TRANSFERENCE OF IDEAS AND EMOTIONS.

Before proceeding to give examples of the evidence for spontaneous thought-transference, it may be well to repeat something of what has been said in the preceding chapter. In the first place, the narratives quoted in this book are offered as samples only of the evidence of this kind actually accumulated. No single narrative can afford to stand alone. Each contains one or more elements of weakness; and in the last resort chance coincidence, memory-hallucination, or even deliberate deception would be in any single case a more probable explanation than a new mode of mental affection. It is only, to borrow Mr. Gurney's metaphor, as a faggot, and not as a bundle of separate sticks, that the evidence can finally be judged. But, in the second place, it is not claimed that the evidence reviewed even in its entirety is by itself sufficient to demonstrate the possibility of the affection of one mind by another at a distance. The main proof of such affection is based on the experiments already described, to which the spontaneous evidence so far adduced must be regarded as illustrative and in some degree auxiliary.

It will be more convenient, as a matter of arrangement, that the spontaneous experiences first considered should be those which resemble most closely the results of direct experiment, though this classification has the disadvantage of placing in the forefront cases of the least definite and striking kind; cases, that is, which are most readily explicable as due to chance coincidence. It is on all grounds, therefore, expedient that the reader should reserve his final verdict until he has the whole case before him.

In the present chapter there will be adduced instances of the spontaneous transference of (1) simple sensations; (2) ideas and mental pictures; (3) emotional states; (4) impulses tending to action. The first two classes, and in some measure the last, resemble the results described in the first five chapters of this book; for the third probably no direct experimental parallel can be offered, for the sufficient reason that vivid and intense emotion cannot be evoked at will.

Transference of Simple Sensations.

We will begin by quoting two instances of the transference of simple sensation. The first we owe to the kindness of Mr. Ruskin. The percipient was Mrs. Severn, wife of the well-known landscape painter.

No. 41.—From MRS. ARTHUR SEVERN.

"BRANTWOOD, CONISTON,
October 27th, 1883.

"I woke up with a start, feeling I had had a hard blow on my mouth, and with a distinct sense that I had been cut and was bleeding under my upper lip, and seized my pocket-handkerchief, and held it (in a little pushed lump) to the part, as I sat up in bed, and after a few seconds, when I removed it, I was astonished not to see any blood, and only then realised it was impossible anything could have struck me there, as I lay fast asleep in bed, and so I thought it was only a dream!—but I looked at my watch, and saw it was seven, and finding Arthur (my husband) was not in the room, I concluded (rightly) that he must have gone out on the lake for an early sail, as it was so fine.

"I then fell asleep. At breakfast (half-past nine), Arthur came in rather late, and I noticed he rather purposely sat farther away from me than usual, and every now and then put his pocket-handkerchief furtively up to his lip, in the very way I had done. I said, 'Arthur, why are you doing that?' and added a little anxiously, 'I know you've hurt yourself! but I'll tell you why afterwards.' He said, 'Well, when I was sailing, a sudden squall came, throwing the tiller suddenly round, and it struck me a bad blow in the mouth, under the upper lip, and it has been bleeding a good deal and won't stop.' I then said, 'Have you any idea what o'clock it was when it happened?' and he answered, 'It must have been about seven.'

"I then told what had happened to me, much to his surprise, and all who were with us at breakfast.

"It happened here about three years ago at Brantwood, to me.

"JOAN R. SEVERN."

Mr. Severn wrote to us on the 15th November 1883, giving an account of the trivial accident described by the percipient, and adding that after leaving the boat he

"walked up to the house, anxious of course to hide as much as possible what had happened to my mouth, and getting another handkerchief walked into the breakfast-room, and managed to say something about having been out early. In an instant my wife said, 'You don't mean to say you have hurt your mouth?' or words to that effect. I then explained what had happened, and was surprised to see some extra interest on her face, and still more surprised when she told me she had started out of her sleep thinking she had received a blow on the mouth! and that it was a few minutes past seven o'clock, and wondered if my accident had happened at the same time; but as I had no watch with me I couldn't tell, though, on comparing notes, it certainly looked as if it had been about the same time.

"ARTHUR SEVERN."
(Phantasms of the Living, vol. i. pp, 188, 189.)

So far as I know, this is a unique instance, if we limit ourselves to first-hand evidence, of the spontaneous transference of a sensation of pain to a waking percipient.[86] Impressions of the kind, indeed, unless more definite and intense than the analogy of experiment gives us warrant for anticipating, would as a rule be quickly forgotten, or would be naturally ascribed to some other source than telepathy. We owe the record of the present instance to the fortunate chance that the agent and percipient met within an hour of the occurrence, and that the pain of the percipient, though slight, was not such as could be readily attributed to ordinary causes. In the next instance, also, where the impression belonged to a different sense, the agent and percipient were in the habit of meeting almost daily, otherwise it seems possible that the coincidence would have escaped notice.

No. 42.—From MISS X.

