Psychic Science 575 



Hallucinations or Apparitions 



After experimental telepathy was fairly established, a spon- 

 taneous variety such as had long been suspected and was the 

 basis for innumerable stories, in history as well as in fiction, was 

 examined and brought to book. This spontaneous kind of te- 

 lepathy analogous to spontaneous radioactivity as contrasted 

 with the experimental excitation of X-rays is held responsible 

 for many apparitions or hallucinations or phantoms, whether of 

 the living or of the dead, especially the appearance of persons 

 then being subjected to a strong emotion, or some calamity or 

 accident, or in imminent prospect of death. The difference be- 

 tween this and the experimental form of thought-transference 

 is that, whereas in an experiment the conscious attention and will- 

 power of the agent is riveted on achievement of the result- 

 though it has hardly been proved that conscious effort is really 

 effective in the spontaneous class it is the unconscious mind 

 which must be assumed to be operative, for the impression is 

 transmitted without conscious intention and without knowledge 

 of the supposed agent that it has been done. Thus, let one whom 

 we may tentatively and hypothetically regard as the agent be 

 suffering shipwreck, or be in danger from fire; his mental con- 

 stitution may be supposed so upheaved that any latent power 

 of telepathic or sympathetic communication is evoked, and trans- 

 lates itself into an impression in the mind of some distant rela- 

 tive or friend, with such vividness that the circumstances of the 

 person in danger are presented to the friend's imagination as if 

 they had veritably been conveyed through the sense of sight or 

 of hearing. A phantom in dripping clothes, or a voice in tones 

 of distress, are as it were "seen" or "heard" by the one whom we 

 may regard as the percipient; not with the bodily eyes or ears, 

 but with the mind: though the mental impression may readily be 

 interpreted as an objective reality, not as of a person at a distance 

 but as of a person close by, so as to be accepted as within reason- 

 able reach of the organs of sense. 



