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Thought Transference:
THEIR MEANING AND RECENT HISTORY
M. EDEN PAUL, M.D.
[issued
for the rationalist press association, limited]
London *
WATTS & CO.,
17 JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C.
Price Threepence
��NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
AND
THOUGHT TRANSFERENCE:
THEIR MEANING AND RECENT HISTORY
BY
M. EDEN PAUL, M.D.
[issued
for the rationalist press association, limited]
London:
WATTS & CO.,
17 JOHNSON'S COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C
1911
��Psychical Research and Thought
Transference
NT EARLY thirty years have elapsed since the foundation,
1
in 1882, of the Society for Psychical Research, whose
purpose it was, as stated in its first manifesto, to make “ an
organised and systematic attempt to investigate that large
group of debatable phenomena designated by such terms
as ‘mesmeric,’ ‘psychical,’ and ‘spiritualistic.’” Six
committees were appointed to deal with different sections of
the inquiry; the references to these committees will be
given in the sequel. The “ occult ” phenomena for whose
study the Society was founded exhibit a relationship and to
some degree a historic continuity with three others that have
played a great part in certain stages of human history—viz.,
magic, witchcraft, and miracle.
The belief in all three of
these latter still persists in many parts of the world ; in
Western Europe a belief in magic and miracle was dominant
throughout the period known as the Dark Ages ; the belief
in witchcraft—which is but another form of the other beliefs
—was widely prevalent in Europe during the two centuries
that followed the Protestant Reformation, and will be found
lingering in out-of-the-way corners even in our own day.
(In the Island of Alderney, where I lived from 1903 to 1905,
the belief in witchcraft was certainly still maintained among
those belonging to the old island families, and occasionally
gave rise to scandals ; but the people were shy of exposing
their credulity to strangers.) Among the half-educated
peasantry of Southern Europe a belief in the power of the
Evil Eye is said to be still almost universal.
With the spread of Rationalism, and the gradual growth
of a reasoned belief, based on positive science,in a universe
subject to invariable laws, the belief in the occult powers of
magicians, witches, and miracle-mongers gradually declined.
3
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PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
Ghosts, frequently seen as long as people believed in their
existence, seemed to wither and vanish before the chill blasts of
incredulity. But, notwithstanding the general decay of belief
in the occult, revivals have from time to time occurred,
displaying all the vigour and expansive energy of new
religious faiths. It will suffice to mention three of these,
(i) Mesmer (1734-1815), an inspired charlatan, discovered or
rediscovered certain obscure powers and peculiarities of the
human mind ; and his work, notwithstanding all the follies,
delusions, and impostures with which “mesmerism” has
been associated, was the starting-point of the science now
known as hypnotism, and of the practical methods of healing
which we shall subsequently consider under the name of
“psychotherapeutics.” (2) In 1848, at Rochester, New York
State, were living certain girls named Fox, in whose presence
there occurred curious rapping noises, widely known at the
time as the “Rochester knockings.”
“From this small
beginning,” writes Mr. Podmore, in his Studies in Psychical
Research, “ the occurrence of mysterious raps betraying an
intelligent source, and referred by some to the agency of
spirits, by others to supernormal powers exercised uncon
sciously by the ‘mediums,’ and by a few scientific men who
investigated the occurrences at the time to voluntary
‘cracking’ (i.e., partial dislocation) of the knee-joints on the
part of the girls concerned, arose the whole movement of
modern Spiritualism.” (3) Finally, the last twenty-five years
have witnessed the origination, also in the United States of
America, of the latest of that country’s numerous new religious
faiths, “ Christian Science ” (so called, apparently, on the
lucus a non lucendo principle, because it attempts to reconcile
the irreconcilable—Christianity and science—without having
anything to do with either). The historical continuity with
mesmerism of this strange creed—whose founder, Mrs. Eddy,
died only a short time ago—has been lucidly traced by
Mr. Podmore in his work on Mesmerism and Christian
Science.
