3 io NATUEE STUDIES. 



THOUGHT-READING. 



BY RICHARD A. PROCTOR. 



WE have received from several correspondents com- 

 munications on the subject of Thought-Reading, and 

 the Willing Game as now practised in parlours and 

 drawing-rooms. Several very remarkable narratives 

 have been sent to us, which we have been invited to 

 publish, along with the various theories suggested by 

 the narrators, these theories usually resolving them- 

 selves into a vague impression that the observed 

 results are due either to electricity or to animal mag- 

 netism. 



Now, there can be no question that among the 

 phenomena observed during these experiments there 

 are many which are well worth scientific investigation. 

 Even in cases where there is wilful trickery, a degree 

 of sensibility is manifested by some among the " sub- 

 jects " which is far greater than had been previously 

 imagined, at least by those unacquainted with such 

 remarkable instances as Dr. Carpenter and others 

 have described in treatises on mental physiology. 

 Take, for instance, such a case as the following, de 

 scribed by Professor Barrett in a recent number of 

 the Nineteenth Century : " A young lady could write 

 words, or even rudely copy sketches which had been 

 shown to her mother and not to herself, the mother 