The percipient was Miss X.; the agent was her friend D., already referred to, who writes:—

"April 13th, 1888.

"In the spring of 1881, in the evening after dinner, I accidentally set fire to the curtains of a sitting-room, and put myself and several others into some danger. The next morning, on visiting X., I heard from her that she had been disturbed overnight by an unaccountable smell of fire, which she could not trace, but which seemed to follow her wherever she went. I was led to discover the fire, and so probably to save the house, by what seemed a chance thought of X. I had left the room, unconscious of anything wrong, and had settled to my work elsewhere, when I suddenly remembered I had not put away some papers I had been looking at, and which I had thought might wait for daylight, but a strong feeling that X. would insist upon order, had she been there, induced me to go back, when I found the whole place in flames."

Miss X., in describing the case, adds: "I took considerable trouble to ascertain the cause (of the smell of fire), and was quieted only by the assurance that it was imperceptible to the rest of the household." (Proc. S.P.R., vol. vi. p. 367.)

When we leave these simple modes of feeling, and consider the affections of the higher senses of hearing and sight, we are confronted with a new problem. Sensations of the first class are almost purely homogeneous, they owe little or nothing to memory and imagination. Moreover, though generally due to an external cause, they are in the case of smell or taste occasionally, and in that of pain frequently, excited by causes within the organism. It is not, therefore, a matter calling for comment that in such cases the transferred idea should assume a definitely sensory form. But when the organs of sight or hearing are sensibly affected, past experience has taught us to look for an external cause; the line between idea and sensation is here sharply drawn and clearly understood.[87] The line, indeed, as drawn by common use may not correspond to any real distinction in the nature of the experience itself. Ideas may be only paler sensations, and a train of thought nothing else than a series of suppressed hallucinations. But at any rate the distinction, whether fundamental or not, serves a useful purpose as a rough-and-ready means of classing our mental experiences. A visual or auditory image either is on the same level of intensity as the series of impressions which represent for us the external world, or it falls below that level. In the former case we call it a sensation or percept, in the latter, an idea. Sensations and percepts may be again subdivided, as objective or hallucinatory, according as they do or do not correspond to a supposed material cause. In the experiments described in the first five chapters, it will have been observed that when the transferred impression was of a visual nature it generally remained ideal, rising occasionally, however, as in some of the experiments with hypnotised percipients, and in Mr. Kirk's cases, to the level of a complete sensory hallucination or quasi-percept. In the present chapter it is proposed to deal with auditory and visual phantasms which, so far as can be judged, were of an ideal kind, though one or two of the cases cited may seem to approximate to sensory embodiment. The more striking hallucinatory effects will be reserved for later chapters.

Transference of Ideas.

There is one kind of coincidence, so common as to have passed into a proverb, which is often referred to as illustrating the action of telepathy; that is, the idea of a person coming into the mind shortly before the person himself actually approaches. In most of the cases cited the coincidence is too indefinite to call for attention, as it is obvious that the narrator has not taken the elementary precaution of noting the "misses" as well as the "hits." But if telepathy acts at all, there is no À priori unlikelihood of its acting in this direction as well as in others, and it is to be desired that persons who believe themselves susceptible to impressions of the kind would keep a full record of their occurrence. Two instances which happened in his own recent experience are recorded by Professor Richet (Proceedings S.P.R., vol. v. p. 52). Leaving such cases, however, as too indefinite to have much evidential value, we may quote the following as an example of an impression of a more detailed kind.

No. 43.—From MISS X.

On the 12th October 1891, Miss X. wrote to Mr. Myers as follows:—

"... I was much upset yesterday by the consciousness that a Master B. (son of A. B.) had arrived unexpectedly upon the scene ... no nurse—doctor three miles off—husband away. Being Sunday, I could not telegraph, but the news as to hour and sex arrived this morning. My impression was at 2.30 onwards. He arrived at 3.30, and in the interval I heard her voice over and over again calling my name. All is well now, but these impressions are not always comfortable."

In a later letter Miss X. writes:—

"A.'s own account is that (about two, I think), when she was made aware of her danger, the thought passed through her mind how fortunate it was that the impossibility of telegraphing would prevent anxiety at home, and then—that any way I should know. No one expected to have any cause for anxiety for at least a week. Yes; I ought to have sent to Mrs. Sidgwick, but I was so wretchedly ill that—don't shudder—I never at the time even thought of the S.P.R. I had been dreadfully worried all that week, and was utterly worn out."