In an article on “ Mysticism and the Reputed Reaction
from Naturalism,” published in the Literary Gttnde for
March, 1911, the present writer endeavoured to show how
�AND THOUGHT TRANSFERENCE
5
the very spread of Rationalism, which has led to the over
throw of the earlier forms of occultism—magic, witchcraft,
and thaumaturgy, or miracle-mongering — and has at the
same time undermined the faith of many in the olderestablished religious beliefs, is, in a sense, responsible for
the appearance of the luxuriant crop of neo-occultisms
and neo-religions for which the nineteenth century will be
memorable in the history of human error. Their aim has
been, either to restore the belief in immortality, which had
been associated with a belief in the dogmas of one of the
older religious creeds, but which had been shaken in con
sequence of a loss of faith in these dogmas ; or else, to find
some means of curing or preventing disease more speedy
and certain than the methods of ordinary medical science. I
shall hope to show that, while the primary object of search
has in neither case been attained, yet, as often happens, a
by-result of the search will prove of greater interest and
perhaps of greater value to humanity than the original aim.
Now let us ask what was the general attitude of able men
whose minds had been rigorously trained to a belief in what
is called “ the uniformity of nature ” by means of the prolonged
study of science, and especially of physical science, towards
the phenomena which the Society for Psychical Research set
itself to investigate. It was, as a rule, one of rather obstinate
incredulity. And there was no small justification for such an
attitude. Professional mediums, persons who gained a live
lihood by means of the demonstration to the credulous of
such phenomena as those exhibited by the above-mentioned
Fox Sisters, of Rochester, U.S.A., had again and again been
detected in gross frauds ; and yet these proved cheats never
failed to find ardent defenders and fresh victims. To the
physicist, as to Robert Browning, they were all in the same
class with “Mr. Sludge, the Medium.” As regards the amateur
experimentalists, playing at the fashionable game of “table
turning” in their drawing-rooms after dinner, when Faraday
came with a cleverly-devised “ indicator ” and proved beyond
the possibility of reasonable doubt that the motion of the table
was solely due to the unconscious muscular action of the per
formers, many of the table-turners refused to accept the proof.
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PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
“ Faraday may have proved,” said A, “that B and his circle
moved the table with their hands ; but we know that we do
not." Yet, when A was asked to test the value of his belief
by the use of the same indicator, he declined to do so, for he
would not be so “ irreverent” as to show any “distrust ” of
the source of the wonderful “spirit-communications” his
table had rapped out (see Carpenter’s Mental Physiology,
4th ed., pp. 293-6). It is hardly surprising that such a man
as Tyndall, after attending a spiritualistic sitting and detect
ing what to him was satisfactory evidence of conscious or
unconscious fraud, should write {Lectures and Essays—
“ Science and the ‘ Spirits ’ ”) : “ The victims like to believe,
and they do not like to be undeceived. Science is perfectly
powerless in the presence of this frame of mind......... Surely
no baser delusion ever obtained dominance over the weak
mind of man.”
A psychologist like Carpenter, one of the first scientific
elucidators of the activity of the sub conscious mind, having
made a detailed study of the phenomena of mesmerism and
spiritualism, naturally took a more cautious and less dogmatic
view than a pure physicist such as Tyndall. Witness, for
example, Carpenter’s admirable summary of the various
mental attitudes towards the phenomena in question {Mental
Physiology, p. 611 et seq.} :—
Some persist in the determination to disbelieve in the genuineness
of all the asserted facts, designating them as “all humbug,” and
maintaining that none but fools or knaves could uphold such non
sense......... Others, again, admit such of the facts as seem to them the
least repugnant to common-sense ; but, without attempting to give
any rational explanation of these, consider they have sufficiently dis
posed of them by characterising them as “ all imagination.”....... The
members of the medical profession have too generally satisfied them
selves with the phrase “ all hysterical ”—a reply which affords no
real information......... Then there is a class of partial believers, who
admit there is “ something in it ”—they cannot exactly tell what.........
And the ascending series is terminated by that assemblage of thorough
going believers who find nothing too hard for “ spiritual ” agency,
nothing improbable (much less impossible) in any of its reputed per
formances......... It is a phenomenon of no small interest to the student
of human nature that from the first of these classes the transition
should often be immediate and abrupt to the last. It is, in fact, from
the very same disposition to jump at important conclusions without
�AND THOUGHT TRANSFERENCE
7
due examination....... that a large proportion of mankind become utter
sceptics on the one hand, or thoroughgoing believers on the other.
