172 LOLA 



always easy ; besides, both may exist together side 

 by side. 



" Telepathy," so called, (a term not less unfortunate 

 than that of " medium " and its derivatives), or, better, 

 the transmission of thought, is (shortly put) the 

 hypothesis that at a certain moment an agent trans- 

 mits, and a receiver perceives, some definite mental 

 image or state of mind. The transmission may be 

 more or less willed (i.e. conscious) on the part of the 

 agent ; on the part of the receiver, however, the fact 

 of the transmission always remains unconscious, but 

 the psychical elements perceived bring about a 

 reaction in consciousness and the receiver knows 

 what he is doing, or at any rate may do so, at the 

 moment of the occurrence. Shortly stated, it may be 

 regarded as a kind of suggestion, " a distance," with 

 sometimes immediate and sometimes delayed effect ; 

 a kind of posthypnotic performances of a suggestion 

 without the intervention of hypnotism (or, perhaps, 

 with a partial subhypnotic state ?), the receiver of the 

 suggestion not receiving it in the form of acoustic 

 vibrations or in any way by means of one of the 

 ordinary senses. 



Mediumistic phenomena on the other hand require 

 for their explanation the possibility of a much more 

 direct, more profound and more immediate relation- 

 ship between the several minds taking part in them. 

 One of these minds more or less disassociated 

 might become the instrument of another even of 

 several others although still itself in a state of more 

 or less complete disassociation, and always remaining 

 altogether unconscious of its relationship to the other. 

 One of the minds might therefore be an agent, another 

 a recipient, or even several of them simultaneously 

 might join together to produce the phenomena, the 



