Telepathy and the Subliminal Self

CHAPTER I.. Psychical Research--Telepathy or Thought-Transference.

PSYCHICAL RESEARCH--TELEPATHY OR THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE.

The status of the old-fashioned ghost story has, within the past ten years, perceptibly changed. Formerly, by the credulous generality of people, it was almost universally accepted without reason and without critical examination. It was looked upon as supernatural, and supernatural things were neither to be doubted nor reasoned about, and there the matter ended.

On the other hand, the more learned and scientific, equally without reason or critical examination, utterly repudiated and scorned all alleged facts and occurrences relating to the subject. "We know what the laws of nature are," they said, "and alleged occurrences which go beyond or contravene these laws are upon their face illusions and frauds." And so, with them also, there the matter ended.

In the meantime, while the irreclaimably superstitious and credulous on the one hand, and the unco-scientific and conservative on the other, equally without knowledge and equally without reason, have gone on believing and disbelieving, a large number of people--intelligent, inquiring, quick-witted, and reasonable, some scientific and some unscientific--have come to think seriously regarding unusual occurrences and phenomena, either witnessed or experienced by themselves or related by others, and whose reality they could not doubt, although their relations to ordinary conditions of life were mysterious and occult.

In the investigation of these subjects some new and unfamiliar terms have come into more or less common use. We hear of mind-reading, telepathy, hypnotism, clairvoyance, and psychical research, some of which terms still stand for something mysterious, uncanny, perhaps even supernatural, but they have at least excited interest and inquiry. The subjects which they represent have even permeated general literature; the novelist has made use of this widespread interest in occult subjects and has introduced many of the strange and weird features which they present into his department of literature. Some have made use of this new material without knowledge or taste, merely to excite wonder and attract the vulgar, while others use it philosophically, with knowledge and discrimination, for the purpose of educating their readers in a new and important department of knowledge and thought.

Amongst the more scientific, societies have been formed, reports have been read and published, so that in scientific and literary circles as well as among the unlearned the subject has become one of interest.

The object of these papers will be briefly to tell in connection with my own observations, what is known and what is thought by others who have studied the subject carefully, and especially what has been done by the English Society for Psychical Research and kindred societies.

When an expedition is sent out for the purpose of exploring new and unknown regions, it is often necessary to send forward scouts to obtain some general ideas concerning the nature of the country, its conformation, water-courses, inhabitants, and food supplies. The scouts return and report what they have discovered; their reports are listened to with interest, and upon these reports often depend the movements and success of the whole expedition. It will easily be seen how important it is that the scouts should be intelligent, sharp-witted, courageous and truthful; and it will also be evident that the report of these scouts concerning the new and unknown country is much more valuable than the preconceived opinions of geographers and philosophers, no matter how eminent they may be, who have simply stayed at home, enjoyed their easy-chair, and declared off-hand that the new country was useless and uninhabitable.

The outlying fields of psychology, which are now the subject of psychical research, are comparatively a new and unexplored region, and until within a few years it has been considered a barren and unproductive one, into which it was silly, disreputable, and even dangerous to enter; the region was infested with dream-mongers, spiritualists, clairvoyants, mesmerists, and cranks, and the more vigorously it was shunned the safer would he be who had a reputation of any kind to lose.

Such substantially was the condition of public sentiment, and especially of sentiment in strictly scientific circles, fourteen years ago, when the English Society for Psychical Research came into being. The first movement in the direction of systematic study and exploration in this new field was a preliminary meeting called by Prof. W. F. Barrett, Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and a few other gentlemen on Jan. 6, 1882, when the formation of such a society was proposed; and in the following month the society was definitely organized and officers were chosen. The first general meeting for business and listening to reports took place July 17th of the same year.

The persons associated in this society were of the most staid and respectable character, noted for solid sense, and a sufficient number of them for practical work were also trained in scientific methods, and were already eminent in special departments of science.

Prof. Henry Sidgwick, Trinity College, Cambridge, was President; Prof. W. F. Barrett, F. R. S. E., Royal College of Science, Dublin, and Prof. Balfour Stewart, F. R. S., Owens College, Manchester, were Vice-Presidents, and among the members were a large number of well-known names of Fellows of various learned and royal societies, professional men, and members of Parliament, altogether giving character to the society, as well as assuring sensible methods in its work. Among the subjects first taken up for examination and, so far as possible, for experimental study, were the following:--

(1) Thought-transference, or an examination into the nature and extent of any influence which may be exerted by one mind upon another, apart from any generally recognized mode of perception or communication.

(2) The study of hypnotism and the forms of so-called mesmeric trance.

(3) An investigation of well-authenticated reports regarding apparitions and disturbances in houses reputed to be haunted.

(4) An inquiry into various psychical phenomena commonly called Spiritualistic.

The first report made to the society was concerning thought-reading, or thought-transference, and was a description of various experiments undertaken with a view to determine the question whether one person or one mind can receive impressions or intelligence from another person or mind without communication by word, touch, or sign, or by any means whatsoever apart from the ordinary and recognized methods of perception, or the ordinary channels of communication.

What is meant by thought-transference is perhaps most simply illustrated by the common amusement known as the "willing game"; it is played as follows:--

The person to be influenced or "willed" is sent out of the room; those remaining then agree upon some act which that person is to be willed to accomplish; as, for instance, to take some particular piece of bric-a-brac from a table or cabinet and place it upon the piano, or to find some article which has been purposely hidden. The person to be willed is then brought back into the room; the leader of the game places one hand lightly upon her shoulder or arm, and the whole company think intently upon the act agreed upon in her absence. If the game is successful, the person so willed goes, with more or less promptness, takes the piece of bric-a-brac thought of, and places it upon the piano, as before agreed upon by the company, or she goes with more or less directness and discovers the hidden article. Nervous agitation, excitement, even faintness or actual syncope, are not unusual accompaniments of the effort on the part of the person so willed, circumstances which at least show the unusual character of the performance and also the necessity for caution in conducting it.

If the game is played honestly, as it generally is, the person to be willed, when she returns to the room, is absolutely ignorant of what act she is expected to perform, and the person with whom she is placed in contact does not intentionally give her any clue or information during the progress of the game.

In the more formal experiments the person who is willed is known as the sensitive, subject, or percipient; the person who conducts the experiment is known as the agent or operator. The sensitive is presumed to receive, in some unusual manner, from the minds of the agent and the company, an impression regarding the action to be performed, without communication between them in any ordinary manner.

This is one of the simplest forms of thought-transference; it is, of course, liable to many errors, and is useless as a scientific test.

Bishop, Cumberland, and other mind readers who have exhibited their remarkable powers all over the world, were doubtless sensitives who possessed this power of perception or receiving impressions in a high degree, so that minute objects, such as an ordinary watch-key, hidden in a barrel of rubbish in a cellar and in a distant part of an unfamiliar city, is quickly found, the sensitive being connected with the agent by the slightest contact, or perhaps only by a string or wire.

The question at issue in all these cases is the same, namely, do the sensitives receive their impressions regarding what they have to do from the mind of the agent by some process other than the ordinary means of communication, such as seeing, hearing, or touch; or do they, by the exceeding delicacy of their perception, receive impressions from slight indications unintentionally and unconsciously conveyed to them by the agent through the slight contact which is kept up between them?

Continue reading Telepathy and the Subliminal Self free in the Wunder reader →