Adventurings in the Psychical Part 6

"First I saw dimly a house, but I think that you wish me to see a little girl with brown hair down her back, tied with a ribbon in the usual way.

She is sitting at a table with her back turned and seems very busy indeed. I think she is cutting out sc.r.a.ps with a pair of scissors. She has on a white pinafore, and I should guess her age to be between eight and twelve."

Miss Miles had not been trying to make Miss Ramsden think of anything of the sort. But the description fitted perfectly her landlady's little daughter, of whom the mother, Mrs. Laura Lovegrove, says:

"I have a little girl aged eleven, with brown hair, tied with a ribbon in the usual way. She wears a pinafore, and, being ill, often amuses herself cutting out sc.r.a.ps."

Another time, when the hour for the experiment arrived, Miss Miles forgot all about it, being busy writing letters to some friends. In particular she was absorbed in framing an answer to an important letter from a Polish artist, written in a peculiar script. Miss Ramsden's report for that evening was:

"I felt that you were not thinking of me, but were reading a letter in a sort of half-German writing. The letters have very long tails to them.

Is there any truth in that?"[11]

[11] The experiments of the Misses Miles and Ramsden are reported in detail in the _Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research_, vol. xxi, and in the _Journal of the Society for Psychical Research_, vol. viii. The report of the Burt-Usher experiments appears in the _Annales des Sciences Psychiques_, January and February, 1910.

Significant also is the fact that precisely the same sort of thing occurred in the more recent experiments between Mr. Burt and Mr. Usher, who, like Miss Miles and Miss Ramsden, conducted their investigations in a careful, methodical, conscientious way, and over a long period of time.

Mr. Usher, like Miss Miles, invariably acted as the sender of the telepathic communications, while Mr. Burt was the percipient. From first to last the latter remained in London, while Mr. Usher was part of the time in Bristol, more than one hundred miles from London, and part of the time in the Austrian city of Prague, a thousand miles away. On each experiment-evening it was Mr. Usher's practice, at the hour previously agreed upon, to sit alone in a dimly lighted room, draw some design on a piece of paper, and remain for fifteen minutes thinking intently of the design and "willing" to transmit it to Mr. Burt, who, at the same hour, would be seated in a darkened room in London, noting the images that pa.s.sed before his mind's eye, and, at the expiration of fifteen minutes, setting down on paper the one or two that had seemed to him most vivid.

Nearly fifty experiments were thus made, with results defying any explanation by the theory of chance coincidence. And, as in the Miles-Ramsden experiments--for the matter of that, as also in Professor Hyslop's experiments--it at times happened that when Mr. Burt totally failed to draw a design corresponding with that which Mr. Usher had drawn, Mr. Burt's design did correspond with images demonstrably in Mr.

Usher's mind at or immediately before the moment of the experiment.

Thus, one evening in Prague Mr. Usher tried to make Mr. Burt get the impression of an oblong composed of numerous small dots. Instead Mr.

Burt saw and designed a peculiar plume-like ornamentation, which Mr.

Usher instantly recognized as a picture of part of the unusual carving on the table at which he had been seated. On another occasion--the eighteenth experiment--Mr. Usher sought to transmit a crude design of a flower in a pot. What Mr. Burt actually drew was an excellent representation of a lighted cigarette with the smoke curling away from it.

"And," says Mr. Usher, "the evening that he drew this was the first evening I had smoked a cigarette while experimenting with him."

Such incidents, with those cited in connection with the experiments of Professor Hyslop and the Misses Miles and Ramsden, in my opinion go to show exactly why it is that one cannot hope to obtain unfailing control over the process of telepathy. For they indicate that at bottom genuine thought transference depends not so much on conscious _willing_ as on subconscious _feeling_. It is not necessarily the things about which one thinks most strongly, but rather things which are tinged with some emotional coloring, that are most likely to become subjects of telepathic communication.

And these experiments further indicate that, on the receiver's part also, the mechanism involved in the transmission of telepathic messages belongs rather to the subconscious than to the conscious portion of the mind. In order to allow the emergence of the transmitted ideas into the field of conscious knowledge, there seems to be always necessary some form of psychical "dissociation"--as in a trance, dream, reverie, or moment of absentmindedness. Such states of dissociation are not always easy to bring about voluntarily; and when they are brought about, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, it by no means follows that ideas received telepathically will forthwith and rapidly rise above the threshold of consciousness.

For, as recent psychological experiment and observation have shown, in dissociated states the tendency is for the emergence chiefly of ideas which, through their emotional a.s.sociations, are of deep personal significance--as when we dream of persons or things a.s.sociated with events that once affected us profoundly. Every one of us has subconscious reminiscences of this sort, and with these personal subconscious reminiscences any ideas which have been transmitted telepathically have of necessity to compete for emergence. They may get through or they may not; whether they will get through apparently depends in large measure on the degree of their own emotional intensity.

