ON CLAIRVOYANCE IN TRANCE.

The word "clairvoyance" was used by the older mesmerists to denote somewhat heterogeneous phenomena. It was applied in the first place to a supposed faculty by which the subject was enabled to ascertain facts not within human knowledge,[132] and in the second place to a power of discerning facts within the knowledge of some living mind. Of "clairvoyance" in the first sense there is not at present so much evidence as need cause hesitation in appropriating the name for other uses; and it is obvious that if such a faculty could be shown to exist, a discussion of it would find no place in a work which treats only of the affection of one human mind by another. But we have abundant evidence of clairvoyance in the second sense, that is, of a form of telepathy in which the transmitted idea seems to reach the mind of the percipient no longer as the meagre result of a serious crisis, or of a direct and often prolonged effort of attention on the part of the agent, but spontaneously, with great fulness of detail, and often with remarkable ease and rapidity, as the outcome of a special receptivity on the part of the percipient. Such clairvoyance—and the word must be understood to include the impressions of other senses than sight—occurs in its most striking form with hypnotised percipients; and in the present chapter I propose to deal with results obtained in hypnotism and analogous states, reserving for the following chapter instances of what appears to be the same faculty occurring in the normal state.[133]

MRS. PIPER.

The phenomena of clairvoyance, as thus defined, have been observed with great care in the case of an American lady, Mrs. Piper. Mrs. Piper had been known for some years in the United States as a clairvoyante and spirit medium, and her trance utterances had been carefully studied by Professor James and Dr. Hodgson. In the winter of 1888-89 she spent two months and a half in this country, at the invitation of certain members of the S.P.R. She came to England as a complete stranger, and was met on her landing at Liverpool by Professor Lodge, and during the whole period she stayed either in the houses of Professor Sidgwick or Mr. Myers at Cambridge, in Professor Lodge's house at Liverpool, or in rooms in London selected by Dr. Leaf. Neither at Cambridge nor Liverpool were there any opportunities of her acquiring knowledge of the histories and circumstances of the persons who visited her for experiments, other than those afforded during the actual progress of the experiment, or by inquiries of servants and children, the examination of books and photograph albums, or from the newspapers and private correspondence. Practically she was under close and almost continuous surveillance during the whole period, and, independently of the special precautions taken to guard against the acquisition of knowledge by any of the means above indicated (Proc. S.P.R., vol. vi. pp. 438-440, 446-447, etc.), it is important to note that the sitters were in almost every instance introduced to Mrs. Piper under an assumed name; that some of them, and those not the least successful, were persons in no way connected with the S.P.R., whose admission was due to circumstances more or less accidental; and that on several occasions she stated facts which were not within the conscious knowledge of any person present, and which could not conceivably have been discovered by any process of private inquiry.[134]

The actual method of experiment was as follows: Mrs. Piper would sit in a room partially darkened, holding the hands of the sitter, whilst some other person (generally Mr. Myers, Dr. Leaf, Professor Lodge, or a shorthand writer) would be present to take notes. Mrs. Piper would presently go off into a trance, attended at its outset by slight convulsive movements resembling those of an epileptic attack, and would after a brief interval assume the voice, gestures, and phraseology of a man. In this guise she gave herself out as one "Dr. Phinuit," a medical man who had studied medicine in Paris in the first quarter of the present century. In the impersonation of this character Mrs. Piper used occasionally broken English, pronounced some words, proper names especially, with a French accent, and was admittedly sometimes very successful in diagnosing and prescribing for the complaints of her sitters and their friends. "Dr. Phinuit" would then pour out a more or less coherent flood of conversation, questions, and remarks about the relatives and friends of those present, their past history and personal affairs generally, some of which was apparently mere padding, some obviously chance shots, or "fishing" for further information; whilst, in the midst of all the irrelevancy and incoherence, there would occasionally be clear, detailed statements on intimate matters of which it is inconceivable that Mrs. Piper could have attained any knowledge by normal means; just as, to quote the apt metaphor of Professor Lodge, in listening at a telephone "you hear the dim and meaningless fragments of a city's gossip, till back again comes the voice obviously addressed to you, and speaking with firmness and decision." In regard to the trance itself, it has no doubt close analogy with the hypnotic trance, though Mrs. Piper is not readily amenable to hypnotism by ordinary means, and when hypnotised her condition is described by Professor James as very different from that of the "medium trance." (Proc., vol. vi. p. 653; viii. p. 56.) In the latter state Mrs. Piper is, occasionally at least, anÆsthetic in certain senses, and analgesic in various parts of the body (viii. pp. 4-6), and her eyes are closed, with the eyeballs turned upwards.

