170 



DISCOVERY 



3,500 years ago and of the methods of embalmmg in 

 use at the time. 



A subject which no serious-minded man can neglect 

 to-day is that of research into what are known as 

 Psychical phenomena. There are few people who are 

 entirely convinced that every incident in life, and 

 especially in the relationships between human beings, 

 can be satisfactorily explained by known and estab- 

 lished physical laws. For example, there appear to 

 be undoubted cases of what is known as Telepath3\ 

 The parlour-game trick of selecting five playing cards, 

 grasping the hand of another person who keeps his 

 eyes shut, and bidding him choose a selected card from 

 the five, succeeds far more often than is accounted for 

 by the laws of chance. There are, of course, possi- 

 bilities of error ; for example, slight involuntary move- 

 ments may direct the hand. Apart from this par- 

 ticular case, most people can recall a personal experi- 

 ence where there appears at first sight, whatever be 

 the truth, to be an intuition concerning the doings 

 or fate of an intimate friend at a distance. The in- 

 vestigation of any experience of this sort is mani- 

 festly a matter of intense difficulty. Coincidence 

 can rarely be excluded ; self-deception and wilful 

 deception must be considered before any other explana- 

 tion of seemingly mysterious happenings. It does 

 not seem at all impossible, however, that man should 

 possess either some traces of a power of receiving com- 

 munications otherwise than through the recognised 

 channels, or should slowly be evolving that power 

 through the intimate social relationships imposed by 

 his communal organisation. But the fact that a 

 great number of curious little experiments and in- 

 explicable happenings deserve further inquiry does 

 not call for fn immediate abandonment of all simple 

 explanations of such things. 



***** 

 In this connection we would like to refer to an 

 article in that excellent quarterly review of psychology. 

 Psyche, for April 1923, with which some of our readers 

 will be familiar. The article in question is called Con- 

 vincing Phenomena ai Munich. A few quotations will 

 show what these phenomena were. A medium, known 

 as " Willy," was provided by Baron von Schrenck- 

 Notzing, in whose private house the mysterious happen- 

 ings occurred. It should be mentioned that a previous 

 series of queer events had taken place in the Baron's 

 presence with a medium known as Eva. It is surely 

 natural to expect, therefore, that the individual who 

 was present on both occasions, namely the Baron, 

 should have been particularly investigated. However, 

 the company devoted their attention to Will3\ who was 

 dressed in tights, and whose hands were both held. 

 The hands of the rest of the company were also clasped 



— all save the Baron's, one of whose hands was free. 

 In almost complete darkness things began to happen. 

 " A small table (on which was placed a luminous rec- 

 tangular card and a luminous bracelet) was placed on 

 a larger table in front of a large cabinet. After the 

 medium became entranced the card was moved, the 

 bracelet was waved in the air, the table was knocked 

 over. These same phenomena occurred again after 

 an interval of a minute or two, the smaller table being 

 passed, with one pause, completely round the larger 



one." 



***** 



The writer, Mr. H. Price, goes on to note that this 

 pause would be accounted for if the table had been 

 moved by a human being with one hand only. And 

 still no one seems to have thought of the Baron's 

 other hand ! We preserve as open a mind as possible 

 concerning the value of these examples of " Levita- 

 tion." But we would like to see, as a first preliminary 

 to establishing the super-normal nature of these rather 

 trivial little adventures of domestic furniture, the Baron 

 attired in tights, with both his hands grasped. It 

 would appear, to a casual observer, that the attention 

 directed to Willy recalls the exhortations of the con- 

 jurer to " Watch my right hand " whUe his left is busy 

 somewhere in the background. And even if all the 

 precautions of which we could think proved futile to 

 restrain the Baron's belongings from inordinate activity, 

 we cannot help admitting that the frankly engineered 

 mysteries of Maskelyne and Devant in broad daylight 

 fill us with far more superstitious awe than musical- 

 boxes that obey the word of command, and slowly 

 rising handkerchiefs. 



Those whose good fortune takes them to the South 

 Downs of England will have noticed, as one of their 

 outstanding features, the barrows and grassy earth- 

 works which crown many of the heights. They are 

 referred to in Kipling's Sussex poem : 



" What sign of those that fought and died 

 At sliift of sword and sword ? 

 The barrow and the camp abide. 

 The sunlight and the sward." 



Many will have wondered what these remains signifj^ 

 — how ancient they are, and what manner of person 

 built them. A novel and, it would appear, most im- 

 portant method of investigating these questions is by 

 means of air photographs. Mr. O. G. S. Crawford, who 

 during the war took many such photographs over 

 enemy ground, has been inspired to use this means 

 of surveying wide stretches of downland. He has 

 described his results in the Geographical Journal 

 for May 1923. "The diagrams I have made," he 

 writes, " are nothing less than accurate plans of the 



