Adventurings in the PsychicalBruce, H. Addington (Henry Addington)
Science
Adventurings in the Psychical
Bruce, H. Addington (Henry Addington)
Parapsychology
Sir Oliver Lodge himself appears to believe that he was actually in
communication, through Mrs. Piper, with his dead Uncle Jerry; and by
spiritists generally this is alluded to as a characteristic instance
impossible of explanation on the theory of telepathy between living
minds. But it is pertinent to point out that possibly, in his childhood,
Sir Oliver may have heard his uncles, in some moment of reminiscence,
discussing these very incidents. He would naturally have forgotten the
episode, so far as conscious recollection of it was concerned; but he
would none the less have retained some memory of their conversation in
his subconsciousness, whence Mrs. Piper could have gained knowledge of
it telepathically. And, even had he never heard of the incidents, they
might indeed have been transmitted to him telepathically from the
surviving uncles, and been by him retransmitted to Mrs. Piper.
This last possibility, involving as it does telepathy between more than
two persons, may seem to be far-fetched. But there is plenty of evidence
that telepathy of this sort--known technically as _telepathie à
trois_--is an actuality. I have in mind one particularly interesting
case studied by Mr. Andrew Lang, the brilliant essayist and psychical
researcher. It concerns a crystal-gazer named Miss Angus.
"Again and again," to give Mr. Lang's own words, "Miss Angus, sitting
with man or woman, described acquaintances of theirs but not of hers,
in situations not known to the sitters but proved to be true to fact.
In one instance, Miss Angus described doings, from three weeks to a
fortnight old, of people in India, people whom she had never seen or
heard of, but who were known to her sitter. Her account, given on a
Saturday, was corroborated by a letter from India, which arrived next
day, Sunday. In another case she described--about ten P. M.--what a
lady, not known to her, but the daughter of a matron present, who was
not the sitter, had been doing about four P. M. on the same day. Again,
sitting with a lady, Miss Angus described a singular set of scenes much
in the mind, not of her sitter, but of a very unsympathetic stranger,
who was reading a book at the other end of the room.
"I have tried every hypothesis, normal and not so normal, to account
for these and analogous performances of Miss Angus. There was, in the
Indian and other cases, no physical possibility of collusion; chance
coincidence did not seem adequate; ghosts were out of the question, so
was direct clairvoyance. Nothing remained for the speculative theorizer
but the idea of cross currents of telepathy between Miss Angus, a casual
stranger, the sitters, and people far away, known to the sitters or the
stranger, but unknown to Miss Angus.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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