Apparitions and thought-transference: an examination of the evidence for telepathy. Frank Podmore
of which is here recorded—were three or more of the following:—Mr. Guthrie, Professor Herdman, Dr. Hicks, Dr. Hyla Greves, Mr. R. C. Johnson, F.R.A.S., Mr. Birchall, Miss Redmond, and on one occasion another lady. The results are given in the following table:—
No. 2.—By MR. GUTHRIE AND OTHERS.
1.—Back of left hand pricked. Rightly localised.
2.—Lobe of left ear pricked. Rightly localised.
3.—Left wrist pricked. "Is it in the left hand?" pointing to the back near the little finger.
4.—Third finger of left hand tightly bound round with wire. A lower joint of that finger was guessed.
5.—Left wrist scratched with pins. "Is it in the left wrist, like being scratched?"
6.—Left ankle pricked. Rightly localised.
7.—Spot behind left ear pricked. No result.
8.—Right knee pricked. Rightly localised.
9.—Right shoulder pricked. Rightly localised.
10.—Hands burned over gas. "Like a pulling pain … then tingling, like cold and hot alternately," localised by gesture only.
11.—End of tongue bitten. "Is it the lip or the tongue?"
12.—Palm of left hand pricked. "Is it a tingling pain in the left hand here?" placing her finger on the palm of the left hand.
13.—Back of neck pricked. "Is it a pricking of the neck?"
14.—Front of left arm above elbow pricked. Rightly localised.
15.—Spot just above left ankle pricked. Rightly localised.
16.—Spot just above right wrist pricked. "I am not quite sure, but I feel a pain in the right arm, from the thumb upwards to above the wrist."
17.—Inside of left ankle pricked. Outside of left ankle guessed.
18.—Spot beneath right collar-bone pricked. The exactly corresponding spot on the left side guessed.
19.—Back hair pulled. No result.
20.—Inside of right wrist pricked. Right foot guessed.
(Proc. S.P.R., vol. iii. pp. 424–452.)
Transference of Sounds.
It is noteworthy that there is little experimental evidence for the transmission of an auditory impression. Occasionally, in trials with names and cards the nature of the mistakes made has seemed to indicate audition, as when, e.g., three is given for Queen or ace for eight. But obviously a long series of experiments and a long series of mistakes would be necessary to afford material for any conclusion. Sometimes a percipient has stated that he heard the name of the thing thought of; as, for instance, in a case recorded in Chapter V., where the percipient "heard" the word gloves before "seeing" a vision of them. But such cases appear to be rare. Experiments with a view to test the transmission of actual sounds could of course only be carried out under special conditions, of which one would be the separation of the agent from the percipient by a considerable intervening space—and this condition is, of itself, found to interfere with success. Some evidence, indeed, of a quasi-experimental character for the transference of musical sounds at a distance will be given in a later chapter (Chapter V., No. 33). Experiments with imagined sounds appear to have been rarely tried, or at least, successful results have rarely been recorded.[16] Occasionally indeed experimenters have put on record that in thinking of an object they have mentally repeated the name of the object as well as pictured the object itself, and there are a few cases where the general idea of the object thought of appears to have reached the percipient before the outlines of the form, which may possibly be explained as due to the reception of an auditory before a visual impression.[17]
This lack of evidence for auditory transmission is no doubt largely due to a desire on the part of experimenters in the first instance to make the proof of actual thought-transference as complete as possible. Experiments with sounds would impose a greater strain upon the agents, since in most cases they must be imagined sounds. Moreover, in such experiments it would be at once more difficult to estimate with precision degrees of success, and to preserve a permanent record of the result; and finally, the subject thought of would be more easily communicated either fraudulently, by a code, or by unconscious indications on the part of the agent. In this connection it is possibly significant that whilst in morbid conditions auditory hallucinations are much commoner than visual, the proportion appears to be reversed with telepathic hallucinations. It seems probable that the apparent infrequency of auditory transmission may be in part due to the fact that in the modern world the sense of vision is for educated persons the habitual channel for precise or important information. To the Greek in the time of Socrates no doubt the ear was the main avenue for all knowledge; it was the ear that received not merely the current talk of the market-place and the gymnasium, but the oratory of the law-court, the literature of the stage, and the philosophy of the Schools. But for modern civilised societies the newspaper and the libraries have placed the eye in a position of unquestioned pre-eminence. It seems likely therefore, apart from all defects in such evidence, that the agent would find a greater difficulty, as a rule, in calling up a vivid representation of a sound than of a vision; and that the percipient would experience a corresponding difference in the reception and discrimination of the two classes of impressions.
Transference of Ideas not definitely classed.
Experiments by PROFESSOR RICHET and others.
In the following cases, where the exact nature of the impression received was not apparently consciously classified by the percipient, it may be presumed to have been either of a visual or an auditory nature. M. Charles Richet (Revue Philosophique, Dec. 1884, "La suggestion mentale et le calcul des probabilités") conducted a series of experiments in guessing the suits of cards drawn at random from a pack. 2927 trials were made: ten persons besides M. Richet himself—who acted sometimes as agent and sometimes as percipient—taking part in the experiments. In the 2927 trials the suit was correctly named 789 times, the most probable number of correct guesses being 732. A similar series of trials was conducted, on Edmund Gurney's initiative, by some members of the S.P.R. and others. There were 17 series, containing 17,653 trials, and 4760 successes; the theoretically probable number, on the assumption that the results were due to chance, being 4413. The probability for some cause other than chance deduced from this result is .999,999,98, which represents perhaps a higher degree of probability than the inhabitants of this hemisphere are justified in attaching to the belief that the ensuing night will be followed by another day.[18] In a similar series of experiments carried out under the direction of the American S.P.R. the proportion of successes was little higher than the theoretically probable number.[19] But in the absence of details as to the conditions under which the experiments were made, no unfavourable inference can fairly be drawn from these results. At any rate some very remarkable results were obtained later, in a series of trials made on the lines laid down by the committee of the American Society. The agent in this case was Mrs. J. F. Brown, the percipient Nellie Gallagher, "a domestic lately come from the county of Northumberland, in New Brunswick." The experiments appear to have been carried out with great care, and the results are recorded and analysed at length (Proc. Am. S.P.R., pp. 322–349). 3000 trials were made in guessing the numbers from 0 to 9 or from 1 to 10 inclusive. The order of the digits in each set of 100 trials was determined by drawing lots. The agent sat at one side of a table, the percipient at the other side. At first the percipient sat facing the agent, but after about 1000 trials had been made her back was turned to the table—and this position was continued to the end. The paper containing the numbers to be guessed was placed in the agent's lap, out of sight of the percipient. There was no mirror in the room. In the result the digits were correctly named 584 times, or nearly twice the probable number, 300. The proportion of the successes steadily increased, from 175 in the first batch of 1000 trials, to 190 in the second, and 219 in the third batch.
No. 3.—By DR. OCHOROWICZ.
In the following set of experiments, made by Dr. Ochorowicz,