PSYCHICAL RESEARCH 7^ 



sender. Here, then, is no mere sticking together of unconscious 

 memories in a cosmic reservoir ; for the evidence suggests in- 

 telligence, initiative, and will on " the other side." Admittedly, 

 here again, the evidence does not amount to knock-down proof. 

 It never can. We can always say, " there must have been some 

 fraud or error somewhere," even though we cannot find it. 

 Lavoisier had settled it in his own mind that there were "no 

 stones in the sky," therefore the celestial origin of meteoric 

 stones was palpably wrong. The scholastic philosopher had 

 read several times through Aristotle, and had found no mention 

 of sun-spots ; therefore the astronomer who thought he saw 

 them must be mistaken. We moderns are not yet emancipated 

 from prejudice, but we may at least learn from such instructive 

 examples that it is better to investigate for ourselves than to 

 deny a priori the observations of others. 



Veridical Sensory Automatisms 



These are not producible to order, but they can be studied 

 when they do turn up, like volcanic eruptions and earthquakes, 

 which are similarly beyond our control. 



It happens fairly often that when a person is undergoing 

 some particularly stressful experience some friend at a distance 

 becomes more or less aware of the fact by experiences varying 

 from vague emotions to full-blown hallucinations. When a full 

 record is written out and placed in the hands of some respon- 

 sible person before verification, this constitutes evidence of some- 

 thing supernormal, particularly if the percipient had no reason 

 to expect or imagine any occurrence of the kind, and was 

 therefore not predisposed. Usually this signifies telepathy, and 

 is sufficiently interesting as such. But sometimes it seems to 

 signify more. It often happens that the apparent sender of the 

 telepathic message is found to have died just about the time. 

 And, of course, even if the hallucination (or whatever it may be) 

 occurred after the time of death this would not prove survival, 

 for it may be " deferred " telepathy, the dying person having 

 sent his psychical wave-message out before dissolution. There 

 may be cases, however, in which this seems unlikely, as when 

 the death is so sudden that the individual has next to no time 

 for thinking about it. If I see an apparition of my brother, 

 with a bleeding wound in his right temple, and if it turns out 



