Apparitions and thought-transference: an examination of the evidence for telepathy. Frank Podmore
is—only see three paws."
Subject: A sandwich man with advertisement of a play. P. said: "Something like letter A—stroke there, then there." Mrs. Sidgwick: "Well, perhaps it will become clearer." P.: "Something like a head on the top of it; a V upside down?—two legs and then a head.—A man with two boards—looks like a man that goes about the streets with two boards. I can see a head at the top and the body and legs between the boards. I couldn't see what was written on the boards, because the edges were turned towards me." Mr. Smith told us afterwards that he had pictured to himself the man and one board facing him, thus not corresponding to the impression which P. had.
Subject: A choir-boy.[39] P. said: "Edge of card's going a dark colour. Somebody dressed up in white, eh? Can see something all white; edge all black, and like a figure in the middle. There's his hands up" (making a gesture to show the attitude) "like a ghost or something—you couldn't mistake it for anything but a ghost. It's not getting any better, it's fading—no, it's still there. It might frighten any one." He also made remarks about the difficulty of seeing a white figure on a white card (the blank card he was looking at was white), which Mr. Smith afterwards said corresponded with his own ideas.
Subject: A vase with flowers. (Mr. Smith, still behind P., was looking at a blue flower-pot in the window containing an indiarubber plant.) P. said: "I see something round, like a round ring. I can see some straight things from the round thing. I think it's a glass—it goes up. I'll tell you what it is; it must be a pot—a flower-pot, you know, with things growing in it. I only guessed that, because you don't see things growing out of a glass.—It's not clear at the top yet. You see something going up and you can't see the top, because of the edge of the paper—it's cut off. I don't wonder, because it's no good wondering what Mr. Smith does, he does such funny things. I should fancy it might be a geranium, but there's only sticks, so you can't tell." Mrs. Sidgwick "What colour is the pot?" P.: "Dark colour, between terra-cotta and red—dark red you'd call it." Here the somewhat confused impression, apparently corresponding to the struggle of ideas in Mr. Smith's mind between what he was seeing and what he was trying to think of, is an interesting point.[40]
In all 50 trials were made with P., 26 with agent and percipient in the same room, 24 with agent and percipient in different rooms. Of the former 14 were successful, of the latter only one. In the 35 unsuccessful experiments no impression at all was received in 14 cases, 7 of which occurred while agent and percipient were in the same room.
Two trials with Whybrew are worth quoting as illustrating the gradual development of the impression.
The percipient's eyes were closed during these experiments. The first was made on July 11th.
No. 17.
Subject: A man riding. Mr. Smith downstairs with Miss Johnson; Whybrew, upstairs with Mrs. Sidgwick, said, after some remarks on the former pictures: "There's another one—I think it's like the other two—a puzzle [to see]—if I can find the picture. I hope I'll be able to see it properly. A kind of a square—square shadow—blowed if I can understand what it's meant for—I don't know what to make out of that. I don't know if that's meant to be the lower part of a pair of legs. Do you see a picture?" Mrs. Sidgwick: "I see something." Whybrew: "I see them two spots, but I don't know what to make of them. If they're legs, the body ought to come.—Don't seem to come any brighter, but there's those two things there, that look like a pair of legs." Here Mr. Smith was asked to come upstairs and talk to him. He told him the picture was coming up closer and that he had turned the gas on to make it brighter. Whybrew: "There's them pair of legs there." Mr. Smith: "Yes" (doubtfully). Whybrew "Why, there's another. I never see that other pair before. Why, it's a horse. I expect it's like them penny pictures that you fold over. That horse—that's plain enough; but what's that other thing?" Mr. Smith: "Yes, I told you there was something else." Whybrew: "Why, I see what it is now—it's supposed to be a man there, I expect." Mr. Smith: "Yes." Whybrew: "Riding him. But that ain't so good as the boy and the ball." Mrs. Sidgwick: "How is the man dressed?" Whybrew: "Ordinary."
The second took place on July 16th, 1891.
Mr. Smith having hypnotised Whybrew, sat by him, but did not speak to him at all after he knew the subject—a man with a barrow of fish—given him by Mrs. Sidgwick. Miss Johnson, not knowing what the subject was, carried on the conversation with Whybrew. He said: "It's the shape of a man. Yes, there's a man there. Don't know him. He looks like a bloke that sells strawberries." Miss Johnson asked: "Are there strawberries there?" Whybrew: "That looks like his barrow there. What's he selling of? I believe he's sold out. I can't see anything on his barrow—perhaps he's sold out. There ain't many—a few round things. I expect they're fruit. Are they cherries? They look a bit red. Aren't they fish? It don't look very much like fish. If they're fish, some of them hasn't got any heads on. Barrow is a bit fishified—it has a tray on. What colour are those things on the barrow? They looked red, but now they look silvery." He was rather pleased with this picture and asked afterwards if it was for sale.
Of 18 experiments with Whybrew 6 were successful. Of the 12 failures, 8 occurred when agent and percipient were in separate rooms. There were only two cases in which no impression was received—one with the agent in the same room.
Seven trials were made with Major, of which 1 was completely and 2 partially successful. Subjoined is the record of the only complete success, which occurred on July 8th, 1891. The percipient was hypnotised and his eyes were closed; Mr. Smith sat by him, talking to him and telling him that he was to see a picture.
No. 18.
The subject given was a mouse in a mouse-trap. Regarding himself as a man of culture and being generally anxious to exhibit this, Major asked if it was to be an old master or a modern "pot-boiler." He was told the latter, and he then discoursed on "pot-boilers" and how he knew all the subjects of them—mentioning two or three—in a very contemptuous manner. He did not seem to see anything, however, and appeared to be expecting to see an artist producing a rapid sketch. Then, when told that the picture was actually there, he suddenly exclaimed: "Do you mean that deuced old trap with a mouse? He must have been drawing for the rat vermin people."
Thirty-two trials were made with T., of which only four were successful—two completely, one partially, one completely, but deferred—i.e., the subject of the preceding experiment, a black dog, came before his vision after the agent had already passed to another subject, the Eiffel Tower. T. had, of course, not been told the subject of the previous experiment. Instances of deferred impressions of this kind occurred also with Miss B. A few experiments were tried with another percipient, a man named Adams, but without success; his own imagination appeared to be so fertile that any telepathic impression must have been crowded out.
An analysis of the impressions showed that most of them were reproductions of objects familiar to the percipient, in certain cases of hallucinations previously imposed upon them in the course of these or other experiments. With some of the successful percipients these spontaneous impressions showed a marked tendency to recur. Thus P. had a wrong impression—of an elephant—no less than four times in the course of the experiments; and T. of a woman and a perambulator three times. One of these coincided with the subject actually set, and the coincidence may perhaps therefore be attributed to chance. Speaking generally, however, this tendency to repetition amongst the percipient's native impressions constitutes an additional argument, if any such is needed, for attributing the frequent coincidences of the impression with the subject set to some other cause than the automatic association of ideas.
An instance of a quasi-experimental character, which closely resembles the cases above described, is recorded by Dr. A. Gibotteau:—[41]
No. 19.—By DR. GIBOTTEAU.
"Madame P. complained of headache. I placed my hand upon her forehead, and in a few minutes she was in a light hypnotic sleep. Without deepening the trance I endeavoured to give her a sensation of calm and well-being, and to procure this sensation for myself in the first place, I called up a picture of the sea, in which air and water were full of sunlight. 'I feel a little better,' she said; 'how fresh the air is!' I then proceeded to imagine myself walking along the Boulevard Saint