[147] Of course in this case there is an alternative explanation—viz., that Miss X. received the impression at the time the words were spoken, and that the shell merely developed it for her conscious self.

[148] S.P.R., vol. vi. pp. 33, 34.

[149] A translation of Dr. Gibotteau's account is given by Mr. Myers, Proc. S.P.R., vol. viii. pp. 468, 469.

[150] The fact that most, if not all, the medical men quoted would themselves reject the explanation hinted at in the text, and would regard their own success as due rather to skill and patience than to any specific endowment, should, of course, have due weight, but cannot be regarded as decisive.

[151] See also the account given by Dr. Gibotteau in the Annales des Sciences Psychiques of the power possessed by Berthe (see ante, p. 139) of causing people to stumble or lose their sense of direction. Mr. Andrew Lang has recently drawn attention to the remarkable resemblances between accounts of medieval magic, etc., and modern telepathic phenomena (see, e.g., his article in Cont. Review, Sept. 1893).

[152] It is possible that we need not go so far as telepathy for an explanation. Slight indications unconsciously apprehended may have furnished the necessary clue in all cases, as they almost certainly did in some.

[153] See Proc. S.P.R., vol. i. p. 230, vol. ii. p. 56; Phil. Mag., April 1883; Proc. Amer. S.P.R., p. 116.

[154] Animal Magnetism (International Science Series), pp. 264 et seq. Cf. Ottolenghi and Lombroso, in Rev. Phil., Oct. 1889, on polarisation of hallucinations by magnets.

[155] Rev. de l'Hypnotisme, Dec. 1887.

[156] Ibid., June 1887.

[157] Rev. des Sciences Hypnotiques, 1887-88, p. 111.

[158] Brit. Med. Journal, Jan. 1893.

[159] Rev. des Sciences Hypnotiques, 1887-88, p. 151. See also Force Psychique et Suggestion Mentale, by Dr. Claude Perronnet, pp. 21-26, who shows clearly how thought-transference may vitiate many hypnotic experiments.

[160] Annales des Sciences Psychiques, Jan.-Feb. 1893; Proc. S.P.R., vol. ix. p. 218.

[161] Proc. S.P.R., vol. vi. p. 98.

[162] See, for instance, the Report on Spiritualism of the London Dialectical Society; Experiences of Mr. Stainton Moses in Proc. S.P.R., vol. ix. p. 245; and article, "Spiritualism," in the Encyclopædia Britannica, by Mrs. Henry Sidgwick, and in Chambers' Encyclopædia, by Alfred Russel Wallace, F.R.S.

[163] It need hardly be said that the oft-quoted story of the European who came late and unobserved to the performance of an Indian Fakir, and from a distant tree saw him cutting up a pumpkin when the crowd saw him cutting up a child, is merely ben trovato. Nor, indeed, until we have contemporaneous accounts of these performances from carefully trained observers is there need of any such hypothesis to explain the feats of Indian jugglery. See Mr. Hodgson's article in Proc. S.P.R., vol. ix. p. 354.

[164] The explanation suggested in the text for the physical phenomena of Spiritualism is worked out in some detail by Von Hartmann, the philosopher of the unconscious, in a little treatise on Spiritism, which has been translated into English by "C.C.M.," 1885. But Von Hartmann believes that some of the phenomena are produced by a hypothetical nerve-force under the direction of the somnambulic self of the medium—a prodigality of hypotheses which in the circumstances is surely superfluous.

[165] See Phantasms of the Living, vol. i. pp. 110-113.

[166] Presidential Address to the Section of Mathematics and Physics of the British Association, August 1891.

[167] "If all individuals of higher or lower order are rooted in the Absolute, retrogressively in this they have a second connection among themselves, and there is requisite only a restoration of the rapport or telephonic junction (Telephonanschluss) between two individuals in the Absolute, by an intense interest of the will, to bring about the unconscious interchange between them without sense-mediation." (Spiritism, by Ed. von Hartmann, trans. C.C.M., p. 75.)

[168] Des Propriétés physiques d'une force particulière du corps humain, 1882.

[169] De la Suggestion mentale, Paris, 1887, pp. 511, 512.

[170] American Journal of Psychology, vol. i., No. 1.

[171] See, for instance, Professor Lodge's paper in Proc. S.P.R., vol. vii. p. 374.

[172] Annales des Sciences Psychiques, vol. i. p. 317.

[173] See his articles on the "Subliminal Consciousness," etc., Proc. S.P.R., vol. vii. p. 298; vol. viii. p. 333, pp. 436 et seq.