5 io POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



a character that we can scarcely ascribe it to the subject's con- 

 sciousness. In hysterical patients, for example, the upper con- 

 sciousness, or at least the consciousness which talks, is often 

 ansesthetic to one or more sensory stimuli, yet the automatic 

 writing betrays consciousness of the lost sensations. Prof. James, 

 of Harvard, has noted the same phenomenon in an apparently 

 normal patient.* " The planchette began by illegible scrawling. 

 After ten minutes I pricked the back of the right hand several 

 times with a pin ; no indications of feeling. Two pricks on the 

 left hand were followed by withdrawal, and the question, ' What 

 did you do that for ? ' to which I replied, ' To find out whether 

 you are going to sleep/ The first legible words which were writ- 

 ten after this were, ' You hurt me.' A pencil in the right hand was 

 then tried instead of the planchette. Here again the first legible 

 words were, 'No use (?) in trying to spel when you hurt me so.' 

 Next, 'It's no use trying to stop me writing by pricking.' These 



writings were deciphered aloud in the hearing of S , who 



seemed slow to connect them with the two pin- pricks on his left 

 hand, which alone he had felt. ... I pricked the right wrist and 

 fingers several times again quite severely, with no sign of reaction 



on S 's part. After an interval, however, the pencil wrote: 



'Don't you prick me any more.' . . . S laughed, having been 



conscious only of the pricks on his left hand, and said, ' It's work- 

 ing those two pin-pricks for all they are worth/ " Yet the ham 

 was not ansesthetic when directly tested. 



Sometimes the automatic message is potentially known indeed 

 to the upper consciousness, but not at the time present to it. 

 Take, for example, one of Mr. Gurney's experiences : f 



" In 1870 I watched and took part in a good deal of planchette 

 writing, but not with results or under conditions that afforded 

 proof of any separate intelligence. However, I was sufficiently 

 struck with what occurred to broach the subject to a hard-headed 

 mathematical friend, who expressed complete incredulity as to 

 the possibility of obtaining rational writing except through the 

 conscious operation of some person in contact with the instru- 

 ment. After a long argument he at last agreed to make a trial. 

 I had not really the faintest hope of success, and he was committed 

 to the position that success was impossible. We sat for some 

 minutes with a hand of each upon the planchette, and asked that 

 it should write some line of Shakespeare. It began by seesawing 

 and producing a great deal of formless scribble ; but then there 

 seemed to be more method in the movements, and a line of hiero- 

 glyphics appeared. It took us some time to make it out, th( 



* Proceedings of the American Society for Psychical Research, vol. i, p. 549. 

 f Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, vol. iv, p. 301, note. 



