TELEPATHY - The Theory, the Facts & the Proof (eBook)

CHAPTER III
EXPERIMENTAL TELEPATHY

BEGINNING WITH the year 1882, and continuing for several years thereafter, the English Society for Psychical Research conducted an important series of experiments in Telepathy, the records of which have been preserved in the several reports of the Society which are on file in the principal libraries of the world. In the "Glossary of Terms used in Psychical Research" by the Society, we find Telepathy defined as "the communication of impressions of any kind from one mind to another, independently of the recognized channels of sense."

In 1882, the President of the Society, Prof. Henry Sidgwick, appointed a committee to "investigate Thought-Reading or Thought-Transference," the members of the committee being Prof. W. F. Barrett, Professor of Physics in the Royal College of Science for Ireland; Edmund Gurney, M. A., Late Fellow of Trinity College; and F. W. H. Myers, M. A., Late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. The purpose of the inquiry by the committee was stated as follows: "Is there or is there not any existing or attainable evidence that can stand fair physiological criticism, to support a belief that a vivid impression or a distinct idea in one mind can be communicated to another mind without the intervening help of the recognized organs of sensation? And if such evidence be found, is the impression derived from a rare or partially developed and hitherto unrecognized sensory organ, or has the mental percept been evoked directly without any antecedent sense-percept?"

The committee classified the phenomena of Thought-Transference as follows:

I. Phenomena manifested, in which the hands of the operator are in contact with the subject.

II. Phenomena manifested without contact with the person willing or sending the thought-impulse.

III. Phenomena manifested, in which some number, word or card is guessed without any apparent physical communication between the operator and subject.

In the first class of phenomena the committee places the ordinary "mind reading" of the public performer, in which the operator places his hands upon the subject, or in which he is placed in some kind of physical contact with the latter. It has been held that this class of phenomena really comes under the head of "muscle reading," inasmuch as there is transmitted to the subject some slight muscular impulse, often given involuntarily and unconsciously by the operator. This theory was first advanced by Dr. W. B. Carpenter, the distinguished English psychologist, who held that "the communications are made by muscular action on the part of one person and automatically interpreted by the other." Dr. Carpenter explained this involuntary muscular action by his celebrated theory of "unconscious cerebration," in which there is "the intermediation of those expressional signs which are made and interpreted alike unconsciously." The familiar "willing game" so often performed for parlor amusement belongs to this category, as do also the performances of many of the celebrated public "mind readers." The committee conducted numerous series of careful experiments with phenomena of this class, and, while the results were very interesting, it was felt that the constantly present possibility of "unconscious muscular movement" rendered the phenomena unsatisfactory from the scientific standpoint.

The second class of phenomena came more nearly under the true classification of Telepathy, for if there be communication without physical contact it is reasonable to assume that some new hypothesis is necessary. If the subject was able to select and proceed to some object previously agreed upon by the operator or the roomful of people, in the "willing game," without knowing the object and without physical contact with any person knowing it, then it would seem that there must be some transmission of thought images "without the intervening help of the recognized organs of sensation." But so careful were the members of the committee, and so closely did they adhere to the strictest scientific methods, that they discarded this class of phenomena as unsatisfactory and unconvincing, and as open to the suspicion that the subject may have received involuntary guidance from the eyes of the company, or perhaps from the different shades of tone in the conversation as the subject approached or receded from the selected object to be found. Even though the subject might be blindfolded, it was possible for impressions to be received through the sense of sight.

The writer remembers an instance in which, in his opinion, a well-known "mind-reader" visiting in this country received impressions through her sense of hearing, although carefully blindfolded. The following quotations are from the account written by him at the time, and give an idea of the modus operandi (the name of the performer is omitted here, although appearing in the original publication of the account) :