Apparitions and thought-transference: an examination of the evidence for telepathy. Frank Podmore
upon a basis of reality.]
"3. Dr. Liébeault, in order that no hint should be given even in a whisper, wrote on a piece of paper, 'Mademoiselle, on waking, will see her black hat transformed into a red one.' The paper was first passed round to all the witnesses, then MM. Liébeault and De Guaita placed their hands silently on the subject's forehead, mentally formulating the sentence agreed upon. After being told she would see something unusual in the room, the young woman was awakened. Without a moment's hesitation she fixed her eyes upon the hat, and with a burst of laughter exclaimed that it was not her hat, she would have none of it. It was the same shape certainly, but this farce had lasted long enough—we must really give her back her own. ['Come now, what difference do you see?'] 'You know quite well. You have eyes like me.' ['Well what?'] We had to press her for some time before she would say what change had come over her hat; surely we were making fun of her. At last she said, 'You can see for yourselves that it is red.' As she refused to take it we were forced to put an end to her hallucination by telling her that her hat would presently resume its usual colour. The doctor breathed on it, and when it became, in her eyes, her own again, she consented to take it back. Directly afterwards she remembered nothing of her hallucination. …
"Nancy, 9th January 1886.
"Signed, A. A. LIÉBEAULT.
STANISLAS DE GUAITA."[30]
"We had one very successful experiment with a young girl of about fifteen, Mdlle. Camille Simon, in the presence of M. Brullard and several other persons. I gave her a mental suggestion that on waking she should see her hat, which was brown, changed to yellow. I then put her en rapport with all the others, and I passed round a slip of paper indicating my suggestion, and asking them to think of the same thing. But, by a lapse of memory not unusual to me, I did not think after all of the colour which I had written down; I had a distinct impression that she would see her hat red. On awaking her I told her she would see something representing our common thought. When she was wakened she wondered at the colour of her hat. 'It was brown,' she said. After having thought for a long time, she assured us that really it did not look at all the same, that she could not quite define the colour, but that it seemed to her a sort of yellow-red. Then I remembered my aberration. In the present case the others thought of yellow, I of red: thus the object appeared yellow and red to the awakened somnambule; which proves that the mental suggestion may be the echo of the thought of many minds."
[The following experiment, made with the same "subject," and sent to us by Dr. Liébeault on June 3, 1886, is an interesting example of temporary latency of the telepathic impression:—]
"In another experiment with the same young girl it was suggested to her, mentally, by several persons that on awaking she would see a black cock walking about the room. For a considerable time after waking, nearly half-an-hour, she said nothing, although I told her she would see something. It was about half-an-hour afterwards that, having gone into the garden and looked by chance into my little courtyard, she came running back to us to say, 'Ah, I know what I was to see: it was a black cock. This came into my head when I was looking at your cock.' My cock is greenish-black on the wings, tail and breast; everywhere else he is yellowish-white. Here we have an idea caused by the sight of a real object associated with a fictitious idea mentally transmitted by the persons present."
Between the beginning of July and the end of October 1889 a series of trials in the transference of numbers was conducted by Mrs. H. Sidgwick, with the assistance of Professor Sidgwick and Mr. G. A. Smith. The conditions were as follows:—Some small wooden counters, belonging to a game called Loto, and having the numbers from 10 to 90 stamped on them in raised figures, were placed in a bag. From this bag, which it will be seen contained 81 numbers in all, Mr. G. A. Smith drew a counter, placing it in a little wooden box, the edges of which effectually concealed it from the view of the percipient. The percipient, who had been previously placed in the hypnotic state by Mr. Smith, sat with his eyes closed and guessed the number drawn. The remarks, if any, made during the experiments, and the results, were recorded by Mrs. Sidgwick. After the first few days it was arranged, in order to avoid all possibility of bias in recording the numbers, that Professor Sidgwick should draw the counter from the bag and hand it to Mr. Smith, and that Mrs. Sidgwick should be herself ignorant of the number drawn. Throughout the experiments, although eight or more other persons tried to act as agent, Mr. Smith alone was successful. Mr. Smith himself failed to produce any result when the percipients were not hypnotised. The following detailed account of part of the experiments on one day, July 6th, 1889, will give a fair idea of the whole; but it should be added that in later experiments Mr. Smith kept complete silence, and that on several occasions a newspaper was placed over P.'s head. These precautions do not appear to have affected the success of the experiment.
The percipient was Mr. P., a clerk in a wholesale business, aged about nineteen, who had been frequently hypnotised by Mr. Smith, and now passes into the hypnotic state very quickly, his eyes turning upwards as he goes off, before the eyelids close. He is a lively young man, with a good deal of humour, and preserves the same character in the sleep-waking state.
No. 13.—By PROFESSOR and MRS. SIDGWICK.
| NUMBER DRAWN. | NUMBER GUESSED, AND REMARKS. |
|---|---|
| 87 | S.: "Now, P., you're going to see numbers. I shall look at them, and you will see them." P. (almost immediately): "87. You asked me if I saw a number. I see an 8 and a 7." (Number put away.) P.: "I see nothing now." |
| 19 | P.: "18. What are those numbers on? I see only the letters like brass numbers on a door; nothing behind them." |
| 24 | P. (after a pause): "I keep on looking. … I see it! an 8 and a 4—84." |
| 35 | P.: "A 3 and a 5—35." S.: "How did that look?" P.: "I saw a 3 and a 5, then 35." |
| 28 | P.: "88. One behind the other, then one popped forward, and I could see two eights." (Illustrated it with his fingers.) |
| 20 | P.: "I can't see anything yet." S.: "You will directly." P.: "23." S.: "Saw that clearly?" P.: "Not so plain as the other." S.: "Which did you see best?" P.: "The 2." |
| 27 | P.: "I can see 7, and I think a 3 in front of it. I can see the 7." S.: "Make sure of the first figure." P.: "The 7's gone now." |
| 48 | S.: "Here's another one, P." (This remark, though not always recorded, almost always began each experiment, until July 27th, when, to avoid the possibility of unconscious indications, Mr. Smith adopted the plan of not speaking at all.) P.: "Another two, you mean. You say another one, but there are always two." S.: "Yes, two." P.: "Here it is. You said there were two! There's only one, an 8." Some remarks here not recorded. We think that Mr. Smith said there were two, and told him to look again. P. said he saw a 4. Mrs. Sidgwick: "Which came first?" P.: "The 8 first, then the 4 to the left, so that it would have been 48. I should like to know how you do that trick." |
| 20 | P.: "A 2 and an 0; went away very quickly that time." |
| 71 | P.: "71." |
| 36 | P.: "3 … 36." |
| 75 | P.: I might turn round. Should I see them just the same over there?" (Changed his position so as to sit sideways in the chair, and looking away from Mr. Smith.) S.: "Well, you might try." P.: "I don't think I see so well this way." (He did not move, however.) "I see a 7 and a 5—75. Why don't you let them both come at once? I believe I should see them better if you let me open my eyes." (No notice was taken of this.) |
| 17 |
S.: "Now then, P., here's another." P.: "Put it |