Telepathy and the Subliminal Self Part 2

SEPT. 3, 1883.

--------------------------------------------------------------------- TASTERS. PERCIPIENT. SUBSTANCE. ANSWER GIVEN.

---------- ----------- ---------------- ----------------------------- E. G. & M. E. Worcestershire Sauce. "Worcestershire Sauce."

M. G. R. " "Vinegar."

E. G. & M. E. Port wine. "Between eau de Cologne and beer."

M. G. R. " "Raspberry Vinegar."

E. G. & M. E. Bitter aloes. "Horrible and bitter."

M. G. R. Alum. "A taste of ink--of iron--of vinegar. I feel it on my lips--it is as though I had been eating alum."

Some very striking experiments were made by Mr. J. W. Smith of Brunswick Place, Leeds, as agent, and his sister Kate as percipient. Their success with diagrams fully equalled those already given, and with objects the results have seldom been equalled. The following trials were made March 11th, 1884. The intelligence and good faith of the partic.i.p.ants is undoubted.

Agent: J. W. Smith. Percipient: Kate Smith.

OBJECT SELECTED. NAMED.

Figure 8 Correct first time.

Figure 5 " " "

Black cross on white ground " " "

Color blue " " "

Cipher (0) " " "

Pair of Scissors.--Percipient was not told what (i. e. what form of experiment, figure, color or object) was to be next--but carefully and without noise a pair of scissors was placed on white ground, and in about one minute and a half she exclaimed: "Scissors!"

The number of facts and experiments bearing upon this division of our subject is well-nigh inexhaustible; those already presented will serve as ill.u.s.trations and will also show upon what sort of evidence is founded the probability that perceptions and impressions are really conveyed from one mind to another in some other manner than by the ordinary and recognized methods of communication.

It remains to give one or two ill.u.s.trations of the fourth division of the subject, namely, where similar thoughts have simultaneously occurred, or similar impressions have been made upon the minds of persons at a distance from each other without any known method of communication between them.

The first case was received and examined by the society in the summer of 1885. One of the percipients writes as follows:--

"My sister-in-law, Sarah Eustance, of Stretton, was lying sick unto death, and my wife had gone over there from Lawton Chapel (twelve or thirteen miles off) to see and tend her in her last moments. On the night before her death I was sleeping at home alone, and, awaking, I heard a voice distinctly call me.

"Thinking it was my niece Rosanna, the only other occupant of the house, I went to her room and found her awake and nervous. I asked her whether she had called me. She answered: 'No; but something awoke me, when I heard some one calling.' On my wife returning home after her sister's death she told me how anxious her sister had been to see me, craving for me to be sent for, and saying, 'Oh, how I want to see Done once more!' and soon after became speechless. But the curious part was that, about the same time that she was 'craving,' I and my niece heard the call."

In answer to a letter of inquiry he further writes:--

"My wife, who went from Lawton that particular Sunday to see her sister, will testify, that as she attended upon her (after the departure of the minister) during the night, she was asking and craving for me, repeatedly saying, 'Oh, I wish I could see Uncle Done and Rosie once more before I go!' and soon after she became unconscious, or at least ceased speaking, and died the next day, of which fact I was not aware until my wife returned on the evening of the Fourth of July."

Mrs. Sewill, the Rosie referred to, writes as follows:--

"I was awakened suddenly, without apparent cause, and heard a voice calling me distinctly, thus: 'Rosie, Rosie, Rosie.' We (my uncle and myself) were the only occupants of the house that night, aunt being away attending upon her sister. I never was called before or since."

The second case is reported by a medical man of excellent reputation to whom the incident was related by both Lady G. and her sister, the percipients in the case. It is as follows:--

"Lady G. and her sister had been spending the evening with their mother, who was in her usual health and spirits when they left her. In the middle of the night the sister awoke in a fright and said to her husband: 'I must go to my mother at once; do order the carriage. I am sure she is taken ill.' The husband, after trying in vain to convince his wife that it was only a fancy, ordered the carriage. As she was approaching her mother's house, where two roads meet, she saw Lady G.'s carriage approaching. As soon as they met, each asked the other why she was there at that unseasonable hour, and both made the same reply:--

"'I could not sleep, feeling sure my mother was ill, and so I came to see.' As they came in sight of the house they saw their mother's confidential maid at the door, who told them, when they arrived, that their mother had been taken suddenly ill and was dying, and that she had expressed an earnest wish to see her daughters."

The reporter adds:--

"The mother was a lady of strong will and always had a great influence over her daughters."

Many well-authenticated instances of a similar character could be cited, but the above are sufficient for ill.u.s.tration, which is the object here chiefly in view, and other facts still further ill.u.s.trating this division of the subject will appear in other relations.

The foregoing facts and experiments are sufficient to indicate what is understood by thought-transference, or telepathy, and also to indicate what might be called the skirmishing ground between the cla.s.s of psychologists represented by the active workers in the Society for Psychical Research and kindred societies on the one hand, and the conservative scientists, mostly physiologists, who are incredulous of any action of the mind for which they cannot find an appropriate organ and a proper method, on the other.

