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IEXPERIMENTAL PRODUCTION OF MOVEMENTS AND OTHER EFFECTS.

In the two preceding chapters we have discussed experiments where the impression received by the percipient may be interpreted as having been a more or less accurate reproduction of the sensation experienced by the agent, or at most a translation of it into some other simple sensation. There have now to be considered various cases in which the transmission of thought is productive of other results in the percipient than the simple duplication or translation of a sensation. The most usual case is where the telepathic impulse leads to some action on the part of the percipient. It was frequently stated by the older mesmerists[43] that the operator, by a silent act of will, could induce a good subject to do or refrain from doing some prescribed or customary action. Isolated observations on such a point are little likely to compel belief; the vanity or the credulity of the recorder may be supposed to have led to his overlooking the negative instances, and attributing to his own peculiar gifts a result in reality due to chance. But, following on the clue thus obtained, the Committee on Mesmerism appointed by the S.P.R. in 1882, to some of whose work reference has already been made (Chapter III., p. 60), succeeded in obtaining results less open to question.

Inhibition of Action by Silent Willing.

The first experiments of the kind were conducted on our friend Mr. Sidney Beard, who was for some time an Associate of the Society and took an active interest in its work. Mr. Beard, who was easily hypnotised, would be entranced by Mr. Smith, and sit in a chair with closed eyes. Then, to quote the account of a single experiment, a list of twelve Yeses and Noes in arbitrary order was written by one of ourselves and put into Mr. Smith's hand, with directions that he should successively will the subject to respond or not to respond, in accordance with the list. A tuning-fork was then struck and held at Mr. Beard's ear, and the question, "Do you hear?" was asked by one of ourselves. This was done twelve times in succession, Mr. Beard answering or failing to answer on each occasion in accordance with the "yes" or "no" of the written list—that is to say, with the silent will of the agent. Similar trials on other occasions with Mr. Beard were equally successful. The percipient's own account of the matter is as follows: "During the experiments of January 1st [1883], when Mr. Smith mesmerised me, I did not lose consciousness at any time, but only experienced a sensation of total numbness in my limbs. When the trial as to whether I could hear sounds was made I heard the sounds distinctly each time, but in a large number of instances I felt totally unable to acknowledge that I heard them. I seemed to know each time whether Mr. Smith wished me to say that I heard them; and as I had surrendered my will to his at the commencement of the experiment, I was unable to reassert my power of volition whilst under his influence." (Proceedings of the Soc. Psych. Research, vol. i. p. 256.)

No. 21.—By PROFESSOR BARRETT.

Further trials of the same kind were carried on in November 1883 by Professor Barrett, at his own house in Dublin. The hypnotist and agent was again Mr. G. A. Smith, the percipient a youth named Fearnley, a stranger to Mr. Smith. In the first series of trials Professor Barrett asked Fearnley, "Now will you open your hand?" at the same time pointing to "Yes" or "No," written on a card, and held in sight of Mr. Smith, but out of view from the percipient. Mr. Smith, who was not in contact with the subject, directed his silent will in accordance with the written indication. In twenty experiments conducted under these conditions there were only three failures. Later, to quote Professor Barrett,

"The experiment was varied as follows:—The word 'Yes' was written on one, and the word 'No' on the other, of two precisely similar pieces of card. One or other of these cards was handed to Mr. Smith at my arbitrary pleasure, care of course being taken that the 'subject' had no opportunity of seeing the card, even had he been awake. When 'Yes' was handed Mr. Smith was silently to will the 'subject' to answer aloud in response to the question asked by me, 'Do you hear me?' When 'No' was handed Mr. Smith was to will that no response should be made in reply to the same question. The object of this series of experiments was to note the effect of increasing the distance between the willer and the willed—the agent and the percipient. In the first instance Mr. Smith was placed three feet from the 'subject,' who remained throughout apparently asleep in an arm-chair in one corner of my study.

"At three feet apart, 25 trials were successively made, and in every case the 'subject' responded or did not respond in exact accordance with the silent will of Mr. Smith, as directed by me.

"At 6 feet apart six similar trials were made without a single failure.

"At 12 feet apart six more trials were made without a single failure.

"At 17 feet apart six more trials were made without a single failure.