The coincidence is, no doubt, not of the strongest kind. But in estimating its value it should not be overlooked that the impression was sufficiently intense to produce a decided feeling of discomfort. And though Miss X. unfortunately omitted to send an account of her experience until after she had learnt of its partial correspondence with the event, she did not know at the time when the first letter was written that her impression was correct as regards the details of the absence of husband and nurse. Whatever the value of the coincidence, therefore, it seems clear that the account owes nothing to exaggeration or unconscious reading back of details. With this may be compared a narrative sent to me in December 1891, by the Rev. A. Sloman, Master of Birkenhead School. On the 12th of the month, whilst Mrs. Sloman was absent at a concert, a chimney in the school-house had caught fire, and Mr. Sloman had been summoned from his work to give directions for dealing with the mischief. On the matter being mentioned to Mrs. Sloman on her return, she at once explained that during the concert, just about the actual time of the fire, "I suddenly began to think what you would do if the house took fire, and I distinctly pictured you going into the kitchen and speaking about a wet blanket." The account was written down and signed by both Mr. and Mrs. Sloman on the day of the occurrence, and the coincidence in time between event and impression seems to be well established. It must be admitted that the apprehension of fire may not improbably have a more or less permanent place in the background of a housewife's consciousness; still, even a slight outbreak of fire is not in an ordinary household a matter of common occurrence.

The next case is interesting as presenting evidence of the transference of an auditory impression. The account was originally published in the Spectator of June 24th, 1882:—

No. 44.—From MRS. BARBER.

"FERNDENE, ABBEYDALE, near SHEFFIELD,
June 22nd, 1882.

"I had one day been spending the morning in shopping, and returned by train just in time to sit down with my children to our early family dinner. My youngest child—a sensitive, quick-witted little maiden of two years and six weeks old—was one of the circle. Dinner had just commenced, when I suddenly recollected an incident in my morning's experience which I had intended to tell her, and I looked at the child with the full intention of saying, 'Mother saw a big black dog in a shop, with curly hair,' catching her eyes in mine, as I paused an instant before speaking. Just then something called off my attention, and the sentence was not uttered. What was my amazement, about two minutes afterwards, to hear my little lady announce, 'Mother saw a big dog in a shop.' I gasped. 'Yes, I did!' I answered; 'but how did you know?' 'With funny hair,' she added, quite calmly, and ignoring my question. 'What colour was it, Evelyn?' said one of her elder brothers; 'was it black?' She said, 'Yes.'"

I called on Mrs. Barber in the spring of 1886, and heard full details of the incident from herself and Mr. Barber, who, though not himself present at the time, was conversant with the facts. The incident took place on January 6th, 1882, and Mrs. Barber allowed me to see the note-book in which the account (substantially reproduced in the Spectator) was written down on January 11th. Of course there is always the possibility in a case of this kind that the lips may have unconsciously begun to form the words, but in the present instance it seems unlikely that any indication of the kind would have escaped the notice of the others present at the table. Mrs. Barber has given us other accounts, extracted from her journal, of thought-transference, in which the same percipient was concerned. She writes on December 26th, 1886:—

"On Wednesday J. went to London, and on getting his breakfast at a little inn in C——, he found a 'blackclock' (i.e., cockroach) floating in his coffee. He fished it out and supposed it was all right, but on pursuing the coffee he got one in his mouth! Next day, at breakfast, he said, 'What's the most horrible thing that could happen to any one at breakfast? I don't mean getting killed, or anything of that sort.' E. looked at him for a moment and said, 'To have a blackclock in your coffee!'

"She was asleep in bed when her father returned the night before, and they met at the breakfast-table for the first time the next morning, when the question was asked quite suddenly. When asked how she came to think of it, she said, 'I looked at the bacon-dish, and thought a blackclock in the bacon,—no, he would see that—it must have been in the coffee.'

"She has a special horror of 'blackclocks,' so the incident may merely have been one of the numerous instances of her unusually quick wit.

"Caroline Barber."

Transference of Mental Pictures.

The next three narratives are interesting as illustrating three different stages in the externalisation of visual impressions. In the first case, which is quoted from the Proceedings of the American S.P.R. (pp. 444, 445), the impression seems to have been almost of the nature of an illusion—i.e., the idea emerged into consciousness only when a somewhat similar image was presented to the external organ of vision.[88]

No. 45.—From Mr. Haynes.

In a letter to Mr. Hodgson, Mr. Haynes writes:—

"BOSTON, June 25, 1887.

"The name of the prisoner alluded to has passed from my recollection. He belonged in East Boston, and was sentenced for life for an assault upon a woman. I think he was pardoned some years ago, but am not certain about it. He had but one child, a boy about five years old, who always came with his wife to visit him. He seemed very fond of the child, always held him in his arms during the visit, and showed a good deal of feeling at parting.

"The following is an account of the affair made at the time:—

"'The following very singular incident I can vouch for as having actually occurred. I refer to it, not to illustrate a supernatural or any other unusual agency, as I am a sceptic in such matters, but as a remarkable instance of hallucination or presentiment.

"'I received a message from the wife of one of our convicts, in prison for life, that their only child, a bright little boy five years old, was dead, he having accidentally fallen into the water and been drowned. I was requested to communicate to the father the death of the child, but not the cause, as the wife preferred to tell him herself when she should visit him a week or two later.