It is not claimed that thought-transference as here set forth is established beyond all possibility of doubt or cavil, especially from those who choose to remain ignorant of the facts, but only that its facts are solid and their interpretation reasonable, and that thought-transference has now the same claim to acceptance by well-informed people that many of the now accepted facts in physical science had in its early days of growth and development.

The reality of thought-transference being once established, a vast field for investigation is opened up; a new law, as it were, is discovered; and how far-reaching and important its influence and bearing may be upon alleged facts and phenomena which heretofore have been disbelieved, or set down as chance occurrences, or explained away as hallucinations, is at present the interesting study of the experimental psychologist.

CHAPTER II

MESMERISM AND HYPNOTISM--HISTORY AND THERAPEUTIC EFFECTS.

No department of psychical research is at present exciting so widespread an interest as that which is known under the name of Hypnotism; and inquiries are constantly made by those to whom the subject is new, regarding its nature and effects, and also how, if at all, it differs from the mesmerism and animal magnetism of many years ago.

Unfortunately, these questions are more easily asked than answered, and well-informed persons, and even those considered experts in the subject, would doubtless give different and perhaps opposing answers to them. A short historical sketch may help in forming an opinion.

From the remotest periods of human history to the present time, certain peculiar and unusual conditions of mind, sometimes a.s.sociated with abnormal conditions of body, have been observed, during which unusual conditions, words have unconsciously been spoken, sometimes seemingly meaningless, but sometimes conveying knowledge of events at that moment taking place at a distance, sometimes foretelling future events, and sometimes words of warning, instruction, or command.

The Egyptians and a.s.syrians had their magi, the Greeks and Romans their oracles, the Hebrews their seers and prophets, every great religion its inspired teachers, and every savage nation had, under some name, its seer or medicine-man.

Socrates had his daemon, Joan of Arc her voices and visions, the Highlanders their second sight, Spiritualists their mediums and "controls." Even Sitting Bull had his vision in which he foresaw the approach and destruction of Custer's army.

Until a little more than a hundred years ago all persons affected in any of these unusual ways were supposed to be endowed with some sort of supernatural power, or to be under external and supernatural influence, either divine or satanic.

About 1773 Mesmer, an educated German physician, philosopher, and mystic, commenced the practice of curing disease by means of magnets pa.s.sed over the affected parts and over the body of the patient from head to foot.

Afterward seeing Ga.s.sner, a Swabian priest, curing his patients by command, and applying his hands to the affected parts, he discarded his magnets, concluding that the healing power or influence was not in them, but in himself; and he called that influence animal magnetism.

Mesmer also found that a certain proportion of his patients went into a sleep more or less profound under his manipulations, during which somnambulism, or sleep-walking, appeared. But Mesmer's chief personal interest lay in certain theories regarding the nature of the newly-discovered power or agent, and in its therapeutic effects; his theories, however, were not understood nor appreciated by the physicians of his time, and his cures were looked upon by them as being simply quackery.

Nevertheless, it was he who first took the whole subject of these abnormal or supranormal conditions out of the domain of the supernatural, and in attempting to show their relation to natural forces he placed them in the domain of nature as proper subjects of rational study and investigation; and for this, at least, Mesmer should be honored.

Under Mesmer's pupil, the Marquis de Puysegur, the facts and methods relating to the magnetic sleep and magnetic cures were more carefully observed and more fully published. Then followed Petetin, Husson, and Dupotet, Elliotson in England and Esdaile in India. So from Mesmer in 1773 to Dupotet and Elliotson in 1838 we have the period of the "early mesmerists."

During this period the hypnotic sleep was induced by means of pa.s.ses, the operators never for a moment doubting that the influence which produced sleep was a power of some sort proceeding from themselves and producing its effect upon the patient.

In addition to the condition of sleep or lethargy, the following conditions were well known to the "early mesmerists"; somnambulism, or sleep-walking, catalepsy, anaesthesia, and amnesia, or absence of all knowledge of what transpired during the sleep. Suggestion during sleep was also made use of, and was even then proposed as an agent in education and in the cure of vice.

This was the condition of the subject in 1842, when Braid, an English surgeon, made some new and interesting experiments. He showed that the so-called mesmeric sleep could be produced in some patients by other processes than those used by the early mesmerists; especially could this be accomplished by having the patient gaze steadily at a fixed brilliant object or point, without resorting to pa.s.ses or manipulations of any kind.

He introduced the word hypnotism, which has since been generally adopted; he also proposed some new theories relating to the nature of the hypnotic sleep, regarding it as a "profound nervous change," and he still further developed the idea and use of suggestion. Otherwise no important changes were made by him in the status of the subject. It was not looked upon with favor by the profession generally, and its advocates were for the most part still considered as cranks and persons whose scientific and professional standing and character were not above suspicion.

The period of twenty-five years from 1850 to 1875, was a sort of occultation of hypnotism. Braidism suffered nearly the same fate as mesmerism--it was neglected and tabooed. A few capable and honest men, like Liebeault of Nancy and Azam of Bordeaux, worked on, and from time to time published their observations; but for the most part these workers were neglected and even scorned.