There is no reason to suppose that the simulacrum of "Dr. Phinuit" is anything else than an impersonation assumed by Mrs. Piper's subconsciousness. Such impersonations are very common amongst "spirit mediums" everywhere, and in all forms of spontaneously induced trance.[135] Nor is "Dr. Phinuit" the only form assumed by Mrs. Piper's secondary consciousness. It frequently happened in the trance that "Dr. Phinuit" gave place to an impersonation, often recognised as life-like and characteristic, of some deceased relative of the sitter's, as in the case of "Uncle Jerry," mentioned below.[136] Probably in many cases the basis of these representations was supplied by unguarded remarks of the sitters themselves, or by skilful guesses on the part of "Phinuit," sometimes possibly eked out by telepathic drafts on the sitters' memories. As regards Mrs. Piper's conscious share in the matter, the persons who have observed her most closely, both in this country and in America, agree in believing that she is a woman of transparent simplicity, and with a marked absence of inquisitiveness or even ordinary interest in matters outside her domestic concerns, and that she is incapable, morally and intellectually, of carrying on a prolonged and systematic deception, and must by all impartial persons be fully acquitted of responsibility for "Dr. Phinuit's" proceedings. As is almost invariably the case with entranced persons, in the normal state she appears to know nothing of what goes on in the trance, and to share none of the information supernormally acquired by her secondary consciousness. As to whether "Dr. Phinuit" is equally ignorant of Mrs. Piper's thoughts and of knowledge acquired normally by her, it is impossible to speak with equal confidence. There can be little doubt either that he is, or that he wishes, for the sake of effect, to produce the impression that he is. But, as is not infrequently the case, the second personality is markedly inferior in its moral character to the normal consciousness. Its ruling motive in this case appears to be a prodigious vanity, which drives "Dr. Phinuit," when telepathy fails, into shuffling, equivocation, and all manner of contemptible devices for eliciting information, and passing it off as supernormally acquired. Like the Strong Man of the music-halls, to make good his bragging he is forced continually to eke out what is genuinely abnormal by artifices at once disingenuous and transparent.[137]

The following is a summary of the proceedings at two of the more successful sittings. Mrs. Piper was at the time staying in Liverpool, with Professor Lodge, who introduced to her on the morning of December 23rd, 1888, under the pseudonym of Dr. Jones,[138] a medical man practising in the city. Notes were taken throughout by Professor Lodge, who was himself ignorant of nearly all the details given. The conversation was practically a monologue, as Dr. C. himself remained almost entirely silent, assenting, "with a grunt, to wrong quite as much as to right statements." It will be observed that here, as throughout, "Dr. Phinuit" appears to gain his information in an auditory form.

No. 96.

Sitting No. 42. Monday morning, December 23rd.

Present: Dr. C. (introduced as Dr. Jones) and O. J. L.

[The following is an abstract of the correct, or subsequently corrected or otherwise noteworthy, statements.]

"You have a little lame girl, lame in the thigh, aged thirteen; either second or third. She's a little daisy. I do like her. Dark eyes, the gentlest of the lot; good deal of talent for music. She will be a brilliant woman; don't forget it. She has more sympathy, more mind, more—quite a little daisy. She's got a mark, a curious little mark, when you look closely, over eye, a scar through forehead over left eye. The boy's erratic; a little thing, but a little devil. Pretty good when you know him. He'll make an architect likely. Let him go to school. His mother's too nervous. It will do him good. [This was a subject in dispute.] You have a boy and two girls and a baby; four in the body. It's the little lame one I care for. There are two mothers connected with you, one named Mary. Your aunt passed out with cancer. You have indigestion, and take hot water for it. You have had a bad experience. You nearly slipped out once on the water." [Dangerous yacht accident last summer. Above statements are correct except the lameness. See next sitting.]

Sitting No. 43. Monday evening, December 23rd.

Present: Dr. and Mrs. C. and O. J. L. [Statements correct when not otherwise noted.]

"How's little Daisy? She will get over her cold. But there's something the matter with her head. There's somebody round you lame and somebody hard of hearing. That little girl has got music in her. This lady is fidgety. There are four of you, four going to stop with you, one gone out of the body. One got irons on his foot. Mrs. Allen, in her surroundings, is the one with iron on leg. [Allen was maiden name of mother of lame one.] There's about 400 of your family. There's Kate; you call her Kitty. She's the one that's kind of a crank. Trustworthy, but cranky. She will fly off and get married, she will. Thinks she knows everything, she does. [This is the nurse-girl, Kitty, about whom they seem to have a joke that she is a walking compendium of information.] (An envelope with letters written inside, N—H—P—O—Q, was here handed in, and Phinuit wrote down B—J—R—O—I—S, not in the best of tempers.) A second cousin of your mother's drinks. The little dark-eyed one is Daisy. I like her. She can't hear very well. The lame one is a sister's child. [A cousin's child, the one nÉe Allen, really.] The one that's deaf in her head is the one that's got the music in her. That's Daisy, and she's going to have the paints I told you of. [Fond of painting.] She's growing up to be a beautiful woman. She ought to have a paper ear. [An artificial drum had been contemplated.] You have an Aunt Eliza. There are three Maries, Mary the mother, Mary the mother, Mary the mother. [Grandmother, aunt, and granddaughter.] Three brothers and two sisters your lady has. Three in the body. There were eleven in your family, two passed out small. [Only know of nine.] Fred is going to pass out suddenly. He married a cousin. He writes. He has shining things. Lorgnettes. He is away. He's got a catchy trouble with heart and kidneys, and will pass out suddenly." [Not the least likely.]

Notes.—The most striking part of this sitting is the prominence given to Dr. C.'s favourite little daughter, Daisy, a child very intelligent and of a very sweet disposition, but quite deaf; although her training enables her to go to school and receive ordinary lessons with other children. At the first sitting she is supposed erroneously to be lame, but at the second sitting this is corrected and explained, and all said about her is practically correct, including the cold she then had. Mrs. Piper had had no opportunity whatever of knowing or hearing of the C. children by ordinary social means. We barely know them ourselves. Phinuit grasped the child's name gradually, using it at first as a mere description. I did not know it myself.