"'I sent for him to the guard-room, and after a few questions in regard to himself, I said I had some sad news for him. He quickly replied, "I know what it is, Mr. Warden; my boy is dead!" "How did you hear of it?" I asked. "Oh, I knew it was so; he was drowned, was he not, Mr. Warden?" "But who informed you of it?" I again asked. "No one," he replied. "How, then, did you know he was dead, and what makes you think he was drowned?" "Last Sunday," he said, "your little boy was in the chapel; he fell asleep, and you took him up and held him. As I looked up and caught sight of him lying in your arms, instantly the thought occurred to me that my boy was dead—drowned. In vain I tried to banish it from my mind, to think of something else, but could not; the tears came into my eyes, and it has been ringing in my ears ever since; and when you sent for me, my heart sunk within me, for I felt sure my fears were to be confirmed."

"'What made it more remarkable was the fact that the child was missed during the forenoon of that Sunday, but the body was not found for some days after.'

"The foregoing is copied from my journal, the entry made on the day of the interview, and I can assure you is strictly correct in every particular.

"GIDEON HAYNES."

In answer to inquiries as to the name and address of the percipient, Mr. Haynes writes:—

"His name was Timothy Cronan. He was pardoned in 1873 or 1874. Mr. Darling, the officer in the guard-room to-day, occupied the same position when I had the interview with Cronan. He was present, and remembers distinctly all the circumstances of the case, which were discussed by us at the time. Cronan served some ten or twelve years. ... He has not been heard from at the prison since his discharge."

In this case it may perhaps be inferred, from the circumstances of its occurrence, that the impression was of a rudimentary visual character.

In the next case it seems clear that the percipient saw what she described, but the impression appears to have been of a purely inward nature.

No. 46.—From PROFESSOR RICHET.

"On Monday, July 2nd, 1888, after having passed all the day in my laboratory, I hypnotised LÉonie at 8 P.M., and while she tried to make out a diagram concealed in an envelope I said to her quite suddenly: 'What has happened to M. Langlois?' LÉonie knows M. Langlois from having seen him two or three times some time ago in my physiological laboratory, where he acts as my assistant. 'He has burnt himself,' LÉonie replied. 'Good,' I said, 'and where has he burnt himself?' 'On the left hand. It is not fire: it is—-I don't know its name. Why does he not take care when he pours it out?' 'Of what colour,' I asked, 'is the stuff which he pours out?' 'It is not red, it is brown; he has hurt himself very much—the skin puffed up directly.'

"Now, this description is admirably exact. At 4 P.M. that day M. Langlois had wished to pour some bromine into a bottle. He had done this clumsily, so that some of the bromine flowed on to his left hand, which held the funnel, and at once burnt him severely. Although he at once put his hand into water, wherever the bromine had touched it a blister was formed in a few seconds—a blister which one could not better describe than by saying, 'the skin puffed up.' I need not say that LÉonie had not left my house, nor seen any one from my laboratory. Of this I am absolutely certain, and I am certain that I had not mentioned the incident of the burn to any one. Moreover, this was the first time for nearly a year that M. Langlois had handled bromine, and when LÉonie saw him six months before at the laboratory he was engaged in experiments of quite another kind." (Proc. S.P.R., vol. vi. pp. 69, 70.)

In the next case the mental picture seems to have been much more vivid than the visions of distant familiar scenes, or faces, which most of us can summon up by an effort of will; in fact, the impression probably approached very nearly to a hallucination. It is noteworthy, however, that it did not apparently form part of the external order, but replaced it. We have no means therefore of measuring the degree of vividness.

No. 47.—From DR. G. DUPRÉ.

"REIMS, July 6th, 1891.

"One day in May 1890, I had just been visiting a patient, and was coming downstairs, when suddenly I had the impression that my little girl of four years old had fallen down the stone stairs of my house, and hurt herself."

"Then gradually after the first impression, as though a curtain which hid the sight from me were slowly drawn back, I saw my child lying at the foot of the stairs, with her chin bleeding, but I had no impression of hearing her cries.

"The vision was blotted out suddenly, but the memory of it remained with me. I took note of the hour—10.30 A.M.—and continued my professional rounds."

"When I got home I much astonished my family by giving a description of the accident, and naming the hour when it occurred."

"The circumstance made a great impression on me, and my memory of it is quite clear.
"Dr. G. DUPRÉ."

In a further letter Dr. DuprÉ adds:—

"REIMS, August 2nd, 1891.

"The account which I have given you is exact in every point. Madame DuprÉ remembers it perfectly. As I had a great many visits to pay that day I did not return home at once, but continued my rounds. I took particular note of the time, however, and it was found to be exact.

"This phenomenon of perception seemed to me so curious that I noted all the particulars, in order to analyse them at my leisure.

"When I got home my first words were these, addressed to my wife, 'Loulou is hurt. Is it serious?' Madame DuprÉ exclaimed, 'Who told you?' 'No one,' I replied; 'I saw her fall,' and then while examining my little girl I told my wife about the vision.

"I did not relate the circumstance to any one else but my father-in-law, Dr. Bracon, and he did not take it very seriously. Indeed, I was not inclined to lay much stress upon the matter either, as I did not wish to be considered visionary or credulous."