Hence it is that that scientist is doomed to perpetual unbelief who boasts that he will never place credence in telepathy until he can play with it as he plays with the chemicals in his test tubes. One cannot handle feelings as one can handle a chemical compound, nor can one manipulate at will the subconscious as though it were a physical substance. Hence, too, the case for telepathy must always rest less on experimental evidence--strong though the Miles-Ramsden and Burt-Usher experiments demonstrate that this sometimes is--than on well-authenticated instances of spontaneous occurrence, which have been recorded in ever-increasing volume since systematic investigation of the subject was first undertaken a scant quarter of a century ago.

In such instances, the records further show, one of the commonest forms in which the telepathic message is received is that of an auditory hallucination, as in the "voice" heard by me on the sh.o.r.e of the Canadian lake and on the bank of Niagara River. When there is connected with the sending of the message some supreme crisis in the career of the sender--the crisis, it may be, of the moment of death--the auditory hallucination is sometimes of such a nature as to make its dire meaning almost self-evident. In this respect I know of nothing more striking than a strange case reported, with ample corroborative evidence, to the Society for Psychical Research.

The narrator, a well-to-do Englishman, was living at the time in a country house. It was early spring, and on the night of his telepathic experience there had been a slight snowfall, just sufficient to make the ground white. After dinner he spent the evening writing until ten o'clock, when, to continue the story in his own words:

"I got up and left the room, taking a lamp from the hall table, and placing it on a small table standing in a recess of the window in the breakfast-room. The curtains were not drawn across the window. I had just taken down from the nearest bookcase a volume of 'Macgillivray's British Birds' for reference, and was in the act of reading the pa.s.sage, the book held close to the lamp, and my shoulder touching the window shutter, and in a position when almost the slightest sound would be heard, when I distinctly heard the front gate opened and shut again with a clap, and footsteps advancing at a run up the drive; when opposite the window the steps changed from sharp and distinct on gravel to dull and less clear on the gra.s.s-slip below the window, and at the same time I was conscious that some one or something stood close to me outside, only the thin shutter and a sheet of gla.s.s dividing us.

"I could hear the quick, panting, labored breathing of the messenger, or whatever it was, as if trying to recover breath before speaking.

Had he been attracted by the light through the shutter? Suddenly, like a gunshot, inside, outside, and all around, there broke out the most appalling shriek--a prolonged wail of horror, which seemed to freeze the blood. It was not a single shriek, but more prolonged, commencing in a high key, and then less and less, wailing away toward the north, and becoming weaker and weaker as it receded in sobbing pulsations of intense agony.

"Of my fright and horror I can say nothing--increased tenfold when I walked into the dining-room and found my wife sitting quietly at her work close to the window, in the same line and distant only ten or twelve feet from the corresponding window in the breakfast-room. _She had heard nothing._ I could see that at once; and from the position in which she was sitting, I knew she could not have failed to hear any noise outside and any footsteps on the ground. Perceiving I was alarmed about something, she asked:

"'What is the matter?'

"'Only some one outside,' I said.

"'Then, why do you not go out and see? You always do when you hear any unusual noise.'

"'There is something queer and dreadful about this noise,' I replied.

'I dare not face it.'"

Nothing more was heard, and early next morning he made a careful search in the grounds around the house, but not a footprint was to be seen in the snow, which had ceased falling long before the occurrence of the wailing cry. A little later in the day, however, word arrived that at ten o'clock the previous night one of his tenants, who lived half a mile distant and with whom he had spent the afternoon, had committed suicide by drinking prussic acid.

He had gone up to his bedroom, his groom testified at the inquest, had mixed the poison in a tumbler of water, drank it off, and, with a terrible scream, fell dead on the floor.

Fortunately, telepathic hallucinations do not usually come with such intensity or in such an alarming form. Often they are mere vague impressions that something unpleasant or disastrous is occurring to a relative or friend, and, as in the case of self-originating hallucinations like that reported by Lady Eardley, they occasionally impel to action that averts disaster. It was thus, to give a single instance, in an experience reported[12] by William Blakeway, a Staffords.h.i.+re Englishman:

[12] In "Phantasms of the Living," vol. ii, pp. 377-378.

"I was in my usual place at chapel one Sunday afternoon, when all at once I thought I must go home. Seemingly against my will, I took my hat.

When reaching the chapel gates I felt an impulse that I must hasten home as quick as possible, and I ran with all my might without stopping to take breath. Meeting a friend who asked why I hurried so, I pa.s.sed him almost without notice.

"When I reached home I found the house full of smoke, and my little boy, three years old, all on fire, alone in the house. I at once tore the burning clothes from off him, and was just in time to save his life.

It has always been a mystery to me, as no person whispered a word to me, and no one knew anything about the fire till after I made the alarm at home, which was more than a quarter of a mile from the chapel."