A feather’s weight will often turn the scale when it is vibrating
between these two states.
Referring to the class of cases in which a number of more
or less credible witnesses combine to testify to some apparently
incredible occurrence—such as the “ levitation ” of the human
body ; that is, the raising of a human being from the ground
without any evident or adequate physical means—Carpenter
shows that similar occurrences were reported in connection
with witchcraft. “Thus” (p. 634), “ in 1657, Richard Jones,
a sprightly lad of twelve years old, living at Shepton Mallet,
was bewitched by one Jane Brooks. He was seen to rise in
the air, and pass over a garden wall some thirty yards ; and
at other times was found in a room with his hands flat against
a beam at the top of the room, and his body two or three feet
from the ground, nine people at a time seeing him in this
position. Jane Brooks was accordingly condemned and
executed at Chard Assizes, in March, 1658.”
Before we dismiss this brilliant and original writer (Dr.
Carpenter), let us study the canons he laid down for
investigations in this obscure and debatable field of inquiry.
He considered that reports of occult phenomena which appear
to conflict with the generally accepted acquirements of positive
science must all be rejected, “save those” (p. 626) “which
shall have been carefully, sagaciously, and perseveringly
investigated, by observers fully qualified for the task, by
habits of philosophical discrimination, by entire freedom
from prejudice, and by a full acquaintance with the numerous
and varied sources of fallacy which attend this particular
department of inquiry. These being the rules of other
branches of scientific research, there is no reason why they
should be departed from in one which so pre-eminently
needs a constant reference to the canons of sound philo
sophy.”
Now, it must be noted that it is precisely on the lines
thus wisely and carefully formulated that the Societies for
Psychical Research in England and America have, during
the last thirty years, conducted their investigations ; and it is
�8
PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
to this fact that they owe the attainment of certain results of
enduring value. Let us consider some of these results. The
first committee of the English S. P. R. was appointed to
examine “the nature and extent of any influence which may
be exerted by one mind upon another, apart from any generally
recognised mode of perception.” This has been one of the
most fruitful branches of inquiry, and, in conjunction with
several of the other lines of research, it has led, in the opinion
of many of the most cautious and unprejudiced members of
the Society, to the adequate proof of the existence of the
faculty of thought-transference or “telepathy.” This will be
discussed in some detail presently.
The second committee was appointed for “ the study of
hypnotism, and the forms of the so-called mesmeric trance,
with its alleged insensibility to pain ; clairvoyance, and other
allied phenomena.” At the date of the foundation of the
Society, notwithstanding the work of Elliotson, Esdaile,
Braid (all Englishmen), and other early students of “animal
magnetism,” hypnotism was in England a neglected
branch of psychic inquiry. On the Continent also, owing to
the early association of “mesmerism” with charlatanry, the
subject had fallen into disrepute. But in the last thirty years
the science of hypnotism has been placed on a sure foundation ;
its study has greatly increased our knowledge of the workings
alike of the normal and of the abnormal mind ; and psycho
therapeutics has become an accredited branch of the healing
art. The advance of knowledge has thus taken the study of
hypnotic manifestations largely out of the hands of the
Society for Psychical Research ; and all that is necessary
here is to detail briefly the historic lines of development of
mesmerism or animal magnetism.
“Trance,” apart from
hypnotism, will be considered later.
Through its appeal, on the one hand to the perennial
interest in healing of a suffering humanity, and on the other
hand to the love of the marvellous of a bored and inquisitive
humanity, mesmerism became the historic parent of two
divergent tendencies. The love of the marvellous and the
development of the more occult aspect of mesmerism gave
birth to modern spiritualism ; the desire for a better means of
�AND THOUGHT TRANSFERENCE
9
treatment of numerous chronic and apparently incurable
diseases gave rise to “mental healing,” “faith-healing,
“Christian Science,” and on the scientific side to psycho
therapeutics. The mental healers, mind curers, etc., fastened
from the first upon the psychical side of mesmerism. Had
the medical profession not been so slow to adopt “ suggestion
(always a large unconscious element in the physician’s
success) as a recognised part of the medical art, it is likely
that such faith-healing shrines as Lourdes and such new
quasi-religious cults as Christian Science might have been
less successful. But the profession is slow to move out of
its old grooves, and therefore deserves to suffer at the hands
of its rivals. Whatever the causes of the success of Christian
Science, that success is greatly to be regretted—more to be
regretted than the growth of most other superstitions, evil as
they all are. For the disciples of Mrs. Eddy are taught to
believe in what is called “ malicious animal magnetism ;
and this involves, in effect, a revival of the belief in witch
craft, of which our race has rid itself with so much difficulty.