Madame DuprÉ writes:—

"25th September 1891.

"My husband's account of his telepathic experience is perfectly correct. For my own part I was extremely surprised at the circumstances, for till then my attitude towards all questions of clairvoyance had been one of almost complete incredulity. Let me add, however, that my husband is of an excessively nervous temperament, and was liable to somnambulism in his youth. It is seldom that a night passes in which he does not talk in his sleep. It would be quite possible to hold a conversation with him for a few minutes whilst he is in this condition." (Annales des Sciences Psychiques, vol. i. pp. 324, 325.)

It seems permissible to conjecture that in this case Madame DuprÉ, as in the previous case Professor Richet, was the agent.

Transference of Emotion.

Sometimes the telepathic impulse appears to express itself in a vague feeling of alarm or distress. Of course, impressions of this sort, with no definite content, and not recognised at the time as having reference to any particular person, can do little to strengthen the proof of telepathy. But when it has been shown, by the mention of the experience beforehand, or by any unusual action consequent on its occurrence, that the emotion was unique in the history of the percipient, and when the coincidence with a serious crisis is clearly established, the telepathic explanation may be admitted as at least plausible. These conditions appeared to be fulfilled in the following case, which is quoted from the Proceedings of the American S.P.R. (pp. 474, 475).

No. 48.—From MR. F. H. KREBS.

The percipient in this case described his experience to Professor William James, of Harvard, who writes as follows:—

"Mr. Krebs (special student) stopped after the logic lesson of Friday, November 26, and told me the facts related in his narrative.

"I advised him to put them on paper, which he has thus done.

"His father is said by him to be too much injured to do any writing at present.
"WM. JAMES.

"December 1, 1886."

From MR. F. H. KREBS.

"On the afternoon of Wednesday, November 24, I was very uneasy, could not sit still, and wandered about the whole afternoon with little purpose. This uneasiness was unaccountable; but instead of wearing away it increased, and after returning to my room at about 6.45 it turned into positive fear. I fancied that there was some one continually behind me, and, although I turned my chair around several times, this feeling remained. At last I got up and went into my bedroom, looked under the bed and into the closet; finding nothing, I came back into the room and looked behind the curtains. Satisfied that there was nothing present to account for my fancy, I sat down again, when instantly the peculiar sensation recurred; and at last, finding it unbearable, I went down to a friend's room, where I remained the rest of the evening. To him I expressed my belief that this sensation was a warning sent to show me that some one of my family had been injured or killed.

"While in his room the peculiar sensation ceased, and, despite my nervousness, I was in no unusual state of mind; but on returning to my room to go to bed it returned with renewed force. On the next day (the 25th), on coming to my grandfather's, I found out that the day before (the 24th), at a little past 12, my father had jumped from a moving train and been severely injured. While I do not think that this warning was direct enough to convince sceptics that I was warned of my father's mishap, I certainly consider that it is curious enough to demand attention. I have never before had the same peculiar sensation that there was some being besides myself in an apparently empty room, nor have I ever before been so frightened and startled at absolutely nothing.

"On questioning my father, he said that before the accident he was not thinking of me, but that at the very moment that it happened his whole family seemed to be before him, and he saw them as distinctly as if there.

F. H. KREBS, JUN.

"November 29, 1886."

From MR. CHAUNCEY SMITH, JUN.

"I, the undersigned, distinctly remember that F. H. Krebs, Jun., came into my room November 24 and complained of being very nervous. I cannot remember exactly what he said, as I was studying at the time, and did not pay much attention to his talk.

"On the 25th he came into my room in the evening, and made a statement that his state the evening before was the consequence of an accident that happened to his father, and that he had the night before told me that he had received a warning of some accident to some one dear to him. This I did not contradict, because I consider that it is extremely probable that he said it, and that I did not, through inattention, notice it.
"CHAUNCEY SMITH, JUN."

The present case well illustrates the difficulties attendant on any efforts to procure reliable contemporary evidence for psychical events. Even when, as here, the percipient himself took the right course, from the standpoint of psychical research, his forethought was to a great extent frustrated by the shortcomings of his friend.

With this narrative may be compared three cases given in Phantasms of the Living (vol. i. pp. 280 et seq.) of the occurrence of exceptional distress to one twin at the time of the death of the other. Mr. Leveson Gower has sent us an account of a similar marked fit of depression, accompanied by "a vivid sense of the presence of death," which coincided with the quite sudden and unlooked-for death of a near relation, the late Lady Marion Alford. (Journal S.P.R., May 1888.) Professor Tamburini records an analogous case. A lunatic died in the asylum at Reggio on the 21st May 1892. A letter of inquiry, dated the 22nd May, was received at the asylum from the husband, who had not previously written for more than a year; and it was ascertained that he was prompted to write the letter by a feeling of "great discomfort, as though some misfortune were about to befall him," experienced on the previous day, the day of the death.

No. 49.—From Dr N., of New York State.

