PHYSIOLOGY OF MIND-READING. 467 



feats have been done in the way of finding distant out-of-door localities 

 by muscle-readers, but in these cases there has usually been an implied 

 understanding that the search was to be made out-of-doors; muscle- 

 readers have thus taken their subject up and down stairs or from one 

 room or hall into another, and out-of-doors until the house or locality 

 was reached. 1 



Another way in which deception may by practised is for the sub- 

 ject to select some object or locality on the person of the muscle-reader. 

 This object may be a watch, or a pocket-book, or a pencil-case, or any 

 limited region of his clothing, as a button, a cravat, or wristband. If 

 such a selection be made, and the method of physical connection above 

 described be used, the experiment will be a failure, provided the 

 muscle-reader does not know or suspect that an object on his own per- 

 son is to be chosen. Similarly, if the subject selects a locality on his 

 own person, as one of the fingers or finger-nails of the hand that con- 

 nects with the muscle-reader. When such tests are used, there is not, 

 so to speak, any leverage for the tension of the arm toward the local- 

 ity on which the mind is concentrated, and the muscle-reader either 

 gets no clew, or else one that misleads him. 



3. When a subject, who has good control over his mental and 

 muscular movements, keeps the arm connected with the operator 

 perfectly stiff, even though his mind be well concentrated on the hid- 

 den object, the operator cannot find either the direction or the local- 

 ity. This is a test which those who have the requisite physical quali- 

 fications can sometimes fulfill without difficulty. 



Here I may remark that the requirement to concentrate the mind 

 on the locality and direction sought for all the time the search is be- 

 ing made is one that few, if any, can perfectly fulfill. Any number 

 of distracting thoughts will go through the best-trained mind of one 

 who, in company with a blindfolded operator, is being led furiously 

 up and down aisles, halls, streets, and stairways, fearful each moment 

 of stumbling or striking his head, and followed, it may be, by aston- 

 ished and eager investigators. And yet these mental distractions 

 do not seem to interfere with the success of the experiment unless the 

 arm is kept studiously rigid, in which case nothing is found save by 

 pure chance. The best subjects would appear to be those who have 

 moderate power of mental concentration and slight control over their 

 muscular movements. Credulous, wonder-loving subjects are some- 

 times partially entranced through the emotions of reverence and 

 expectation ; with subjects in this state, operators are quite sure to 

 succeed. 



1 In Danielsonville, Connecticut, Brown, after an evening's exhibition in which his fail- 

 ures had been greater than usual (the intelligent committee having the matter in charge 

 being prepared by previous discussion of the theory of unconscious muscular motion), 

 took a subject, and led him from the hotel in the darkness through the streets, to some 

 rather out-of-the-way building on which the subject had fixed his mind. A somewhat 

 similar exploit is recorded of Corey, a performer in Detroit. 