In the second place, the Christian Scientists do much harm
by the application of their doctrine that “ disease is a delusion ”
to illnesses in which the psychic element is slight—as, for
instance, to broken legs and typhoid fever.
Finally, it is
assuredly a distressing fact that in our day, and among a
people claiming to lead the van of civilisation, a new creed
should gain millions of adherents, when that creed is utterly
devoid, as is Christian Science, of all humanist enthusiasm.
The third committee was appointed for the study of
“sensitives,” and to ascertain if they have any “powers of
perception other than a highly exalted sensibility of the
recognised sensory organs.” Here, also, the work of the
Society has tended to convince its members of the reality of
thought-transference. The same is true of their study of
what is called “clairvoyance,” or “ second-sight ” (a sub
section of the work of the second committee). In so far as
alleged cases of clairvoyance, crystal-gazing, and the like,
are not due to misrepresentation, illusion, or deliberate fraud,
the results of this inquiry tend to strengthen the evidence in
favour of a belief in the reality of thought-transference.
�IO
PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
The fourth committee was to undertake “a careful
investigation of....... reports........ regarding apparitions at the
moment of death, or otherwise, or regarding disturbances in
houses reputed to be haunted.” As regards “haunted”
houses, of which I shall write very briefly, the Society has
examined a large mass of evidence, much of it of little true
evidential value. Some of the residual evidence, after the
most thorough sifting, would appear to demand for its
explanation the existence of some hitherto unknown or
“occult” force—if not “haunting” by a demon or dis
embodied spirit, at least the occurrence of telepathic hallucina
tions. “ Rats ” and “ lies ” will not explain all the evidence
in this department 1
As regards the accounts of “death-visions” or “ phantasms
of the dying,” there are few who have not heard some such
story, at least at third or fourth hand. I will give here an
example of the kind of case of which an enormous number
have been reported to the Society ; choosing this case, not
because it is what is called a “strong ” one, but because it is
rather typical, and because I have first-hand knowledge of
the facts.
“ On Friday, December 8, 1893, an English lady, living
in Japan, woke with a start at 11.5 p.m., after a very brief
sleep, saying she had seen her father fall dead in a shop.
She thinks he had just gone in, but is not clear what gave
her this impression ; she saw him clutch the counter, stand
in this position for a short time, and then fall dead. It was
a very real image, a vision rather than an ordinary dream,
and frightened her very much. But she admits that it is
most likely all nonsense.” (The above is a transcription of
the actual note, written down thirty minutes after the
awakening from the “vision” by someone who was present
when it took place—not by the person who had the vision.)
Now at this time Mrs. X. had no definite knowledge that
her father was dangerously ill ; nor had she any knowledge
of his death (other than that conveyed by the vision) until
she received a letter towards the end of January, 1894,
telling her that he had died in Glasgow at 4 a.m. on
Saturday, December 9, 1893. This is the sort of material
�AND THOUGHT TRANSFERENCE
11
out of which most of these “ death-visions ” are constructed.
They are common enough ; what is rather exceptional about
this “ vision ” is that we have a precise record made at the
time of the occurrence, and that the record is corroborated
to some extent by further knowledge of the facts. In the
absence of such a record, and in the hands of uncritical
lovers of the marvellous, discrepancies would have been
forgotten, and that there had been a highly dramatic vision
of the actual death at the actual time of its occurrence would
have become a legendary belief in the families of those
*
concerned.
