to make it credible that a man on hearing of the death of a friend should straightway be capable of imagining that at a definite hour and in a particular place he had seen an apparition of that friend, when in fact he had had no experience of the kind. It is remarkable that Mr. Royce does not himself appear to have realised the distinction between the two kinds of impressions.

Precautions against Error.

We have now to consider by what methods the various defects incident to testimony on these matters may be best eliminated. As the evidence upon which reliance is placed will be illustrated by the examples quoted hereafter, it will not be necessary to dwell at length here upon the precautions taken. The testimony at first-hand of the actual witnesses, it need hardly be said, is to be desired in any investigation; but in the case of phenomena which are at once stimulating to the imagination, and, as being novel, have no recognised standard of probability by which narrator or auditor can check deviations from the truth, no other evidence is worthy of consideration.[79] It will be seen that in all the cases here quoted the witness, or one of the witnesses, has furnished an account of his experience written by himself;[80] and it is worth noting that the very act of writing such an account to serve the purpose of a systematic inquiry is calculated to inspire the percipient with a sense of responsibility, and to lead him to weigh his words with precision. I may add that by the courtesy of our informants we have in most cases been enabled to question them orally on the details of their experience.[81]

But, for reasons already given, no case should be suffered to rest upon a single memory. It is of the highest importance, therefore, to obtain the corroborative testimony of persons who were cognisant of the occurrence of the impression before the news of the corresponding event. When this is not to be obtained, evidence of some unusual action on the part of the percipient, such as the taking of a journey, or the putting on of mourning, may be accepted as collateral proof of the reality of his impression. But, as we have already seen, the evidence of the attesting witnesses is liable to the same errors which affect the testimony of the percipient; and the evidence most to be desired is of a kind exempt from these weaknesses—that of a letter or memorandum written before the news. In a large proportion of the narratives dealt with, it is asserted that such a letter was written, or such a memorandum made. Unfortunately, this alleged documentary evidence is rarely forthcoming. It is possible that in some cases this statement is merely a conventional dramatic tag,—an addition made unconsciously and in perfect good faith to round off the story.[82] It cannot, however, I think, be regarded as surprising either that a letter or note was not written at the time, or that, if written, it should not have been preserved. Sensory hallucinations—to take the most striking instance—though unusual are not extremely rare experiences; most educated persons are perfectly familiar with the fact of their occurrence and regard them (in most cases rightly) as purely subjective, the products of some transient cerebral disturbance, as little worthy of record as a headache or a bilious attack. Often, probably, the telepathic hallucination is indistinguishable from the mass of purely subjective experiences of the same kind; and even should it be recognised at the time as exceptional, the want of leisure, the fear of ridicule, even the dislike of seeming to admit to himself the possibility of his experience having a sinister significance, would probably deter the percipient from writing about it.[83] It is much more likely that he would speak of it to an intimate friend, should opportunity occur. And when in the rare conjunction of an exceptional experience, adequate leisure, and a sympathetic correspondent, or the habit of writing a diary, the letter is actually written or the note made, the chances which militate against its preservation are many. Few persons will take a general and impersonal (in other words, a scientific) interest in occurrences of this kind. Their own isolated experience may possess a deep and abiding interest for themselves, and, less certainly, for their friends; an interest, however, which is quite compatible with the treatment of the attesting record as waste paper. But unless it can be used to illustrate or support a theory of a future life, they seldom regard a "ghost story" as having any value other than that derived from the personal environment. It appears, indeed, to possess for most little more significance than the recital of an extraordinary run of luck at cards, or a fortunate escape from a railway accident, between which it is commonly sandwiched. Again, few persons realise the high value of contemporary documentary evidence in matters of the kind; there are many who would probably share the views of a courteous correspondent, who, after sending me condensed copies of some contemporary memoranda, wrote in answer to my inquiries:—"I have not got the originals; I destroyed them immediately I sent them (i.e., the copies) to you, because I knew they would be more permanently preserved and recorded; being authenticated to Professor Barrett and you, there was no further need of them." And even when they escape immediate destruction the letters may, as in cases reported to us, be "washed out" or burnt; or may survive the perils of flood and fire only to be mislaid, so that they cannot be found without a more thorough search than the courtesy of our correspondents can induce them to make. Notwithstanding these various adverse chances, it will be found that many of the narratives which follow are actually attested by contemporary documentary evidence.

When the great mass of narratives has been carefully examined and tested in the light of the considerations above set forth, and when all those which are remote in date, or for some other reason suspect, have been eliminated, there will be found to remain an important body of testimony. And of this sifted residue, though we cannot predicate of any single narrative that it accurately represents the facts, or that the coincidence with which it deals was not purely casual, yet looking at the cases as a whole, we may feel a reasonable assurance that in their essential features the facts are correctly reported, and that the coincidences are not due to chance.

I may conclude this chapter by calling attention to an argument of a different kind, on which Mr. Gurney,[84] in reviewing the material amassed chiefly in this country, laid considerable stress, and in which he has been followed by an independent observer, Professor Royce, dealing with narratives received from correspondents in America.[85] Both these investigators have pointed out, and probably all who make an equally careful and dispassionate study of the evidence will agree with them, that the phenomena vouched for in the best-attested narratives form a true natural group. They are manifestly not the products of folk-lore, nor of popular superstition, nor of the mere love of the marvellous. They are singularly free from the more sensational and bizarre features—dramatic gestures or speech on the part of the phantasms, prophetic warnings, movement of objects, etc.—which are conspicuous in second-hand narratives. If these accounts were purely fictitious, it would be difficult to conceive by what process, coming from persons of widely separated social grades, of various degrees of education, and of different nationalities, they could have been moulded to present such strong internal resemblances; resemblances consisting not merely in the possession of many common features, but in the absence of others which, by their frequent occurrence in admittedly fictitious accounts, are proved to be the natural fruits of the unrestrained imagination. This undesigned unanimity is strong evidence that the restraint operating throughout has been the restraint of fidelity to fact, and that the narratives themselves owe little to the imagination, and much to their reflection of genuine experience.