Adventurings in the PsychicalBruce, H. Addington (Henry Addington)
Science
Adventurings in the Psychical
Bruce, H. Addington (Henry Addington)
Parapsychology
Examining them carefully, Miss Johnson discovered, much to her surprise,
that they contained unmistakable references to people and the homes of
people whom Myers and Gurney had known intimately, but of whom, as Miss
Johnson satisfied herself by searching inquiry, Mrs. Holland had no
knowledge. Thus there was an excellent description of Mrs. Verrall, her
husband, Dr. A. W. Verrall, and the Verrall dining-room, in which Myers
had often been entertained. Even the street address of the Verralls was
correctly given. Miss Johnson, as may be imagined, at once wrote, urging
Mrs. Holland to continue her automatic writing, and to forward all her
script to the offices of the Society. This was done, with the result
that much else of a seemingly evidential value was soon obtained. It
was especially noted that, although Mrs. Holland knew nothing of Latin
and Greek, her communications from the Myers control occasionally
contained passages written in both these languages, with which Myers
had been well acquainted.
November 25, 1903, the Gurney control wrote in the automatic script:
"Now there is an experiment I want you to make--Suggest to the P. R.--to
Miss J.--that some one with a trained will--she will have no difficulty
in finding some one of the sort--is to try--for a few minutes--every
morning for at least a month--to convey a thought--a phrase--a
name--anything they like--to your mind." In due course this suggestion
was sent by Mrs. Holland to Miss Johnson, who arranged for a series of
such experiments, with Mrs. Verrall acting as the second medium.
The experiments began in March, 1905, were continued until towards
the end of May, and were resumed for a few weeks in the spring of the
following year. The scheme adopted, however, was not exactly that
suggested by the Gurney control. Instead of simply attempting to convey
some thought to Mrs. Holland's mind, Mrs. Verrall, at Miss Johnson's
suggestion, wrote automatically herself on each day that Mrs. Holland
was to write. Neither medium was to hold the slightest communication
with the other, but both were to forward their automatic scripts to Miss
Johnson as soon as written. In fact, in order to prevent any loophole
for fraud, Miss Johnson throughout the 1905 experiments kept Mrs.
Holland in ignorance of the identity of her fellow-experimenter, who, on
her side, was ignorant of Mrs. Holland's real name--the "Holland" being
a pseudonym. Some exceedingly interesting results were secured.
March 1, 1905, Mrs. Holland's script contained these sentences, "There
are cut flowers in the blue jar--jonquils I think and tulips--growing
tulips near the window. A dull day, but the sky hints at spring, and one
chirping bird is heard above the roar of the traffic." In reply to a
questioning letter from Miss Johnson, Mrs. Verrall wrote:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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