Novi;mhi;r, 1911. 



KNOWLEDGE 



421 



me^snges. the person whose mind must he supposed 

 to hiive suppHed the information is a person who 

 has never seen the medium : is not known hy the 

 medium: is unaware of a sitting being in progress, and 

 therefore is not thinking of anything of the kind: is 

 indeed perhaps unaware of the medium's existence, 

 and hostile to psvchical research and all its works. 

 The conditions are therefore xerv different from 

 those of experimental thought-transference. Still. 

 this latter fact having been established, and its 

 possible range not vet being satisfactorily defined, 

 we are bound by the law of parsimony to work tele- 

 pathy for all it is worth, before turning to other and 

 more far-fetched-seeming hypotheses. So long. 

 therefore, as anv living mind contains a fact w hich 

 is retailed bv a control as evidence of its identit\'. we 

 must suppose that it ma\" be a case of telepath\' 

 from that living mind. 



I sav we must suppose that it may be. It docs 

 not b\- any means follow that it is. Some of the 

 cases quoted by Sir Oliver Lodge as occurring in 

 his own experience with Mrs. Piper, though possibh 

 explicable by telepath\". are nevertheless strongh' 

 suggestive of the action of a disembodied intelli- 

 gence. For example, a "spirit-communicator"" in 

 Mrs. Piper's trance claimed to be the deceased son 

 of Mr. Rich, the then Postmaster at Liverpool. 

 This entity wished a message to be sent to his 

 father, who was said to be worrving specially about 

 his son's death. The sitters knew Mr. Rich slightly, 

 but knew nothing about the matter dealt with in the 

 message. This latter, however, was duly delivered, 

 and turned out to be appropriate to. and charac- 

 teristic of. the deceased voung man. The excep- 

 tional worry or grief was due to a slight estrange- 

 ment, which would ha\e been only temporary. If 

 we are to invoke telepathy in tbis case (and it is 

 only one of many similar ones) we are driven to 

 the curious supposition that Mr. Rich subconsciously 

 sent a telepathic message to Mrs. Piper (whom he 

 did not know, and who did not know him) and that 

 this message was dramatized and returned. In other 

 words, that he sent a deceptive message to himself — 

 via Mrs. Piper, and bv means unknown to science — 

 w ithout knowing anything at all about it ! It seems 

 almost as easy to believe in the prima facie exjilana- 

 tion {i.e. genuine spirit communication) as in such 

 mar\'ellous telepathic exploits as this. 



l)Ut is there — it may be asked — any way of 

 putting it to the proof ? Cannot telepathy be shut 

 out, somehow ? Cannot crucial tests be devised ? 

 On this very important point several acute brains 

 have been cudgelling themselves for man\- \ears. 



It was at one time thought that the best test 

 would be the posthumous reading — through a 

 mediumistic communication — of a sealed letter left 

 in the keeping of a friend. Such a letter was left 

 with Sir Oliver Lodge by Mr. Myers : but the 

 attempt by a soi-disaiif Myers-communicator to give, 

 through Mrs. X'errall's automatic writing, a repro- 



duction of its contents, was ;; complete failure. 

 It is now recognized that the test is not a good one : 

 for, even if it succeeded, it wouid not yield proof. 

 It would still be possible to suppose that the 

 deceased had. before dying, unconsciously " tele- 

 pathed" the contents of his letter to some person or 

 other, and that, when a medium somew here produced 

 the message correctly, it was through telepathy from 

 the subconsciousness of this hypothetical person. 

 Or. again, the letter, though sealed, might be read 

 "clairvoyantlv." Some such power is often alleged, 

 and there is a good deal of evidence in its support. 

 Further, is it not too much to expect that a spirit 

 will remember what the letter contains? Sir Oliver 

 Lodge has not prepared such a letter, for he is ipiite 

 sure that he would forget what he had written. 

 Probabh- most people will feel similar doubts about 

 their post-mortem recollection of such matters. 



The sealed-letter test. then, is given up as unsatis- 

 factor\-. What shall we turn to next ? 



It was thought b\- Mr. M\ers and Professor 

 Sidgwick that it would be rather good e\idence if 

 the same message could be obtained from the same 

 spirit through two or more mediums. Some experi- 

 ments in this direction were made, but apparently 

 without much success. After the death of these 

 two leaders in the research, it was natural to expect 

 that they would themselves try something of the 

 kind from "the other side."' in order to give us 

 evidence of their continued existence. And. as a 

 matter of fact, this seems to ha\e happened. The 

 same message, almost word for word, was received 

 from a Sidgwick-control through Mrs. Thompson, 

 in London (sitter, Mr. Piddington. Hon. Sec. of 

 the Societ\- for Ps\chical Research), and Miss 

 Rawson. in the South ot France. Hut the 

 telepathic difficulty again arises. The two 

 messages were not exactK' simultaneous. Is it not 

 possible that Miss Rawson's subconsciousness made 

 up the message (it was one giving some instructions 

 to Mrs. Sidgwick about the preparation of her 

 husband's " Life''), and then telepathed it to Mrs, 

 Thompson ? It is of course necessary to suppose, 

 also, that the subconsciousnesses of the two mediums 

 were in league to represent the message as coming 

 from Dr. Sidgwick. But if the heart of man is 

 deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, 

 there is no knowing to what depth of sin these 

 newh-discovered "subliminals" mav descend. We 

 must hold them guilt\- until we have proved them 

 innocent. In this case, once more, then, telepathy 

 is not excluded. 



At this jioint the ingenuity of the earthly investi- 

 gators seemed to come to a stand. There seemed no 

 way of getting round this omniscient and omnipotent 

 telepathy. It seemed impossible to devise any 

 experiment which should shut out with reasonable 

 certitude the agenc\' of minds still in the body. 

 Just about this time, however, a curious thing 

 happened. 