The following is a summary of the false assertions:—

ERRONEOUS STATEMENTS.

At Sitting 42:—

"Your lady's Fanny; well, there is a Fanny. [No.] Fred has light hair, brownish moustache, prominent nose. [No.] Your thesis was some special thing. I should say about lungs." [No.]

At Sitting 43:—

"Your mother's name was Elizabeth. [No.] Her father's lame. [No.] Of your children there's Eddie and Willie and Fannie or Annie and a sister that faints, and Willie and Katie (no, Katie don't count) [being the nurse], and Harry and the little dark-eyed one, Daisy. [All wrong except Daisy.] One passed out with sore throat. [No.] The boy looks about 8. [No, 4.] Your wife's father had something wrong with leg; one named William. [No.] Your grandmother had a sister who married a Howe—Henry Howe. [Unknown.] There's a Thomson connected with you [no], and if you look you will find a Howe too. Your brother the captain [correct], with a lovely wife, who has brown hair [correct], has had trouble in head [no], and has two girls and a boy." [No, three girls.]

In this case it will be seen that no details were given which could not have been derived from the conscious knowledge of the sitter. Apart from the fact that the agent made no effort to impress his thought, it resembles a case of ordinary telepathy. Of much the same character are the following details, quoted from Professor James's account of his interviews with Mrs. Piper (Proc. S.P.R., vol. vi. pp. 658, 659):—

No. 97.—From Professor W. JAMES.

"The most convincing things said about my own immediate household were either very intimate or very trivial. Unfortunately the former things cannot well be published. Of the trivial things, I have forgotten the greater number, but the following, rarÆ nantes, may serve as samples of their class: She said that we had lost recently a rug, and I a waistcoat. [She wrongly accused a person of stealing the rug, which was afterwards found in the house.] She told of my killing a grey-and-white cat, with ether, and described how it had 'spun round and round' before dying. She told how my New York aunt had written a letter to my wife, warning her against all mediums, and then went off on a most amusing criticism, full of traits vifs, of the excellent woman's character. [Of course no one but my wife and I knew the existence of the letter in question.] She was strong on the events in our nursery, and gave striking advice during our first visit to her about the way to deal with certain 'tantrums' of our second child, 'little Billy-boy,' as she called him, reproducing his nursery name. She told how the crib creaked at night, how a certain rocking-chair creaked mysteriously, how my wife had heard footsteps on the stairs, etc., etc. Insignificant as these things sound when read, the accumulation of a large number of them has an irresistible effect. And I repeat again what I said before, that taking everything that I know of Mrs. P. into account, the result is to make me feel as absolutely certain as I am of any personal fact in the world that she knows things in her trances which she cannot possibly have heard in her waking state, and that the definitive philosophy of her trances is yet to be found. The limitations of her trance-information, its discontinuity and fitfulness, and its apparent inability to develop beyond a certain point, although they end by rousing one's moral and human impatience with the phenomenon, yet are, from a scientific point of view, amongst its most interesting peculiarities, since where there are limits there are conditions, and the discovery of these is always the beginning of an explanation.

"This is all that I can tell you of Mrs. Piper. I wish it were more 'scientific.' But, valeat quantum! it is the best I can do."

But there are many cases (Professor Lodge enumerates forty-one instances, Proc. S.P.R., vol. vi. pp. 649, 650) in which details were faithfully given by "Phinuit," which had either been forgotten by the sitters, or could not at any time have been within their knowledge. The instances clearly falling under the last head are perhaps too few to justify any inference being founded on them, although in view of some of the cases to be quoted later, telepathy from persons at a distance from the percipient seems a not impossible explanation. The following case, given by Professor Lodge, which at first sight seems to involve some such hypothesis, may perhaps be explained by the telepathic filching from his mind of the memories of incidents heard in his boyhood and long forgotten. It is right to say that Professor Lodge has no recollection of ever having heard of these incidents, and regards this explanation (or indeed any other which has been suggested) as extremely improbable. (Proc. S.P.R., vol. vi. pp. 458-460.)

No. 98.—From PROFESSOR LODGE, F.R.S.

"It happens that an uncle of mine in London, now quite an old man, and one of a surviving three out of a very large family, had a twin brother who died some twenty or more years ago. I interested him generally in the subject, and wrote to ask if he would lend me some relic of this brother. By morning post on a certain day I received a curious old gold watch, which this brother had worn and been fond of; and that same morning, no one in the house having seen it or knowing anything about it, I handed it to Mrs. Piper when in a state of trance.

"I was told almost immediately that it had belonged to one of my uncles—one that had been mentioned before as having died from the effects of a fall—one that had been very fond of Uncle Robert, the name of the survivor—that the watch was now in possession of this same Uncle Robert, with whom he was anxious to communicate. After some difficulty and many wrong attempts Dr. Phinuit caught the name, Jerry, short for Jeremiah, and said emphatically, as if a third person was speaking, 'This is my watch, and Robert is my brother, and I am here. Uncle Jerry, my watch.' All this at the first sitting on the very morning the watch had arrived by post, no one but myself and a shorthand clerk who happened to have been introduced for the first time at this sitting by me, and whose antecedents are well known to me, being present.