As a matter of fact, Mrs. X.’s vision occurred,
by Greenwich time, about nine hours earlier than the time
stated above. That is to say, when the vision occurred in
Japan at 11.5 p.m., it was, in Glasgow, 1.45 p.m. on the same
day, Friday, Decembers. The father died at 4 a.m. on the
Saturday morning, fourteen hours later. Moreover, as the
hour suggests, he was not in a shop, but in bed, when he
died, and he had been in bed, profoundly unconscious, since
the previous Sunday. The vision may have been suggested
by thought-transference from someone at the bedside of the
dying man ; but it is to be noted, first, that Mrs. X., before
she had the vision, was aware that her father suffered from
chronic heart-disease, and that she had had several recent
letters indicating increasing anxiety about his health ;
secondly, that some years before, when Mrs. X. was in a
hairdresser’s shop in Glasgow, in a room off the main shop,
a man came into the latter, and suddenly dropped dead
while standing at the counter. It seems more probable that
her vision was constructed out of a combination of her
apprehensions for her father with memories of this earlier
experience than that there was any telepathic communication.
In this way many of the stories of “death-visions” in
which there is a precise and trustworthy record (and no
others have any evidential value) prove, on close scrutiny,
to be explicable without recourse to any “occult” influences
* Such was, in fact, the belief of the lady herself, when spoken to about
the matter a few days ago, and the production of the contemporary record
was necessary to convince her that her 11 mythopceic faculty” had been
at work !
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PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
whatever. But there are others among the large number
studied by the Society which, provided there is neither
deliberate nor unconscious misrepresentation, can be ex
plained only by thought-transference—either from the dying,
or else (especially in those cases in which the vision occurs
shortly after the death) from those who have stood beside
the death-bed. Unless, indeed, to account for manifesta
tions of the latter order, we prefer the hypothesis (which to
me seems to involve far greater difficulties) of the influence—
telepathic or other—of a disembodied spirit.
Besides dealing with visions of the dying, the S. P. R.
undertook an investigation of the very numerous cases in
which visions, simultaneous or deferred, of living persons at
a distance were perceived ; in some cases these are stated to
have been experimentally produced—i.e., the experimenter
deliberately willed to appear in a vision before some absent
friend, and succeeded in doing so. Evidentially, the most
valuable cases of the last-named kind are, of couse, those in
which the vision is produced unexpectedly, in the entire
absence of pre-arrangement. A number of these “telepathic
hallucinations,” as they are termed, have been published in
the well-known volumes by Gurney and others, Phantasms
of the Living. It need hardly be said that telepathic hallu
cinations, when accurately recorded, and when the good
faith of the experimenters and percipients is beyond question,
afford the strongest possible evidence of the reality of the
alleged faculty of telepathy.
The fifth committee of the S. P. R. was formed to under
take “ an inquiry into the various physical phenomena
commonly called spiritualistic, and to attempt to discover
their causes and general laws.” In the introduction to the
last work finished by Mr. Podmore before his death, The
Newer Spiritualism, the author points out that prior to the
days of Swedenborg the “ spirits ” with whom people believed
themselves to hold converse were spirits sent by God or by
the powers of darkness, and that Swedenborg appears to have
been the first to claim that he held intercourse with pvyal in
the sense of Homer—with the souls or spirits of the departed.
This is a point of the first importance, for the following
�AND THOUGHT TRANSFERENCE
i3
reason. In his brilliant volume on The Churches and Modern
Thought, Mr. Vivian quotes Mr. Lowes Dickinson upon the
subject of religious “ conversions,” based upon direct personal
revelation, as follows :—
The truth supposed to be revealed at the moment of conversion is
commonly, if not invariably, the reflection of the doctrine or theory
with which the subject, whether or no he has accepted it, has hitherto
been most familiar. I have never heard, for example, of a case in
which a Mohammedan or a Hindoo, without having ever heard ot
Christianity, has had a revelation of Christian truth. Conversion,
in fact, it would seem, is not the communication of a new truth ; it
is a presentation of ideas already familiar in such a way that they
are accompanied by an irresistible certainty that they aie true.
