464 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



pocket of another gentleman named ; she was then to remove the tidy 

 from the head of the gentleman upon whom it had been placed, and 

 return it to the tete-a-tete where she originally found it. 



" I must confess to no little surprise when I saw the young lady per- 

 form, with the most perfect precision, every minute detail, as above 

 described, and with the most surprising alacrity; in fact, so quick 

 were her motions that it was with the greatest difficulty that the gen- 

 tleman could keep pace with the young lady's movements." 



I have seen a performer who, though one of the pioneers in this 

 art, is far less skillful than many with whom I have experimented 

 take a hat from the head of a gentleman in a small private circle, and 

 carry it across the room and put it on the head of another gentleman ; 

 take a book or any other object from one person to another ; or go in 

 succession to different pictures hanging on the wall, and perform other 

 feats of a similar character, while simply taking hold of the wrist of the 

 subject. In the experiment described by Mr. Grimes the subject placed 

 three fingers of his right hand on the shoulder of the operator. Note 

 the fact that in all these experiments direction and locality are all that 

 the mind-reader finds ; the quality of the object found, or indeed 

 whether it be a movable object at all, or merely a limited locality, as 

 a figure in the carj>et or on the wall, is not known to the mind-reader 

 until he picks it up or handles it : then if it be a small object, as a hat, 

 a book, or coin, or tidy, he very naturally takes it and moves off with 

 it in the direction indicated by the unconscious muscular tension of 

 the subject, and leaves it where he is ordered by unconscious muscu- 

 lar relaxation. In the great excitement that attends these novel and 

 most remarkable experiments the entranced audience fail to notice 

 that the operator really finds nothing but direction and locality. 



I have said that various errors of inference, as well as of observation, 

 have been associated with these experiments. A young lady who had 

 been quite successful as an amateur in this art was subjected by me to 

 a critical analysis of her powers before a large private audience. She 

 supposed that it was necessary for all the persons in the audience to 

 concentrate their minds on the object as well as those whose hands 

 were upon her. I proved by some decisive experiments, in which a 

 comparison was made with what could be done by chance alone, that 

 this was not necessary, and that the silent, unexpressed will of the 

 audience had no effect on the operator, save certain nervous sensations 

 created by the emotion of expectancy. Similarly, I proved that, when 

 connected with the subjects by a wire, she could find nothing, although 

 she experienced various subjective sensations, which she attributed to 

 " magnetism," but which were familiar results of mind acting on 

 body. 



Another lady, who is quite successful in these experiments, thought 

 it was necessary to hide keys, and supposed that "magnetism" had 

 something to do with it. I told her that that was not probable, and 