"Having thus ostensibly got into communication through some means or other with what purported to be a deceased relative, whom I had indeed known slightly in his later years of blindness, but of whose early life I knew nothing, I pointed out to him that to make Uncle Robert aware of his presence it would be well to recall trivial details of their boyhood, all of which I would faithfully report.

"He quite caught the idea, and proceeded during several successive sittings ostensibly to instruct Dr. Phinuit to mention a number of little things such as would enable his brother to recognise him.

"References to his blindness, illness, and main facts of his life were comparatively useless from my point of view; but these details of boyhood, two-thirds of a century ago, were utterly and entirely out of my ken. My father was one of the younger members of the family, and only knew these brothers as men.

"'Uncle Jerry' recalled episodes such as swimming the creek when they were boys together, and running some risk of getting drowned; killing a cat in Smith's field; the possession of a small rifle, and of a long peculiar skin, like a snake-skin, which he thought was now in the possession of Uncle Robert.

"All these facts have been more or less completely verified. But the interesting thing is that his twin brother, from whom I got the watch, and with whom I was thus in a sort of communication, could not remember them all. He recollected something about swimming the creek, though he himself had merely looked on. He had a distinct recollection of having had the snake-skin, and of the box in which it was kept, though he does not know where it is now. But he altogether denied killing the cat, and could not recall Smith's field.

"His memory, however, is decidedly failing him, and he was good enough to write to another brother, Frank, living in Cornwall, an old sea captain, and ask if he had any better remembrance of certain facts—of course not giving any inexplicable reasons for asking. The result of this inquiry was triumphantly to vindicate the existence of Smith's field as a place near their home, where they used to play, in Barking, Essex; and the killing of a cat by another brother was also recollected; while of the swimming of the creek, near a mill-race, full details were given, Frank and Jerry being the heroes of that foolhardy episode.

"Some of the other facts given I have not yet been able to get verified. Perhaps there are as many unverified as verified. And some things appear, so far as I can make out, to be false. One little thing I could verify myself, and it is good, inasmuch as no one is likely to have had any recollection, even if they had any knowledge, of it. Phinuit told me to take the watch out of its case (it was the old-fashioned turnip variety) and examine it in a good light afterwards, and I should see some nicks near the handle which Jerry said he had cut into it with his knife.

"Some faint nicks are there. I had never had the watch out of its case before; being, indeed, careful neither to finger it myself nor to let any one else finger it.

"I never let Mrs. Piper in her waking state see the watch till quite towards the end of the time, when I purposely left it lying on my desk while she came out of the trance. Before long she noticed it, with natural curiosity, evidently becoming conscious of its existence then for the first time."[139]

There are many other cases of clairvoyance on record of the same type as Mrs. Piper's, but none which have been studied by so many observers with equal care, and through so prolonged a period. In the more usual form of trance clairvoyance, however, the percipient's impressions are of a visual character. He describes scenes which he appears to himself to see. In the pages of the Zoist and elsewhere vision of the kind is commonly called "travelling clairvoyance," it having generally been suggested to the hypnotised subject that he was actually present at the scene which he was desired to describe. It is possible that this suggestion, almost universally given, may have had some influence in determining the pictorial form which the telepathic impressions assume in such cases, as it has certainly led the percipient himself and the bystanders in many cases to believe in an extra-corporeal visitation of the scenes described. Often no details are given which were not within the knowledge, if not consciously present to the thoughts, of one of the bystanders. Such, for instance, is the case quoted by Dr. Backman, of Kalmar, in his paper on clairvoyance (Proc. S.P.R., vol. vii. pp. 205, 206; viii. 405-407), in which the Director-General of Pilotage for Sweden, M. Ankarkrona, records how, when absent from home, he received from a maid-servant hypnotised by Baron Von Rosen an extremely detailed description of the interior of his own house and its inmates. Hardly a detail was incorrect, but no single detail was given which could not have been extracted from M. Ankarkrona's mind. To such a case there is no difficulty in applying the telepathic explanation.

No. 99.—From A. W. DOBBIE.

In the case to be next quoted, however, the information given by the hypnotised subject transcends the conscious knowledge, at all events, of those present. The account comes from Mr. A. W. Dobbie, of Adelaide, South Australia, who has for some years studied the phenomena of hypnotism on a number of subjects, and has observed some striking manifestations of telepathy and clairvoyance. I quote from a letter written to me in July 1886, containing a copy of his notes made at the time of the experiment, "the moment the words were uttered." The Hon. Dr. Campbell, M.L.C., who had lost a gold sleeve-link, brought its fellow on the 28th May 1886 to Mr. Dobbie, who placed it in the hand of one of his subjects. Then

"Miss Martha began by first accurately describing Dr. Campbell's features, then spoke of a little fair-haired boy who had a stud, or sleeve-link, in his hand, also of a lady calling him 'Neil'; then said that this little boy had taken the link into a place like a nursery where there were some toys, especially a large toy elephant, and that he had dropped the link into this elephant through a hole which had been torn or knocked in the breast; also that he had taken it out again, and gave two or three other interesting particulars. We were reluctantly compelled to postpone further investigation until two or three evenings afterwards.

