408 Physiology of Mind- Reading . [July, 
and his ill-founded theory of animal magnetism, did they 
receive any serious and intelligent study. Similarly the 
general fadt that mind may so adt on body as to produce 
involuntary and . unconscious muscular motion was by no 
means unrecognised by physiologists, and yet not until the 
“ mind-reading ” excitement two years ago* was it demon- 
strated that this principle could be utilised for the finding of 
any object or limited locality on which a subjedt, with whom 
an operator is in physical connexion, concentrates his mind. 
Although experiments of this kind had been previously 
performed in a quiet limited way, in private circles, yet very 
few had heard of or witnessed them ; they were associated 
in the popular mind very naturally with “ mesmerism,” and 
by some were called “ mesmeric games.” The physiological 
explanation had never been even suggested ; hence the first 
public exhibitions of Brown, with his successful demonstra- 
tions of his skill in this direction, were a new revelation to 
the scientific world in general. 
The method of mind-reading introduced by Brown, which 
is but one of many methods that have been used, is as 
follows : — 
The operator, usually blindfolded, firmly applies the back 
of the hand of the subjedt to be operated on against his own 
forehead, and with his other hand presses lightly upon the 
palm and fingers of the subject’s hand. In this position he 
can detedt, if sufficiently expert, the slightest movement, 
impulse, tremor, tension, or relaxation, in the arm of the 
subjedt. He then requests the subject to concentrate his mind 
on some locality in the room, or on some hidden objedt, or 
on some one of the letters of the alphabet suspended along 
the wall. The operator, blindfolded, marches sometimes 
very rapidly with the subjedt up and down the room or 
rooms, up and down stairways, or out-of-doors through the 
streets, and, when he comes near the locality on which the 
subjedt is concentrating his mind, a slight impulse or move- 
ment is communicated to his hand by the hand of the 
subjedt. This impulse is both involuntary and unconscious 
on the part of the subjedt. He is not aware that he gives 
any such impulse ; and yet it is sufficient to indicate to the 
expert and pradtised operator that he has arrived near the 
hidden objedt, and then, by a close study and careful trials 
in different diredtions, upward, downward, and at various 
points of the compass, he ascertains precisely the locality, 
and is, in many cases, as confident as though he had received 
* I . e . 1875. 