The next case is specially interesting, because the emotion which was felt in the first instance was succeeded by a visual impression of a detailed kind. This case again comes to us from America (Proc. Am. S.P.R., pp. 397-400). Dr. N., the percipient, writes to Professor Royce as follows:—

[Postmarked Aug. 16, 1886.]

"In the convalescence from a malarial fever during which great hyperÆsthesia of brain had obtained, but no hallucinations or false perceptions, I was sitting alone in my room looking out of the window. My thoughts were of indifferent trivialities; after a time my mind seemed to become absolutely vacant; my eyes felt fixed, the air seemed to grow white. I could see objects about me, but it was a terrible effort of will to perceive anything. I then felt great and painful sense as of sympathy with some one suffering, who or where I did not know. After a little time I knew with whom, but how I knew I cannot tell; for it seemed some time after this knowledge of personality that I saw distinctly, in my brain, not before my eyes, a large, square room, evidently in a hotel, and saw the person of whom I had been conscious, lying face downward on the bed in the throes of mental and physical anguish. I felt rather than heard sobs and grieving, and felt conscious of the nature of the grief subjectively; its objective cause was not transmitted to me. Extreme exhaustion followed the experience, which lasted forty minutes intensely, and then very slowly wore away. Let me note:—

"1st. I had not thought of the person for some time and there was no reminder in the room.

"2nd. The experience was remembered with more vividness than that seen in the normal way, while the contrary is true of dreams.

"3rd. The natural order of perception was reversed, i.e., the emotion came first, the sense of a personality second, the vision or perception of the person third.

"I should be glad to have a theory given of this reverse in the natural order of perception."

The agent, M., is well known to both Professor Royce and Dr. Hodgson. In the report it is stated that "there can be no doubt of his high character and general good judgment." He writes as follows:—

"BOSTON, Nov. 16th, 1886.

"Some years ago, perhaps eight or nine, while in a city of Rhode Island on business, my house being then, as now, in Boston, I received news which was most unexpected and distressing to me, affecting me so seriously that I retired to my room at the hotel, a large square room, and threw myself upon my bed, face downward, remaining there a long time in great mental distress. The acuteness of the feeling after a time abating, I left the room. I returned next day to Boston, and the day after that received a short letter from the person whose statement I enclose herewith, and dated at the town in Western New York, from which her enclosed letter comes. The note begged me to tell her without delay what was the matter with me 'on Friday, at 2 o'clock,'—the very day and hour when I was affected as I have described.

"This lady was a somewhat familiar acquaintance and friend, but I had not heard from her for many months previous to this note, and I do not know that any thought of her had come into my mind for a long time. I should still further add that the news which had so distressed me had not the slightest connection with her.

"I wrote at once, stating that she was right as to her impression (she said in her letter that she was sure I was in very great trouble at the time mentioned), and expressed my surprise at the whole affair.

"Twice since that time she has written to me, giving me some impression in regard to my condition or situation, both referring to cases of illness or suffering of some kind, and both times her impressions have proved correct enough to be considered remarkable, yet not so exact in detail or distinctness as the first time. I feel confident that I have her original letter, but have not been able to command the time necessary to find it.
"(Signed) M.

"P.S.—The three occurrences above detailed comprise all the experiences of this sort which I have had in my life."

Mr. M. has searched in vain for the original letter of Dr. N. referring to the incident. Two letters, however, referring to one of the later experiences mentioned by him have been found, and copies of them, made by Dr. Hodgson on June 6th, 1887, are given below.

(1.)

DR. N. to MR. M.
"DOCTOR'S OFFICE, July 24th,
(Year not given).

"If I don't hear from you to-morrow, I shall write you a letter! I am anxious about you.
"N."

(2.)

MR. M. to DR. N.

BOSTON, July 26, 1883.

"What clairvoyant vision again told you of me Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday? Was it as vivid and real as the other time? It had, at least, a very closely related cause.

"It is past 1 A.M., but I will not go to bed till I have sent you a word. A letter will follow very soon. For two days I have been thinking of the way you wrote to me that time, and I should have written to you within twenty-four hours if I had not received the note from you. Please write to me as you proposed. This is only to tell you that I am alive and not ill, but tired, tired! Tell me of yourself. I have had a hard three months in the West, eighteen to twenty hours a day, scarce a respite—I am not ill; I am sure I am not, but I am worked out. I couldn't get to —— or write.

"I used the telegraph even with my sisters.

"I hope for a letter, and will surely send you one.

"Yours,
"M."

These letters, which apparently relate to the second of the three experiences mentioned by M., afford incidentally strong corroboration of the accuracy of the statements made as to the first and most remarkable experience.