"On the next occasion (in the interval, however, the missing sleeve-link had been found, but left untouched), I again placed the link in her hand and the previous particulars were at once reproduced; but as she seemed to be getting on very slowly, it occurred to Dr. Campbell to suggest placing his hand on that of the clairvoyant, so I placed him en rapport and allowed him to do so, he simply touching the back of her hand with the points of his fingers. As she still seemed to have great difficulty (she is always much slower than her sister) in proceeding, it suddenly occurred to me that it would be an interesting experiment to place Miss Eliza Dixon en rapport with Miss Martha, so I simply joined their disengaged hands, and Miss Eliza immediately commenced as follows, viz.:—

"'I'm in a house, upstairs, I was in a bathroom, then I went into another room nearly opposite, there is a large mirror just inside the door on the left hand, there is a double-sized dressing-table with drawers down each side of it, the sleeve-link is in the corner of the drawer nearest the door. When they found it they left it there. I know why they left it there, it was because they wanted to see if we would find it. I can see a nice easy-chair there, it is an old one, I would like it when I am put to sleep, because it is nice and low. The bed has curtains, they are a sort of brownish net and have a fringe of darker brown. The wall paper is of a light blue colour. There is a cane lounge there and a pretty Japanese screen behind it, the screen folds up. There is a portrait of an old gentleman over the mantelpiece, he is dead, I knew him when he was alive, his name is the same as the gentleman who acts as Governor when the Governor is absent from the colony,[140] I will tell you his name directly—it is the Rev. Mr. Way. It was a little boy who put the sleeve-link in that drawer, he is very fair, his hair is almost white, he is a pretty little boy, he has blue eyes and is about three years old. The link had been left on that table, the little boy was in the nursery, and he went into the bedroom after the gentleman had left. I can see who the gentleman is, it is Dr. Campbell. Doesn't that little boy look a young Turk, the link is quite a handful for his little hand, he is running about with it very pleased; but he doesn't seem to know what to do with it. (A.)

[Dr. Campbell was not present from this point.]

"'Now I can hear some one calling up the stairs, a lady is calling two names, Colin is one and Neil is the other, the other boy is about five years old and is darker than the other. The eldest, Colin, is going downstairs now, he is gone into what looks like a dining-room, the lady says, "Where is Neil?" "Upstairs, ma." "Go and tell him to come down at once." The little fair-haired boy had put the link down; but when he heard his brother coming up, he picked it up again. Colin says—"Neil, you are to come down at once." "I won't," says Neil. "You're a goose," replies Colin, and he turned and went down without Neil. What a young monkey! now he has gone into the nursery and put the link into a large toy elephant, he put it through a hole in front, which is broken. He has gone downstairs now, I suppose he thinks it is safe there.

"'Now that gentleman has come into the room again and he wants that link; he is looking all about for it, he thinks it might be knocked down: the lady is there now too, and they are both looking for it. The lady says, "Are you sure you put it there?" The gentleman says, "Yes."

"'Now it seems like next day, the servant is turning the carpet up and looking all about for it; but can't find it.

"'The gentleman is asking that young Turk if he has seen it, he knows that he is fond of pretty things. The little boy says, "No." He seems to think it is fine fun to serve his father like that.

"'Now it seems to be another day and the little boy is in the nursery again, he has taken the link out of the elephant, now he has dropped it into that drawer, that is all I have to tell you about it, I told you the rest before.'"

Dr. Campbell, after reading through the above account, writes:—

"ADELAIDE, July 9th, 1886.

"At the point (A) the sÉance was discontinued till the next sitting, when I was absent. The conversation reported as passing between the children is correct. The description of the room is accurate in every point. The portrait is that of the late Rev. James Way. The description of the children and their names are true. The fact that the link was discovered in the drawer, in the interval between one sitting and the final one, and that the link was left there, pending the discovery of it by the clairvoyant, is also correct, as this was my suggestion to Mrs. Campbell when she showed it to me in the corner of the drawer. In fact, every circumstance reported is absolutely correct. I know, further, that neither of the clairvoyants has ever been inside of my door. My children are utterly unknown to them, either in appearance or by name. I may say also that they had no knowledge of my intention to place the link in their possession, or even of my presence at the sÉance, as they were both on each occasion in the mesmeric sleep when I arrived."

In a later letter, dated December 16th, 1887, Dr. Campbell writes:—

"With respect to the large toy elephant, I certainly knew of its existence, but was not thinking of it at the time the clairvoyant was speaking. I did not know even by suspicion that the elephant was so mutilated as to have a large opening in its chest, and on coming home had to examine the toy to see whether the statement was correct. I need hardly say that it was absolutely correct."

Mr. Dobbie tells us that "neither he nor his clairvoyants had any opportunity, directly or indirectly, of knowing any of the particulars brought out by the clairvoyant." He afterwards saw the room described, and says "the description is simply perfect in every particular."