"In this last case Mr. Smith had to be placed outside the study door, which was then closed with the exception of a narrow chink just wide enough to admit of passing a card in or out, whilst I remained in the study observing the 'subject.' To avoid any possible indication from the tone in which I asked the question, in all cases except the first dozen experiments, I shuffled the cards face downwards, and then handed the unknown 'Yes' or 'No' to Mr. Smith, who looked at the card and willed accordingly. I noted down the result, and then, and not till then, looked at the card.

"A final experiment was made when Mr. Smith was taken across the hall and placed in the dining-room, at a distance of about 30 feet from the 'subject,' two doors, both quite closed, intervening. Under these conditions, three trials were made with success, the 'Yes' response being, however, very faint and hardly audible to me, who returned to the study to ask the usual question after handing the card to the distant operator. At this point, the 'subject' fell into a deep sleep, and made no further replies to the questions addressed to him."

Further trials were made under different conditions, the results being almost uniformly successful.

In interpreting these results there is no justification for assuming direct control by the agent over the organism of the percipient. Nor does the current phrase, endorsed as it is in the first case by the percipient himself, that the operator's will dominated the will of the subject, give an adequate account of the matter. When, as in the case of experiments previously described, the percipient's impression reproduces the sensation of the agent, there is nothing to indicate that the impulse transferred directly affects the external organs, or even the intermediate sensory centres. In the absence of any direct evidence it is at least equally probable that the higher brain centres only are concerned in the transmission in the first instance, and that the transmitted idea is reflected downwards, until it actually assumes, as in some of the experiments recorded with P. and Miss B., the form of a sensory hallucination. Upon this view no fundamental distinction need be drawn between the results before described and those now under discussion. In the latter case the question is not one of transference of will or of a motor or inhibitory impulse. What is actually transferred from the agent is probably only a simple idea. Its subsequent translation into action, or the inhibition of action, is as much the work of the percipient's mind as, in the other case, the transformation of the idea of a number into a visual hallucination. As regards the particular effect produced, it must be remembered that the prime characteristic of the hypnotic state is its openness to suggestion, and especially to suggestion coming through a particular channel. It is the establishment of this suggestible state, which consists essentially in the suppression of the controlling faculties which normally pass judgment on the suggestions received from without, and select those which are to find response in action, that Mr. Beard describes as the surrender of his will. So that when Mr. Beard answered our questions he did what his natural courtesy led him to do; when he maintained silence his tendency to respond to the stimulus of our questions was momentarily overcome by the stronger stimulus of the idea received from the agent. But the superior efficacy of the idea so transferred resulted not from any impulsive quality in the idea itself, but from the previously established relations between agent and percipient. The fact that experiments of this kind have rarely succeeded in the waking state is no doubt due to the inferior suggestibility of that state.

Actions originated by Silent Willing.

In the paper already referred to (supra, p. 31) Dr. Blair Thaw records some experiments which present us with a modification of the Willing Game, but without contact. In most of the experiments the person who was willed to perform a certain action—the nature of which had been previously communicated to the other experimenters in writing—was in the same room as the agents. But the agents did not follow the percipient about the room, nor did the percipient look at the agents for guidance. The percipient appears to have been awake throughout the experiments, but it seems probable that her condition was not that of complete normal wakefulness.

Of 26 experiments conducted under such conditions, 10 were completely and 12 partially successful. When, however, as in this case, there are several agents, all of whom are actually watching the movements of the percipient, it is impossible to feel convinced that no indication by the movements of the eyes or by breathing was given to the percipient to show her whether or not she was moving in the right direction. In the last four trials of the series, however, the percipient was willed to fetch an object from another room which was out of sight from the agents, and it is difficult to conceive that any indication could have been given to her of the object selected.

No. 22.—By DR. BLAIR THAW.

April 7th, 1892.

Mrs. Thaw, Percipient. Mr. M. H. Wyatt and Dr. Thaw, Agents. In the next four experiments an object was selected in another room, and then the percipient sent in for it. No clue was given as to what part of the room.

1st Object Selected. A Wooden Cupid, from a corner-piece in room with eight other objects on it.—Percipient first brought a photo from the lower shelf of corner-piece, then said: "It's the wooden Cupid."

