Phantasms of the Living - Volume I.. Frank Podmore
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was connected with the discovery that the somnambulic state could be artificially induced. It was after the introduction of “mesmerism” or “magnetism” into France, and in the course of the investigation of that wider subject, that this special feature unexpectedly presented itself. The observations remained, it is true, extremely few and scattered. The greater part of them were made in this country, during the second quarter of the present century; and took the form of community of sensation between the operator and the patient. The transference of impressions here depended on a specific rapport previously induced by mesmeric or hypnotic operations—passes, fixation, and the like. To us, now, this mesmeric rapport (in some, at any rate, of its manifestations) seems nothing more than the faculty of thought-transference confined to a single agent and percipient, and intensified in degree by the very conditions which limit its scope. But the course of discovery inverted the logical order of the phenomena. The recognition of the particular case, where the exercise of the faculty was narrowed down to a single channel, preceded by a long interval the recognition of the more general phenomena, as exhibited by persons in a normal state. The transference of impressions was naturally regarded as belonging essentially to mesmerism. As such, it was only one more wonder in a veritable wonderland; and while obtaining on that account the readier acceptance among those who witnessed it, it to some extent shut out the idea of the possibility of similar manifestations where no specific rapport had been artificially established.
But there was a further result. The early connection of thought-transference with mesmerism distinctly damaged its chance of scientific recognition. Those who believed in cognate marvels might easily believe in this marvel: but cautious minds rejected the whole posse of marvels together. And one can hardly wonder at this, when one remembers the wild and ignorant manner in which the claims of Mesmer and his followers were thrust upon the world. A man who professed to have magnetised the sun could hardly expect a serious hearing; and even the operators who eschewed such extravagant pretensions still too often advocated their cause in a language that could only cover it with contempt. Theories of “odylic” force, and of imponderable fluids pervading the body—as dogmatically set forth as if they ranked in certainty with the doctrine of the circulation of the blood—were not likely to attract scientific inquiry to the facts. And in the later developments of hypnotism—in which many of the old “mesmeric” phenomena have been re-studied from a truer point of view, and rapport of a certain sort between the hypnotist and the “subject” has been admitted—there has been so much to absorb observation in the extraordinary range of mental and physical effects which the operator can command by verbal or visible suggestion, that the far rarer telepathic phenomena have, so to speak, been crowded out.1 The consequence is that after nearly a century of controversy, the most interesting facts of mesmeric history are quite as little recognised as the less specialised kinds of thought-transference, which have only within the last few years been seriously looked for or definitely obtained.
Some of the older cases referred to will be found quoted in extenso in the first chapter of the Supplement. Though recorded for the most part in a fragmentary and unsatisfactory way, it will be seen that they do not lack good, or even high, scientific authority. The testimony of Mr. Esdaile, for many years Presidency Surgeon in Calcutta, cannot be despised by any instructed physiologist in our day; inasmuch as his work is now recognised as one of the most important contributions ever made to the rapidly-growing science of hypnotism. No one has denied the ability and integrity of Dr. Elliotson, nor (in spite of his speculative extravagances) of Reichenbach—who both witnessed instances of hypnotic telepathy. And though Professor Gregory, Dr. Mayo, the Rev. C. H. Townsend, and others, may not have been men of acute scientific intelligence, they were probably competent to conduct, and to record with accuracy, experiments the conditions of which involved no more than common care and honesty. We cannot but account it strange that such items of testimony as these men supplied should have been neglected, even by those who were most repelled by the ignorance and fanaticism which infected a large amount of the mesmeric literature. But since such was the fact, the observations will hardly now make their weight felt, except in connection with the fuller testimony of a more recent date. It is characteristic of every subject which depends on questions of fact, and which has yet failed to win a secure place in intelligent opinion, that any further advance must for the most part depend on contemporary evidence. I may, therefore, pass at once to the wholly new departure in thought-transference which the last few years have witnessed.
§ 3. The novelty of this departure—as has been already intimated—consists in the fact that successful results have been obtained when the percipient was apparently in a perfectly normal state, and had been subjected to no mesmerising or hypnotising process. The dawn of the discovery must be referred to the years 1875 and 1876. It was in the autumn of the latter year that our colleague, Professor W. F. Barrett, brought under the notice of the British Association, at Glasgow, a cautious statement of some remarkable facts which he had encountered, and a suggestion of the expediency of ascertaining how far recognised physiological laws would account for them. The facts themselves were connected with mesmerism;1 but the discussion in the Press to which the paper gave rise led to a considerable correspondence, in which Professor Barrett found his first hints of a faculty of thought-transference existing independently of the specific mesmeric rapport.
That these hints happened to be forthcoming, just at the right moment, was a piece of great good fortune, and was due primarily to a circumstance quite unconnected with science, and from which serious results would scarcely have been anticipated—the invention of the “willing-game.” In some form or other this pastime is probably familiar to most of my readers, either through personal trials or through the exhibitions of platform performers. The ordinary process is this. A member of the party, who is to act as “thought-reader,” or percipient, leaves the room; the rest determine on some simple action which he, or she, is to perform, or hide some object which he is to find. The would-be percipient is then recalled, and his hand is taken or his shoulders are lightly touched by one or more of the willers. Under these conditions the action is often quickly performed or the object found. Nothing could at first sight look less like a promising starting-point for a new branch of inquiry. The “willer” usually asserts, with perfect good faith, and often perhaps quite correctly, that he did not push; but so little is it necessary for the guiding impression to be a push that it may be the very reverse—a slight release of tension when the “willed” performer, after various minute indications of a tendency to move in this, that, or the other wrong direction, at last hits on the right one. Even when the utmost care is used to maintain the light contact with absolute neutrality, it is impossible to lay down the limits of any given subject’s sensibility to such slight tactile and muscular hints. The experiments of Drs. Carpenter and Beard, and especially those of a member of our own Society, the Rev. E. H. Sugden, of Bradford,1 and other unpublished ones on which we can rely, have shown us that the difference between one person and another in this respect is very great, and that with some organisations a variation of pressure so slight that the supposed “willer” may be quite unaware of exercising it, but which he applies according as the movements of the other person are on the right track or not, may afford a kind of yes or no indication quite sufficient for a clue. This, indeed, is the one direct piece of instruction which the game has supplied. We might perhaps have been to some extent prepared for the result by observing the infinitesimal touches to which a horse will respond, or the extremely slight indications on which we ourselves often act in ordinary life. But till this game was played, probably no one fully realised that muscular hints, so slight as to be quite unconsciously given, could be equally unconsciously taken; and that thus a definite course of action might be produced without the faintest idea of guidance on either side. In some cases it appeared that even contact could be dispensed with, and the guidance was presumably of an auditory kind—the “subject” extracting from the mere footsteps of the “willer,” who was following him about, hints of satisfaction or dissatisfaction at the course he was taking.1 But though this remarkable