This narrative presents us, at any rate, with a case of thought-transference of a very remarkable kind, an accurate and detailed description being given of a room wholly unknown to the clairvoyantes. But it is doubtful whether even here more was stated by the percipients than could have been extracted from the minds of those present. The statement as to the child placing the sleeve-link in the toy elephant could not, unfortunately, be verified, and the conversation described was natural enough under the circumstances, and may have been the result of a happy conjecture. It is unfortunate that a detailed description of the room was not given until the second sitting, since that lessens the improbability, in any case considerable, that some information as to the details given might have reached the ears of the clairvoyantes.[141] The most remarkable feature in the case is the statement, subsequently verified, as to the hole in the front of the elephant. We must suppose either that this detail was derived from the mind of the child, or that Dr. Campbell had once observed the hole but had forgotten its existence at the time of the experiment. Mr. Dobbie gives other instances of clairvoyance, by one of which the hypothesis of thought-transference from a distant and unknown person is strongly suggested. (Proc. S.P.R., vol. vii. p. 63, etc.)

No. 100.—From DR. WILTSE.

We next quote two cases out of several recorded by Dr. A. S. Wiltse, of Skiddy, Kansas (Proc. S.P.R., vol. vii. pp. 72 et seq.). The percipient was Fannie G., a servant of about fifteen years, who was frequently hypnotised by Dr. Wiltse in the summer of 1882, and developed clairvoyant powers of a very remarkable kind. Dr. Wiltse unfortunately took no notes at the time of the experiments, but he appears to be an accurate reporter, and it will be seen that his account of the incidents quoted is confirmed in each case by other observers. The first experiment was recorded with others in 1886, in a paper read before the Owosso Academy of Medicine; the second was not apparently written down until the account was sent to us in 1890:—

"Miss Florence F., now Mrs. R., a neighbour, was invited to attend one evening with tests which she was to arrange during the day. She came and told the subject to go to her kitchen and tell her what she saw. It was about twenty rods to Miss F.'s kitchen. Subject was led to suppose she had gone to the kitchen, and being asked what she saw, readily answered: 'The table sits in the centre of the room, and upon it is a box covered with a cloth.' 'What is in the box, Fannie?' I asked. 'Oh, I daren't look in the box! Miss Florence might be mad.' 'Miss Florence is willing you should look; raise the cloth, Fannie, and tell me what is there.' She immediately answered, 'There are seven loaves of bread and sixteen biscuits in it.' (Correct.)

"I set this down as telepathy because Miss Florence F. was in the room, and undoubtedly the facts were prominently in her mind, having been purposely so arranged by her for a test; but what follows is not so plainly telepathy.

"Miss Florence asked Fannie to tell her what was in her stable. She answered, 'Two black horses, one grey horse, and one red horse' (meaning a bay horse). Miss Florence: 'That is wrong, Fannie; there are only my black horses in the stable.' Ten or fifteen minutes later, a brother of Miss Florence came to the house and told Miss Florence that there were travellers at the house, and upon inquiry we learned that the grey and 'red' horse belonged to them, and that they had been in the stable half-an-hour when Fannie's clairvoyant eye scanned it."

Mrs. Roberts, the Miss Florence F. of the narrative, writes to Dr. Wiltse:—

"CARDIFF, TENN., January 13th, 1891.

"Your letter was received late last night, and I hasten to reply. Your statement[142] is correct as far as it goes. But if you remember we asked, or rather you asked Fannie, to go into our store-room and see what was in there, and she said a hind quarter of beef, which was true, we had got it late that evening. You also asked her to go in the kitchen and see how many loaves of bread she could find, which she told, and on counting them after returning home, she was correct. It was in the winter of '81 or '82, I think, either December '81, or in the January or February of '82, I cannot remember the month; I know it was cold weather. If you remember when old Julian Scott was drowned, it was about that time, for if I remember right you were trying that same night to get her to find his body. I think, as well as I remember, that she located his saddle, and a few days after it was found in a place that she described, but she could not find the body.

"MRS. FLORENCE F. ROBERTS."

In the second of the incidents above described, and in the account which follows, the percipient's statements included facts which were not within the knowledge of any of those present, and we are forced to the conclusion that the percipient in some way derived her knowledge from persons at a distance. The case presents a curious experimental parallel to the dream (No. 60) recorded in Chapter VIII., and to case No. 107 below. In the present instance, however, the persons whom we may perhaps call the agents, though unconscious of their agency in the matter, do not appear to have been personally unknown to the percipient.

No. 101.—From DR. WILTSE.

"Mr. Howard lived six miles from me. He had just built a large frame house; our subject had never seen the house, although, I presume, she may have heard it talked of. Mr. Howard had not been home for some days, and asked that Fannie should go there and see if all were well. She exclaimed at the size of the house, but railed at the ugliness of the front fence, saying she would not have 'such an old torn-down' fence in front of so nice a house. 'Yes,' said Howard, laughing, 'my wife has been worrying the life out of me about the fence and the front steps.' 'Oh,' interrupted Fannie, 'the steps are nice and new!' 'She is off there,' said Howard, 'the steps are worse than the fence.' 'Don't you see,' exclaimed Fannie, impatiently, 'how new and nice the steps are? Humph!' (And she seemed absolutely disgusted, judging by the tone.) 'I think they are real nice.'

"Changing the subject, Howard asked her how many windows were in his house. Almost instantly she gave a number (I think it was twenty-six). Howard thought it was too many, but upon carefully counting, found it exact.