There is a strong analogy here with the supposed com
munications with extra-human intelligences. In the Middle
Ages, when people had a vivid belief in the existence of
angels and devils, it was with angels and devils that they
held communion. Martin Luther not only saw the devil,
but even threw an inkpot at him (perhaps a better use than
he ordinarily made of his writing materials). Japanese and
Chinese peasant girls, who have a firm belief, in evil spirits
in the form of foxes, will talk freely to hallucinatory demon
foxes. Similarly, Swedenborg and his spiritualistic followers
communicate with the spirits of the kind they believe in the
souls of the departed. Communications are occasionally
made at spiritualistic sittings which appear at first sight to
involve a preternatural knowledge on the part of the medium ;
but of such communications few will bear strict criticism, and
of those that do the great majority, if not all, find their readiest
explanation by the hypothesis of thought-transference. The
trance-personality (for the medium, when not a vulgar cheat,
is commonly entranced when such communications are made)
would appear at times to have an exceptionally powerful
telepathic faculty. But most of the mysteries at the ordinary
spiritualistic sitting would appear to be explicable by the
extreme credulousness and by the unwitting self-deception of
those who take part in them. Hodgson, of the American
S. P. R-, has laid especial stress on this fact, and has pointed
out that the medium’s art, like the conjurer’s, consists in
�PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
diverting the sitter’s attention at critical moments in such a
manner that he himself remains unaware of the momentarylapse. This “dissociation of consciousness,” or “unrealised
break in attention,” explains much that would otherwise be
puzzling. It is often maintained that there must be a great
deal more in spiritualism than is commonly admitted, because
of the attention paid to spiritualistic phenomena by such
leading men of science as Wallace, Lombroso, Richet,
Crookes, and Lodge—men accustomed to precise observation.
.Those who take this line forget that neither in biological nor
in physical experimentation is unremitting attention required,
and that the men I have named can be as easily deceived by
a clever conjurer as anyone else (as Sir Oliver Lodge himself
would probably be the first to admit).
Of the mediums producing “ the physical phenomena of
spiritualism, the one who in recent years has attracted most
attention is the Italian peasant woman, Eusapia Palladino.
After an exhaustive study of the records of her sittings, Mr.
Podmore comes to the conclusion that to explain her results
it is only necessary to assume on the part of the sitters
hallucination of the sense of touch and occasional lapses of
attention. Apart altogether from the question of “spirit
agency,” these assumptions are surely simpler than the
assumption of the quasi-spiritualists, that the “ physical
phenomena ” of spiritualism are “ manifestations of a new
and unknown force of nature.” As long ago as 1874 Crookes
pointed out that, to establish the existence of such a hypo
thetical “new force,” all that would be necessary would be
(under test conditions) (1) to deposit no more than tWt of a
grain of matter in the pan of a locked balance, or (2) to carry
tAt of a grain of arsenic into the interior of a sealed tube.
No such evidence has ever been obtained. Eusapia has
actually been detected in deliberate trickery ; and although
this perhaps cannot be said of all “ professional mediums,”*
Mr. Podmore’s conclusion is that, “as the case stands, it may
fairly be claimed that the occurrence of physical phenomena
is frima facie evidence—I had almost said of fraud, but the
Daniel Dung'las Home appears to be the solitary exception.
�AND THOUGHT TRANSFERENCE
*5
word does not fit the facts—of the production of things which
are other than they seem.”
Mr. Podmore makes this reservation (as to the use of the
word “ fraud ”) for an important reason related to the
peculiarities of the trance personality. Sometimes in con
nection with the production of physical phenomena, but
above all in connection with automatic writing (by means of
which the famous—non-professional—medium, Mrs. Piper,
produces her often mysterious revelations), the medium is apt
to pass into a trance state, allied to, but perhaps not identical
with, the hypnotic trance. Now this is one of the cases in
which the direct study of hypnotism has thrown much light
on the phenomena. The medium in the waking state may
be a person whose honesty is above suspicion ; but the trance
state is one of what is called “ secondary consciousness,”
which may be very different from the primary or waking
consciousness ; and “ the presumption of honesty based on
the character and conduct of waking life counts for nothing
in the case of a medium who is liable to pass into spontaneous
trances.” The secondary consciousness is generally a maimed
and mutilated form of the primary consciousness which is
our friend ; it is commonly non-moral, so that it does not
respect what is, and still less what ought to be. It has few
scruples, and does not distinguish between fact and fiction ;
it has a strong dramatic faculty, being inclined to cultivate
“ art for art’s sake
it cannot say “ I don’t know
it is very
cunning, and at the same time it probably possesses exalted
sensory and perceptive powers—powers altogether in excess
of those possessed by the same person in the primary or
waking state ; and “ in many cases we have proof of a faculty
by which this uncanny monster can on occasion read secret
thoughts.” To sum up, in addition to its increased sensory
and perceptive powers and to its endowment with a mysterious
telepathic faculty upon which no certain limits can be placed,
the secondary personality is “an actor whose mimicry is as
subtle as it is unscrupulous ”; and at the same time it is not
a social being, so that it cannot be relied upon to observe the
ordinary social and moral conventions in respect of truth and
honesty.