Several instances have been already published (Phantasms of the Living, vol. ii. pp. 365-370) of what appears to be telepathic affection, in which there was no apparent link to connect the agent and percipient. Thus intimation of the deaths of three dukes—Cambridge, Portland, and Wellington—was conveyed to complete strangers. A similar impression is recorded (Journal S.P.R., Nov. 1892) as affecting a stranger at the death of Lord Tennyson, and a somewhat similar instance is recorded (Journal, May 1892) in connection with the death of General the Hon. Sir Leicester Smyth. The Head-master of a Grammar School in Leicester saw in a vision the irruption of water into the Thames Tunnel (Phantasms, loc. cit.). In all these cases, if we accept the incidents as telepathic, they recall, as Mr. Gurney remarks, "the Greek notion of f??, the Rumour which spreads from some unknown source, and far outstrips all known means of transport." The evidence so far adduced, however, is by no means sufficient to establish any such conclusion. But the following narrative, which comes from a lady well known to me, is worth considering in this connection.

No. 50.—From MISS Y.

"PERTH, 19th January 1890.

"One Sunday evening I was writing to my sister, in my own room, and a wild storm was raging round the house (in Perth). Suddenly an eerie feeling came over me, I could not keep my thoughts on my letter, ideas of death and disaster haunted me so persistently. It was a vague but intense feeling; a sudden ghastly realisation of human tragedy, with no 'where,' 'how,' or 'when' about it.

"I remember flying upstairs to seek refuge with my mother, and I remember her soothing voice saying, 'Nonsense, child,' when I insisted that I was sure 'lots of people were dying.'

"We both thought it was a little nervous attack, and thought no more about it. But when we heard the news of the Tay Bridge disaster next day, we both noticed (we received the news separately from the maid when she came to wake us) that the time of the accident coincided with my strange experience of the evening before.

"We spoke of the 'coincidence' together, but did not attach much importance to it.

"I have never had any experience like it, before or since."

Mrs. Y., in a letter of the same date, corroborates her daughter's statement. Mrs. Y.'s account, it should be added, was written without previous consultation with Miss Y., and embodies her independent recollection of the incident.

"On the night of the Tay Bridge disaster A. was sitting alone in her room, when she suddenly came running upstairs to me, saying that she had heard shrieks in the air; that something dreadful must have happened, for the air seemed full of shrieks. She thought a great many people must be dying. Next morning the milk-boy told the servant that the Tay Bridge was down."

In a later letter, Miss Y. adds:—

"My mother says she cannot remember my having any other experience of the kind. It happened before 9 P.M., we think."

From the Times of December 29th, 1879 (Monday), it appears that the accident took place on the previous evening (28th). The Edinburgh train, due at Dundee at 7.15 P.M., crossed the bridge during a violent gale. It was duly signalled from the Fife side as having entered on the bridge for Dundee at 7.14. It was seen running along the rails, and then suddenly there was observed a flash of fire. The opinion was the train then left the rails and went over the bridge.

Motor Impulses.

Occasionally the telepathic impression manifests itself to consciousness as a monition or impulse to perform a certain action. There is no ground for thinking in such a case that the idea transferred from the agent has in itself any special impulsive quality. The impulse towards action is no doubt the result of the percipient's unconscious reasoning on the information supplied to him.

Sometimes the impulse to action, though strong, is vague and inarticulate. Thus Mrs. Hadselle, of Pittsfield, Mass., U.S.A., narrates (Journal S.P.R., May 1891) that some years ago she experienced, when spending the evening with some friends, "a sudden and unaccountable desire to go home, accompanied by a dread and fear of something, I knew not what." She eventually yielded to her impulse, and at some inconvenience returned home, just in time to rescue her son, who was insensible through the smoke from a fire of wet sticks in his room. Professor Venturi (Annales des Sci. Psy., vol. iii. pp. 331-333) relates that in July 1885, in obedience to an irresistible impulse, he made a sudden and quite unpremeditated journey from Pozzuoli to his home at Nocera, to find his child in serious danger from a sudden attack of croup. A case is recorded in the Proc. Am. S.P.R. (pp. 227, 228), in which a lady living in a Western State awoke in the night of January 30th-31st, 1886, with a strong feeling that her daughter in Washington was ill and needed her, and in the morning telegraphed to her son-in-law, offering to come at once. There had been no previous cause of anxiety on the mother's part, but as a matter of fact the daughter had been taken suddenly and seriously ill on that night. A letter and the telegram relating to the event have been preserved. In another case Lady de Vesci, in 1872, telegraphed on a sudden impulse from Ireland to a friend in Hong Kong. The telegram arrived less than twenty-four hours before the recipient's death, an event which Lady de Vesci had no reason to anticipate for some months (Journal S.P.R., October 1891).

In another case, also recorded by Mrs. Hadselle (loc. cit.), the impulse took the form of a voice bidding her go to a certain town, where, as it appeared, an intimate friend stood in urgent need of her. The effect produced in this case was so strong that the percipient actually bought a fresh railway ticket and changed her route. In the following case the impulse found a more unusual mode of expression—viz., utterance on the part of the percipient.

No. 51.—From ARCHDEACON BRUCE.

"ST. WOOLOS' VICARAGE, NEWPORT,
MONMOUTHSHIRE, July 6th, 1892.