"From my house he went directly home, and, to his great surprise, found that during his absence his wife had employed a carpenter who had built new front steps, and they had been completed a day or two before Fannie had scanned the premises for him with her invisible telescope.

"Mr. Howard's son, a youth, had gone into an adjoining county and was not expected back for some days. Fannie was acquainted with the young man (Andrew). Mr. Howard, having business back at the station, was with us again the next night. His faith in our 'oracle' had assumed larger proportions, and he suggested a visit home by means of Fannie's wonderful faculty. She described the rooms excellently, even to a bouquet on one of the tables, and said that several young people were there. Asked who they were, she replied that she did not know any of them except Andrew. 'But,' I said, 'Andrew is not at home.' Fannie: 'Why, don't you see him?' Q. 'Sure, Fannie?' F. 'Oh, don't I know Andrew? Right there, he is.' Mr. Howard returned home the next morning, where he found that Andrew had returned late the day before, and that several young people in the neighbourhood had passed the evening with him."

The following are copies of questions addressed to Mr. Howard, and his replies to them:—

"'Did she describe your new doorsteps to you before you knew they were built?' 'Yes.'

"Question.—'Did she describe your house and tell you Andrew was there when you thought he was away, and, if so, was he actually at home as she stated?'

"Answer.—'Yes.'

"Question.—'From what you saw, were you satisfied that Fannie had, when mesmerised, powers of imparting knowledge unknown to others about her?'

"Answer.—'Yes.'

"WILLIAM HOWARD,
Kismet, Tenn., Morgan Co."

"We testify to these questions, asked William Howard, to be facts. We were present at the same time Mr. Howard was when Miss G. was mesmerised by Dr. A. S. Wiltse. We further state that when any of us would prick the doctor with a pin, she would flinch with the same part of her body. Miss G. was not in the habit of the use of tobacco. The doctor was in a different room, with a wall between them. When he would smoke, she grew nauseated and seemed to taste the same as he did.

"W. T. HOWARD AND LIZZIE HOWARD."

No. 102.—From MR. WILLIAM BOYD.

A remarkable case has been recorded, from contemporary knowledge, by Mr. William Boyd, of Peterhead, N.B. (Proc. S.P.R., vol. vii. pp. 49 et seq.). The events occurred as far back as 1850, but a full account of them was contributed by Mr. Boyd to the Aberdeen Herald for May 8th and 18th of that year, from which it appears that the statements made by the percipient were written down and communicated to Mr. Boyd and others before their correspondence with the facts was known. The incident attracted much notice at the time, from its connection with the whaling fleet, the chief topic of local interest. The following is an extract from the original notes made by Mr. Reid, the hypnotiser, published in the Aberdeen Herald, May 18th, 1850:—

"On the evening of April 22nd I put John Park, tailor, aged twenty-two, into a state of clairvoyance, in presence of twelve respectable inhabitants of this town. (Here follows a description of certain statements regarding the fate of Franklin's expedition and the ships Erebus and Terror, which in the light of information subsequently received proved to have been inaccurate.) He (the clairvoyant) then visited Old Greenland, as was desired, and having gone on board the Hamilton Ross, a whale-ship belonging to this port, saw David Cardno, second mate, getting his hand bandaged up by the doctor in the cabin, having got it injured while sealing. He was then told by the captain that they had upwards of 100 tons of oil. I again, on the evening of the 23rd, put him into a clairvoyant state. (Here follow some further particulars regarding Sir John Franklin's expedition, which also are proved to have been inaccurate.) I again directed him to Old Greenland, and he again visited the Hamilton Ross, and found Captain Gray, of the Eclipse, conversing with the captain about the seal fishing being up.

"(Signed) WILLIAM REID."

It appears from the Herald of May 8th that the Hamilton Ross did come to port first out of eleven ships, that she brought 159 tons of oil, that Cardno had injured his hand, and arrived with his arm in a sling, and that on the 23rd April the captain of the Hamilton Ross was conversing with the captain of the Eclipse. Mr. Boyd points out, however, that Cardno had some years before lost the tip of one finger, so that the clairvoyant's statement of the accident may have been simply a reminiscence. It is worth noting that here, as generally in visions of the kind, the false was mingled with the true, and that the percipient appears quite unable to distinguish between pictures which are obviously the work of his own imagination, and those which are apparently due to inspiration from without.

The next case is also remote in date, but we have received the evidence of several persons still living who were conversant with the facts at the time of their occurrence, and the account given below is taken from contemporary notes. "Jane" was the wife of a pit-man in County Durham, who for many years, from 1845 onwards, was hypnotised for the sake of her health by Mrs. T. Myers, of Twinstead Rectory, Mrs. Fraser, her sister, and other members of the same family. In the hypnotic sleep she appears to have been sensible to telepathic influences of the same kind as those described at the beginning of Chapter III. But she also gave remarkable demonstrations of "travelling clairvoyance," and frequently described correctly the interior of houses she had never seen. Occasionally she went beyond this, and stated facts not within the knowledge of those present, and opposed to their preconceptions. A good instance is the following, taken from notes made in the summer of 1853:—

No. 103.—From DR. F.[143]

"Before commencing the sitting, I fixed to take her to a house, without communicating my intentions to any of the parties present. In the morning of the day I stated to a patient of my own, Mr. Eglinton, at present residing in the village of Tynemouth, that I intended to visit him. He stated that he would be present between 8 and 10 P.M. in a particular room, so that there might be no difficulty in finding him. He was just recovering from a very severe illness, and was so weak that he could scarcely walk. He was exceedingly thin from the effects of his complaint.