2nd Object. Match-box on mantel.—Percipient seemed confused at first and brought two photos, then said: "It's the brass match-box on mantel."

3rd Object. A Vellum Book on table, among twenty other books, chosen; but a bag under one window was thought of first.—Percipient went to table, put her hand on the book, then went to the bag and took it up, then back to the table and took the vellum book and then the bag, and appeared with both. Percipient was in sight of agents during this time, but did not see them.

4th Object. Book on small table, among ten others.—Missed.

In commenting on these experiments, Dr. Thaw is himself inclined to attribute some of the results to "an indistinct motor impulse of some kind, leading the percipient near the object." But in the experiments above recorded, at any rate, it is sufficient, probably, to suppose the transference of the idea of the object.

Experiments of a somewhat similar nature are recorded by Dr. Ochorowicz (La Suggestion mentale, pp. 84–117). The subject in this case, Madame M., was sunk in the deep hypnotic state (l'état aidéique), a condition in which she would usually remain motionless until aroused by the doctor. Under these circumstances Dr. Ochorowicz conducted upwards of forty experiments in conveying mental commands, a large proportion of which were executed by the subject with more or less exactness. These trials have the drawback above indicated, common to all experiments of the kind with the agent in the same room; moreover, each experiment appears to have extended over a considerable period, and the command—e.g., to rise from the chair and hand a cake from the table to Dr. Ochorowicz—was frequently executed in stages. In judging of the results, however, it should be remembered that Dr. Ochorowicz has elsewhere shown himself to be acute in criticism and accurate in observation.

Some experiments made by Dr. Gibert on Madame B., and recorded by Professor Pierre Janet,[44] seem open to a similar objection. Dr. Gibert communicated the mental command by touching Madame B.'s forehead with his own whilst concentrating his thoughts on the ideas to be conveyed. It is difficult to feel sure that the success of the experiment under such conditions was not due to the command having been unconsciously muttered by Dr. Gibert within the hearing of the percipient. In the following account, however, thought-transference would seem to be the simplest explanation of the results. The narrator, unfortunately, remains anonymous; he is, however, personally known to Dr. Dariex, the editor of the periodical from which the account is extracted, and the experiments were obviously conducted with care.[45] In this case it seems clear, since the command, though understood, was on more than one occasion disobeyed, that the idea telepathically intruded into the percipient's mind was not necessarily associated with an impulse to action.

No. 23.—By J. H. P.

[On the 6th December 1887], having placed M. in a deep trance, I turned my back upon her, and, without any gesture or sound whatever, gave her the following mental order:—

"When you wake up you are to go and fetch a glass, put a few drops of Eau de Cologne into it, and bring it to me."

On waking up, M. was visibly preoccupied; she could not keep still, and at last came and placed herself in front of me, exclaiming—

"What an idea to put in my head!"

"Why do you speak so to me?"

"Because the idea that I have got can only come from you, and I don't wish to obey."

"Don't obey unless you like; but I wish you to tell me at once what you are thinking of."

"Well, then, I was to go and look for a glass, put some water in it with some drops of Eau de Cologne, and take it to you; it is really ridiculous."

My order had then been perfectly understood for the first time. From that moment, December 6th, 1887, till to-day, with only two or three exceptions, the mental transmission, whether in the waking or sleeping state, has been most vivid. It is only disturbed at certain times, or when M. is feeling very anxious.

On the 10th of December 1887, unknown to M., I hid a watch, that was not going, behind some books in my bookcase. When she arrived I put her to sleep, and gave her the following mental command:—

"Go and fetch me the watch that is hidden behind some books in the bookcase."

I sat in my armchair with M. behind me, and was careful not to look in the direction where the object was hidden.

M. suddenly got up from her armchair and went straight to the bookcase, but could not open it; making energetic movements the while, whenever she touched the door, and especially the glass.

"It is there! It is there! I am certain; but this glass burns me!"

I decided to open it myself; she rushed at my books, took them out, and seized the watch, delighted to have found it.

Similar trials have been made with commands that one of my friends passed to me, written beforehand, and not in the presence of the subject, and the success has been complete; but if the person who passes me the order is unknown to her, she refuses to obey, saying that the command is not mine.