"On April 19th, Easter Tuesday, I went to Ebbw Vale to preach at the opening of a new iron church in Beaufort parish.

"I had arranged that Mrs. Bruce and my daughter should drive in the afternoon.

"The morning service and public luncheon over, I walked up to the Vicarage at Ebbw Vale to call on the Vicar. As I went there I heard the bell of the new church at Beaufort ringing for afternoon service at three. It had stopped some little time before I reached the Vicarage (of Ebbw Vale). The Vicar was out, and it struck me that I might get back to the Beaufort new church in time to hear some of the sermon before my train left (at 4.35). On my way back through Ebbw Vale, and not far from the bottom of the hill on which the Ebbw Vale Vicarage is placed, I saw over a provision shop one of those huge, staring Bovril advertisements—the familiar large ox-head. I had seen fifty of them before, but something fascinated me in connection with this particular one. I turned to it, and was moved to address it in these, my ipsissima verba: 'You ugly brute, don't stare at me like that: has some accident happened to the wife?' Just the faintest tinge of uneasiness passed through me as I spoke, but it vanished at once. This must have been as nearly as possible 3.20. I reached home at six to find the vet. in my stable-yard tending my poor horse, and Mrs. Bruce and my daughter in a condition of collapse in the house. The accident had happened—so Mrs. Bruce thinks—precisely at 3.30, but she is not confident of the moment. My own times I can fix precisely.

"I had no reason to fear any accident, as my coachman had driven them with the same horse frequently, and save a little freshness at starting, the horse was always quiet on the road, even to sluggishness. A most unusual occurrence set it off. A telegraph operator, at the top of a telegraph post, hauled up a long flashing coil of wire under the horse's nose. Any horse in the world, except the Troy horse, would have bolted under the circumstances.

"My wife's estimate of the precise time can only be taken as approximate. She saw the time when she got home, and took that as her zero, but the confusion and excitement of the walk home from the scene of the accident leaves room for doubt as to her power of settling the time accurately. The accident happened about 2¼ miles from home, and she was home by 4.10; but she was some time on the ground waiting until the horse was disengaged, etc. "W. CONYBEARE BRUCE."

Archdeacon Bruce adds later:—

"May 20th, 1893.

"I think I stated the fact that the impression of danger to Mrs. Bruce was only momentary—it passed at once—and it was only when I heard of the accident that I recalled the impression. I did not therefore go home expecting to find that anything had happened. "W. CONYBEARE BRUCE."

Mrs. Bruce writes:—

"The first thought that flashed across me as the accident happened was, 'What will W. say?' My ruling idea then was to get home before my husband, so as to save him alarm."

The Rev. A. T. Fryer, to whom the incident was originally communicated by the percipient, ascertained independently from the Vicar of Ebbw Vale that the date of Archdeacon Bruce's visit to him was April 19th, 1892. It is worth noting that here, as in case 45, an external object appears to have acted as a point de repÈre, and to have thus aided in the development of the transferred idea. Another instance of a telepathic impulse leading to speech is to be found in the Annales des Sciences Psychiques (vol. i. p. 36). The Lady Superior of a convent was moved during the celebration of a service to pray for the safety of the children of a neighbour—a visitor to the convent—who was somewhat startled by the Superior's abrupt action. It subsequently appeared that at about the time of this prayer the two boys were involved in a carriage accident.

The most striking evidence, however, of telepathically induced action is to be found in automatic writing. Some experimental cases of the kind have been quoted in Chapter IV. The spontaneous cases are more numerous. Mr. Myers has recorded several instances in his article on Motor Automatism (Proc. S.P.R., vol. ix. pp. 26 et seq.), and Mr. W. T. Stead has published, in the Review of Reviews and elsewhere, accounts of messages and conversations with friends at a distance written through his hand. Generally speaking, however, where living persons are concerned, it is difficult, without full knowledge of all the circumstances, to feel assured that the facts recorded by this means are not such as might conceivably have been within the knowledge of the writer, or at least within his powers of conjecture. The best evidence, therefore, for spontaneous telepathic automatism is no doubt afforded by those cases in which some altogether unforeseen event, such as the death of the presumed agent, is communicated. Such is the case recorded by M. Aksakof (Psychische Studien, February 1889, quoted in Proc. S.P.R., vol. v. pp. 434, etc.), in which Mademoiselle Emma Stramm, a Swiss governess at Wilna, on the 15th January 1887 wrote particulars of the death on the same day of a former acquaintance of hers, August Duvanel, in Canton Zurich. A similar instance is recorded by Dr. LiÉbeault (Annales des Sciences Psychiques, vol. i. pp. 25, 26). The automatic writer was in this case at Nancy, and the person whose death was announced was a young English lady resident at Coblentz. Dr. LiÉbeault was shown the written message within an hour or two of the sÉance, and some days before news of the death was received. Other cases of the kind are recorded by M. Aksakof and others (Revue Spirite, August 1891, April 1892, etc.).

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