�i6
PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
Before passing to the consideration of some of the latest
evidence, and to the final discussion of the bearings of all the
evidence, a few words may be given to the literature of the
subject. Few will have access to, and only the enthusiast is
likely to struggle through, the vast bulk of the Proceedings of
the Society for Psychical Research. The most valuable
summaries of the evidence and critical discussions of its
interpretation are to be found in the writings of Mr. Podmore;
and to read all even of these, interesting as they are, is no
mean labour. Mr. Podmore, accidentally drowned last year,
was a member of the Society from the early days; he
approached the matter from the first in a scientific, dispas
sionate, and truly critical spirit; and it is most interesting
to trace his growing conviction that, while many of the
phenomena cannot be explained without invoking the power
of thought-transference, the need for any really “occult”
explanation (in the “spiritualistic” sense) does not exist.
Most of his principal works have already been mentioned ;
they are, Studies in Psychical Research, Apparitions and
Thought-Transference, Mesmerism and Christian Science,
and The Newer Spiritualism. The works of Gurney, Myers,
and Lodge are also of great value, and are all written in the
scientific spirit, though the two last-mentioned authors incline
rather to accept the view that the mundane activity of dis
embodied spirits has been established by the evidence.
Essays in Psychical Research, by Miss Goodrich-Freer (the
“ Miss X ” of the S. P. R.), is also useful. There are works
by more fervent believers in the spiritist theory, too numerous
to mention, which those who wish to make an exhaustive
study of the subject will do well to read. Anyone with access
to a good library of fiction will find in The Tyranny of the
Dark, by Hamlin Garland, a talented American writer, a
novel which presents the facts and problems of the newer
spiritualism as fairly and picturesquely as Howell’s The
Undiscovered Country presented those of the spiritualism
of an earlier day.
The main fruits of the work of the S. P. R. have been
twofold. In the first place, the Society’s study of abnormal
psychic manifestations, in conjunction with the scientific
�AND THOUGHT TRANSFERENCE
i7
study of hypnotism altogether apart from the work of the
S. P. R., has thrown much light upon the nature of human
consciousness. To the newer experimental psychology, as
Mr. Podmore says, the “ unity of consciousness ” is an
illusion ; like the elementary nature of air, fire, earth, and
water, it is the fruit of youthful ignorance. The laboratory
and the alienist’s clinic show that consciousness, in the last
analysis, is but the casual and transitory co-ordination of
countless ill-defined and variable elements.
And, he
continues, “to found an argument for the survival of the soul
on the supposed unity and indissolubility of this shifting
aggregation must seem, indeed, the building of a house upon
the sand.” In the second place, we owe to the Society the
rescue from the hands of charlatans of the mysterious faculty
of telepathy.
But before passing to our final conclusions on the subject
of thought-transference, let us consider some of the latest
evidence, obtained largely from the automatic writings of
Mrs. Piper, but also from several other automatic writers—
Mrs. Holland, Mrs. Verrail, etc.—who have been engaged in
a lengthy series of experiments.
The most remarkable
features of these experiments have been what are termed
“cross correspondences.” From November, 1906, to June,
1907, Mrs. Piper was in England, and gave a number of
sittings, producing large quantities of automatic writings.
During the same period Mrs. Holland was in India, knowing
nothing then about the Piper sittings being held simul
taneously in England, but conducting independent experi
ments in automatic writing. Mrs. Verrail, at the same time,
was practising automatic writing. Now, when these various
automatic scripts are collated, certain correspondences appear
in their subject-matter; and, what is still more extraordinary,
the different writings contain certain allusions which, when
studied separately, seem unmeaning, but which become explic
able by the light they throw each upon the others ; just as if—
as, indeed, the trance personality of Mrs. Piper maintains to be
the case—some disembodied consciousness, independent ot
our limitations of space and time, were endeavouring to
demonstrate its reality by this means. It is not possible here
�i8
PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
to give details, but I have carefully studied Mr. Podmore’s
collation of the evidence. As he says, there are coincidences
of thought and expression much too numerous to be accounted
for by chance.