M. N., who was convinced that mental transmission is a fraud, assured me that I should never be able to transmit an order from him to M.

I invited him to come to my house, at five o'clock in the evening, with a command written, which he was to give me only when M. was asleep, and outside my study.

At 5.10 N. arrived and we went out, leaving M. in a trance; when we were separated from my study by the two intervening rooms, with all the doors shut, N. pulled out a small paper and said—

"You will read this command, we will both come back to M., and without any gestures, you will communicate it to her."

"Certainly."

In the note was written, "Give the mental command to M. to count out loud from 5 to 1; 5, 4, 3, 2, 1."

We came back to my study; I sat at my desk as usual—I am in the habit of making notes during the progress of the experiments, so as to report them with scrupulous accuracy—and I sent N.'s mental command, while pretending to write. M. suddenly exclaimed—

"Doubtless, you imagine that I cannot count! I can count from 1 to 50,000, if I wish."

Mental command—"Count from 5 to 1."

"No, I will not obey a strange command; it is not a command of yours."

All my efforts were useless; we had to abandon the experiment. The command was certainly understood; but M. N. retired, convinced that it had not been understood, and that even the trance was a sham!

Automatic Writing.

Sometimes the working of the telepathic impulse is of a more apparently mysterious kind. We have seen that Mr. Beard was fully conscious of the action of a restraining force; and Mrs. Thaw, who was in a condition little if at all removed from the normal, appears also to have been aware of what she was doing, if perhaps without explicit recognition of her motives at the time of performing the prescribed actions. But in the various cases now to be described the telepathic impulse seems never to have affected the normal consciousness of the percipient at all; and the results produced through the agency of his organism were due to no recognised volition on his part. The intelligence directing his hand was an intelligence working below and apart from his ordinary life.

Now this subterranean intelligence presents many points of analogy with the secondary consciousness of the hypnotic subject; in both states we find indications of thought and will distinct from those of waking life, and of a memory not shared with that life. Moreover, it has been shown experimentally, by Mr. Edmund Gurney,[46] Professor Pierre Janet,[47] and others, that the consciousness which makes itself known through planchette is, in certain persons at any rate, identical with the consciousness found in the hypnotic trance, so far as the test of a common memory can be relied upon to prove identity. The superior susceptibility to telepathic influences, already referred to, of the hypnotic subject, may perhaps, therefore, in the light of these later experiments, be found to indicate a superior susceptibility of those parts of the brain whose workings lie below the ordinary consciousness, and reveal themselves only in the activities of trance and automatism.

The following is an illustrative case. The account is derived from contemporary notes, made by the late Mr. P. H. Newnham, Vicar of Maker, Devonport, of a series of experiments conducted by himself and his wife during eight months in 1871.[48] Mr. Newnham would write, in a book kept for the purpose, a question of the purport of which Mrs. Newnham was in ignorance; and Mrs. Newnham, holding her hand on a planchette, would write an answer to the question. The conditions of the experiments are described by Mr. Newnham, in an account written in 1884, as follows:—

No. 24.

"My wife always sat at a small low table, in a low chair, leaning backwards. I sat about eight feet distant, at a rather higher table, and with my back towards her while writing down the questions. It was absolutely impossible that any gesture, or play of features, on my part, could have been visible or intelligible to her. As a rule she kept her eyes shut; but never became in the slightest degree hypnotic, or even naturally drowsy."

In all 309 questions with their answers were recorded under these conditions, before the experiments were finally abandoned on account of their prejudicial effect on Mrs. Newnham's health. The extracts from Mr. Newnham's note-book given below show that Mrs. Newnham throughout had some kind of knowledge, not always apparently complete, of the terms of the question.[49] But she was not herself consciously aware of the purport either of the question or of the answer written through her hand.

January 29th.

13. Is it the operator's brain, or some external force, that moves the Planchette? Answer "brain" or "force." A. Will.

14. Is it the will of a living person, or of an immaterial spirit, distinct from that person? Answer "person" or "spirit." A. Wife.