Here the wholly subconscious nature of the phenomenon, on the percipient's part at all events, is plainly evident. It is even more evident in all cases where, as frequently occurs, the telepathic message is received in a dream like that which was recorded in the opening paragraphs of this chapter. As is to be expected, too, in telepathic dreams we often find an element of symbolism. The news of illness, of accident, of death, or whatever it may be, is not conveyed directly, but indirectly, amid a ma.s.s of more or less relevant details of dream imagery.

A couple of years ago I received a letter from a lady living in Brooklyn, describing an experience that admirably ill.u.s.trates this point. Her dream, however, was of such an intimate character that the names of the persons and places must be suppressed. Five years ago, this lady writes, her daughter became interested in a young man, Mr. V., whose suit, however, the mother discouraged. Afterwards her daughter met, fell in love with, and was happily married to a physician in the Government service. She soon went abroad with her husband, to a remote and isolated post. My informant continues:

"We could not hear from them all winter because they were ice-bound, but my thoughts of them were always most delightful, for their last letters were bubbling over with happiness, and I was lovingly busy getting things ready for them.

"Mr. V. had almost pa.s.sed from my mind, when one morning, in the middle of June, I arose, took a bath, and, having a half-hour to spare, went back to bed again, falling into a deep sleep.

"Suddenly Mr. V. appeared to me in one of my lower rooms. It seemed to be breakfast time, and I invited him to have some. He accepted, and we sat together for some time, but I do not remember any of our conversation. Suddenly he arose, faced me, and, looking straight into my eyes, said emphatically:

"'Now she is mine! Nothing you can do will ever separate us again! This time she will belong to me!'

"I awoke with a start, much frightened. Then, realizing the situation, I thanked Heaven she was safely married, and promptly put the dream from me. This was about eight o'clock. At ten a despatch reached me saying that my daughter's husband had died, from the result of a boating accident two weeks before."

Or, when apprehended in dream, the telepathic message may be so distorted that its true meaning cannot possibly be recognized immediately. A characteristic case of this kind occurred at the time of President Lincoln's a.s.sa.s.sination, though it is only recently that it was for the first time reported in detail by Mrs. E. H. Hughes, daughter of the San Francisco architect, S. C. Bugbee. It should be explained that before removing to California from Ma.s.sachusetts in 1863, the Bugbees were well acquainted with the Booth family, and that John Wilkes Booth was an especial favorite of Mrs. Bugbee's. Says Mrs. Hughes, in her report to the American Inst.i.tute for Scientific Research:[13]

[13] _Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research_, vol. iv, pp. 210-217.

"One night my mother woke my father suddenly, saying: 'Oh, Charles! I have had such a terrible dream! I dreamed that John Wilkes Booth shot me! It seemed that he sent me seats for a private box in a theater, and I took some young ladies with me. Between the acts he came to me, and asked me how I liked the play. I exclaimed, "Why, John Booth! I am surprised that you could put such a questionable play upon the stage. I am mortified to think that I have brought young ladies to see it." At that he raised a pistol, and shot me in the back of the neck. It seems as if I felt a pain there now.' After a while my mother fell asleep, and dreamed the same thing a second time.

"The next morning came the terrible news which plunged the nation into grief and mourning. Almost at the hour of my mother's dream, President Lincoln was a.s.sa.s.sinated; shot, in the back of the neck, in a private box at a theater, by John Wilkes Booth."

On the other hand, there may be no symbolism or distortion, the dream corresponding so realistically with the event as to make its significance manifest. To give an ill.u.s.tration, Mrs. Morris Griffith, an Englishwoman, reports:

"On the night of Sat.u.r.day, the eleventh of March, I awoke in much alarm, having seen my eldest son, then at St. Paul de Loanda on the southwest coast of Africa, looking dreadfully ill and emaciated, and I heard his voice distinctly calling to me. I was so disturbed I could not sleep again, but every time I closed my eyes the appearance recurred, and his voice sounded distinctly, calling me 'Mamma!' I felt greatly depressed all through the next day, which was Sunday, but I did not mention it to my husband, as he was an invalid, and I feared to disturb him. Strange to say, he also suffered from intense low spirits all day, and we were both unable to take dinner, he rising from the table, saying: 'I don't care what it costs, I must have the boy back,' alluding to his eldest son.

"I mentioned my dream and the bad night I had had to two or three friends, but begged that they would say nothing of it to Mr. Griffith.

The next day a letter arrived, containing some photos of my son, saying he had had fever, but was better, and hoped immediately to leave for a much more healthy station. We heard no more till the ninth of May, when a letter arrived with the news of our son's death from a fresh attack of fever, on the night of the eleventh of March, and adding that just before his death he kept calling repeatedly for me."[14]

[14] "Phantasms of the Living," vol. i, pp. 343-344.