There is something extraordinary to be
explained. It may ultimately be proved that there is no
indication of disembodied spiritual agency ; but to prove that
it is necessary to assume the action of living minds upon one
another of an altogether unprecedented kind.
In the present state of the evidence it is not possible to
dogmatise as to its bearing.
Provisionally, those who
examine it will accept a working hypothesis coincident with
their general opinions regarding the existence or non
existence of disembodied intelligences, and the probable
powers and occupations of these if they do exist.
For
example, the late William James, the great American
psychologist, speaking of the whole record of spirit posses
sion in human history, writes: “The notion that so many
men and women, in all other respects honest enough, should
have this preposterous monkeying self annexed to their per
sonality seems to me so weird that the spirit theory takes on
a more possible appearance.”
But, then, the existence of this “monkeying” secondary
self is proved by hypnotic data ; and the faculty of telepathy
must apparently be assumed to exist in order to explain many
of the obscurer manifestations of psychical activity. Is it not,
then, better to accept the explanation which these two
hypotheses afford, without superadding the enormous im
probabilities involved in the claim that “spirit-control” is a
reality? Entia non sint multiplicanda prceter necessitatem.
It must be remembered that the sympathies of the trance
personality are usually on the side of the “occult”; that,
in the search for “spirit communications,” the history of the
subject shows that demand creates supply ; and that “ distant
telepathy by a disembodied spirit is just as improbable as
distant telepathy from the mind of a living person, with the
superadded gross improbability that the disembodied spirit
exists at all 1 I, at any rate, agree with the view taken by
Mi. Podmore.
He holds that the results of the “ cross
correspondence experiments add considerably to the strength
�AND THOUGHT TRANSFERENCE
i9
of the case for the existence of supernormal faculty of some
kind, more especially because the other experimental evidence
indicates that telepathic influences act most freely in the
sphere of the automatic or dream consciousness. These
experiments furnish us, in fact, with yet another illustration
of the readiness of our mysterious inner self to meet any
demands that may be made on its dramatic powers.
So
far,” concludes Mr. Podmore, “as my analysis of the complex
cases of cross correspondence has gone, there has been no
coincidence of thought and expression not adequately
explained by the natural association of ideas in minds
occupied by the same themes, aided by occasional telepathic
interaction among the automatists themselves.
Thus the work of the S. P. R. seems, in a sense, to have
been justified by results. If it has not provided the scientific
proof (for which some have hoped, though to me it appears
extremely undesirable) of the reality of conscious life after
death, it has thrown much light on the dark places of
psychology, and it seems to render necessary at least a
provisional belief in the reality of thought transference.
Of the physical or physiological basis of thought trans
ference we know nothing at present; for to speak of “ brain
waves,” or “etheric thought waves,” is to speak of that of
which we know absolutely nothing. But from another point
of view it is permissible to ask what is the nature of the
faculty. Is it, as some suppose, the germ of a developing
faculty destined to play a great part in the future of the race?
Or is it merely the decayed vestige of a primitive faculty of
communication which has been superseded by the develop
ment of articulate speech? To me, indeed, the latter view
seems far more probable. There is considerable evidence
suggesting that a faculty of the nature of telepathy exists
among some of the lower animals. AVatch, for example, a
flight of pigeons wheeling in the sunlight; do they not seem
to turn, now in one direction, now in another—not as if
following a leader, but rather as if in obedience to an impulse
communicated simultaneously to the nervous systems of all
the birds? In the present state of our knowledge the matter
must be left open ; and I will conclude by saying that, if
�20
PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
thought transference is a developing instead of a decaying
faculty, there are obvious inconveniences, as George Eliot
has shown, attached to this notion of “The Lifted Veil ” 1
But in this matter our descendants will have to bear their
own burden, if it should ultimately be placed upon their
shoulders.
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Psychical research and thought transference : their meaning and recent history
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Paul, Eden [1865-1944]
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Place of publication: London
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1911
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Rationalism
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Psychical Research