15. Give first the wife's Christian name; then, my favourite name for her. (This was accurately done.)

27. What is your own name? A. Only you.

28. We are not quite sure of the meaning of the answer. Explain. A. Wife.

Failing to get more than this at the outset, we returned to the same thought after question 114; when, having been closely pressed on another subject, we received the curt reply—"Told all I know."

February 18th.

117. Who are you that writes, and has told all you know? A. Wife.

118. But does no one tell wife what to write? If so, who? A. Spirit.

119. Whose spirit? A. Wife's brain.

120. But how does wife's brain know (certain) secrets? A. Wife's spirit unconsciously guides.

121. But how does wife's spirit know things it has never been told? A. No external influence.

122. But by what internal influence does it know (these) secrets? A. You cannot know.

Mr. Newnham, who was a Mason, took the opportunity on several occasions of questioning the planchette on details of the Masonic ritual and archæology—of which Mrs. Newnham was of course ignorant—with very surprising results. It will be seen from the extracts which follow that Mrs. Newnham's answers showed not only an acquaintance with the terms of the question, but even a fragmentary knowledge of the correct answer—knowledge which under the circumstances could hardly have been derived elsewhere than from the questioner's brain.

March 26th.

166. Of what language is the first syllable of the Great Triple R.A. Word?[50] A. Don't know.

167. Yes, you do. What are the three languages of which the word is composed? A. Greek, Egyptian, Syriac first syllable (correctly given), rest unknown.

168. Write the syllable which is Syriac. A. (First syllable correctly written.)

169. Write the syllable which is Egyptian. A. Second.

170. Can you not write the syllable itself? A. Third Greek.

174. Write down the word itself. A. First three and last two letters were written correctly, but four incorrect letters, partly borrowed from another word of the same degree, came in the middle.

176. Why do you write a word of which I know nothing? A. Wife tried hard to tell the word, but could not quite catch it.

177. Catch it from whom? A. Not quite sure.

178. Not quite sure of what? A. I know nothing. Wife doesn't quite know.

182. Write out the prayer used at the advancement of a Mark Master Mason. A. Almighty Ruler of the Universe and Architect of all worlds, we beseech Thee to accept this, our brother, whom we have this day received into our most honourable Company of Mark Master Masons. Grant him to be a worthy member of our brotherhood; and may he be in his own person a perfect mirror of all Masonic virtues. Grant that all our doings may be to Thy honour and glory, and to the welfare of all mankind.

This prayer was written off instantaneously and very rapidly. It is a very remarkable production indeed. For the benefit of those who are not members of the craft, I may say that no prayer in the slightest degree resembling it is made use of in the Ritual of any Masonic degree; and yet it contains more than one strictly accurate technicality connected with the degree of Mark Mason. My wife has never seen any Masonic prayers, whether in "Carlile," or any other real or spurious Ritual of the Masonic Order.

183. I do not know this prayer. Where is it to be found? A. Old American Ritual.

184. Where can I get one? A. Most likely none in England.

185. Can you not write the prayer that I make use of in my own Lodge? A. No, I don't know it.

We have to remark here not merely the exhibition of a will and an intelligence differing from the writer's normal self, but the display of a yet more alien disingenuousness. Similar evasions and inventions occur more than once in the course of these experiments. Indeed, a certain degree of moral perversity is a frequent and notorious characteristic of automatic expression.

Some interesting experiments of the same kind were conducted, in the winter of 1892–93, by Mr. R. H. Buttemer, of Emanuel College, Cambridge, and Mr. H. T. Green. Throughout the series the questions were, as in the preceding case, written down, so that the percipient was completely ignorant of their purport. The following is the record of the last experiments of the series.

No. 25.—By MR. R. H. BUTTEMER.

February 18th, 1893, 8 P.M. Mrs. H., Miss B., Mr. and Miss M. present, in addition to Mr. Green, and Messrs. S., W., and Buttemer.

Mr. Green, as usual, operated Planchette, and on this occasion sat with his back to all the other persons present.

Q. (from Mr. M.): What was I doing this afternoon?

A. i. ——the sun—— (all else illegible). ii. Enjoying the fresh air of heaven.

Q. What was Mr. Rogers doing in Cambridge?

A. i. (Irrelevant, or possibly connected vaguely with the question.) ii. Ask another, but Mr. Rogers came up on important business connected with the Lodge. (Correct.)