"After the usual state had been obtained, I said, 'We are standing beside a railway station, now we pass along a road, and in front of us see a house with a laburnum tree in front of it.' She directly replied, 'Is it the red house with a brass knocker?' I said, 'No, it has an iron knocker.' I have since looked, however, and find that the door has an old-fashioned brass handle in the shape of a knocker. She then asked, 'Shall we go up the steps? Shall we go along this passage, and up these stairs? Is this a window on the stair-head?' I said, 'You are quite right, and now I want you to look into the room upon the left-hand side.' She replied, 'Oh, yes, in the bedroom. There is no one in this room; there is a bed in it, but there is no person in it.' I was not aware that a bedroom was in the place I mentioned, but upon inquiry next day I found she was correct. I told her she must look into the next room, and she would see a sofa. She answered, 'But there is here a little gallery. Now I am in the room, and see a lady with black hair lying upon the sofa.' I attempted to puzzle her about the colour of her hair, and feeling sure it was Mr. Eglinton who was lying there, I sharply cross-questioned her, but still she persisted in her story. The questioning, however, seemed to distract her mind, and she commenced talking about a lady at Whickham, until I at last recalled her to the room at Tynemouth, by asking whether there was not a gentleman in the room. 'No,' she said; 'we can see no gentleman there.'

"After a little she described the door opening, and asked, with a tone of great surprise, 'Is that a gentleman?' I replied, 'Yes; is he thin or fat?' 'Very fat,' she answered; 'but has he a cork leg?' I assured her that he had no cork leg, and tried to puzzle her again about him. She, however, assured me that he was very fat and had a great corporation, and asked me whether I did not think such a fat man must eat and drink a great deal to get such a corporation as that. She also described him as sitting by the table with papers beside him, and a glass of brandy and water. 'Is it not wine?' I asked. 'No,' she said, 'it's brandy.' 'Is it not whisky or rum?' 'No, it is brandy,' was the answer; 'and now,' she continued, 'the lady is going to get her supper, but the fat gentleman does not take any.' I requested her to tell me the colour of his hair, but she only answered that the lady's hair was dark. I then inquired if he had any brains in his head,[144] but she seemed altogether puzzled about him, and said she could not see any. I then asked her if she could see his name upon any of the letters lying about. She replied, 'Yes'; and upon my saying that the name began with E, she spelt each letter of the name 'Eglinton.'

"I was so convinced that I had at last detected her in a complete mistake that I arose, and declined proceeding further in the matter, stating that, although her description of the house and the name of the person were correct, in everything connected with the gentleman she had guessed the opposite from the truth.

"On the following morning Mr. E. asked me the result of the experiment, and after having related it to him, he gave me the following account:—He had found himself unable to sit up to so late an hour, but wishful fairly to test the powers of the clairvoyante, he had ordered his clothes to be stuffed into the form of a figure, and to make the contrast more striking to his natural appearance, had an extra pillow pushed into the clothes so as to form a 'corporation.' The figure had been placed near the table, in a sitting position, and a glass of brandy and water and the newspapers placed beside it. The name, he further added, was spelt correctly, though up to that time I had been in the habit of writing it 'Eglington,' instead of as spelt by the clairvoyante, 'Eglinton.'"

In this case it will be seen that the only person from whom knowledge of the facts given could have been derived was personally unknown to the percipient, the only apparent link of connection being their common acquaintance with Dr. F.

In the last case to be mentioned there are again some indications of thought-transference from the mind of a person at a distance. On April 8th, 1890, Dr. Backman, at Kalmar, received a letter from Dr. Kjellman, at Stockholm, asking that on the following day Dr. Backman should request one of his subjects, Alma Radberg, to "find" Dr. von B. (known to Alma), and describe the apartment (Dr. Kjellman's own) in which he would be sitting, adding that something would be hung on the chandelier for her to describe. The percipient in the trance gave a description of the room, and when asked to look at the chandelier she said there was no chandelier, something more like a lamp, and described something long and narrow, of white metal, hanging from it, with some red stuff round it. When awake she said that what she saw was probably a pair of scissors for cutting paper, or a paper-knife. Dr. Backman sent his notes to Dr. Kjellman, who replied, showing that the description of the room, though in some respects accurate (e.g., she mentioned a long stuffed easy-chair, a glass bookcase, three doors in the lobby, etc.), was in other features incorrect, and should on the whole be regarded as inconclusive. "But," he adds, "her statement that the object was hanging in a lamp, not a chandelier, was right. It is both a lamp and a chandelier, and the lamp was drawn down a long way under the chandelier," and that the object hanging there was "a large pair of paper scissors, fixed by an india-rubber otoscope, and with a tea-rose and some forget-me-nots in one of the handles of the scissors." It will thus be seen that on the one point to which her attention had been specially directed, the hypnotic's description was strikingly accurate; and the articles described were hardly within the range of conjecture.

Dr. Backman has made other experiments with the same subject, in which he obtained further indications of clairvoyance of this kind. (Proc. S.P.R., vol. vii. p. 207, etc.)

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