Q. Where has Mrs. M. gone?

A. i. (Irrelevant.) ii. Far, far away, but more next time. iii. Her mother has gone to—oh, what a happy place is London! iv. All change here for Bletchley. (Mrs. M. had possibly passed this station on her journey.)

Q. Who has won the Association Match to-day?

A. i. (Illegible.) ii. O ye simple ones, how long will ye love simplicity? Why, Oxford, of course. [This fact was known to some persons in the room, but not to Mr. Green.]

One of the company then suggested the attempt to get the name on a visiting card transmitted, and the question was written, "Write name on card." Mr. Green did not know that this experiment was about to be tried, and the card was picked from a pile at random. The name was John B. Bourne. A sentence was written by Mr. Green, which proved to be, "Think of one letter at a time and then see what will happen." We did so.

A. i. J for Jerusalem, O for Omri, H for Honey, and N for Nothing. ii. B for Benjamin, O for Olive, U for Unicorn. (The remaining letters were given incorrectly.)

Q. How many of the Society's books are here? (There were two volumes of Proceedings on the table.)

A. i. (Irrelevant.) ii. The answer is 100–98.

Q. What is 2 × 3?

Two irrelevant answers were given, possibly owing to a slight disturbance in the room. The third answer was—"When that noise has ceased and S. has finished knocking the lamp over, I say 6."

A trial shortly after this, February 19th, gave no results, and the power of automatic writing appears to have entirely left Mr. Green for the present. (Proc. Soc. Psych. Research, vol. ix. pp. 61–64.)

In this, as in Mr. Newnham's case, the mode of expression is again characteristic of the automatic consciousness. It is explained by Mr. Buttemer that when two or more answers are given, the operator had been simply told to write again, after the first irrelevant answer, without being shown the question.

Table Tilting.

No. 26.—By the AUTHOR.

We pass on to experiments in which the ideas transmitted from the agent find other subterranean channels in the percipient's organism for their expression. Of all forms of intelligent automatism writing, next to speaking, is probably in an educated percipient the easiest, because in normal life the commonest. In the cases, therefore, recorded below the actual movements involved, though of a relatively simple kind, as being unaccustomed called possibly for the exercise of a degree of mental activity as high as would have been the case had writing been the vehicle of expression. In the preceding chapter it was recorded, in the experiments with numbers, that some of the answers were given through the movements of a table on which the percipient's hands rested (p. 73). A series of experiments of this nature was made by the writer in November and December 1873, with the assistance of a few friends, amongst whom were Mr. F. H. Colson, now Head Master of Plymouth College, and the Rev. W. E. Smith, of Corton, near Lowestoft. The following is a description of the methods adopted. Three or four of us would sit round a small centre-legged table, cane-bottomed chair, waste-paper basket, or metal tripod, with our hands resting on it. We found that in a few minutes the table (or other instrument) would tilt on one side, or move round and round, with considerable freedom. When these motions had once been fairly established, one or two of those present in the room would retire to a distance, keeping their backs to the table, and think of a letter of the alphabet. The table would move freely up and down, under the varying pressure of the hands laid on it, in a succession of small tilts. Those sitting at the table would count the tilts—one tilt standing for A, two for B, three for C, and so on. Excluding second trials, there were 70 experiments conducted under these conditions. The right letter was tilted in 27 cases, and in two others the next succeeding letter was given. On some occasions the proportion of successes was much higher; thus, on the 28th November, out of a total of 16 trials, 10 were correct. On the 1st December, on the other hand, 10 trials were made without any success. It was the rule throughout that the agents should stand with their backs to the table at some distance from it, and after the first few experiments we found, or thought we found, that the thought-transference succeeded best with a single agent. In order that the letter might not be guessed from the context, we generally took the initial or initial and final letters only of a word; in four cases only did the agent select as many as three consecutive letters of a word. If the letters had been arbitrarily chosen, the chances against the right letters being indicated would be 25 to 1. But as the letters actually selected were in most cases constituent parts of a word, generally the initial letter, and as in some cases two or three consecutive letters were selected, the adverse chances would be reduced, roughly speaking, to something like 15 to 1. But even so the results attained are sufficiently striking.[51]