Apparitions and thought-transference: an examination of the evidence for telepathyPodmore, Frank
Philosophy
Apparitions and thought-transference: an examination of the evidence for telepathy
Podmore, Frank
Apparitions; Telepathy
"First my attention seemed to flit from one object to another
while nothing definite stood out, but soon I saw a pair of gloves,
which became more distinct till they appeared as a pair of baggy
tan-coloured kid gloves, certainly a size larger than worn by
either R. C. D. or myself, and not quite like any of ours in
colour. After this I saw a train going out of a station (I had just
returned from seeing some one off at Victoria), almost immediately
obliterated by a picture of a bridge over a small river, but I felt
that I was consciously thinking and left off the experiment, being
unable to clear my mind sufficiently of outside things."
AGENT'S ACCOUNT.
"At 3.30 on October 25th I was at 30 Handel Street, Brunswick
Square, W.C. C. M. C. and myself had arranged beforehand to make
an experiment in thought-transference at that hour, I to try
to transfer some object to her mind, the nature of which was
entirely unspecified. I picked up a pair of rather old tan-coloured
gloves--purposely not taking a pair of my own--and tried for about
five minutes to concentrate my attention on them and the wish to
transfer an impression of them to C. M. C.'s mind. After this I
fixed my attention on a _window_, but felt my mind getting tired
and therefore rather disturbed by the constant sound of omnibuses
and waggons passing the open window.
"R. C. DESPARD.
"_October_ 25_th_, 1892."
Miss Campbell writes later:--
"77 CHESTERTON ROAD, NORTH KENSINGTON, W.,
_November_ 24_th_, 1892.
"With regard to the distant experiments, the notes sent to you were
the only ones made. In the first experiment (scalpels) I wrote
my account before Miss Despard's return, and when Miss Despard
returned, before seeing what I had written [she] told me what she
had thought of, and almost directly wrote it down.
"In the second experiment (gloves), I was just going to write
my account when Miss Despard returned home, and she asked me at
once, 'Well, what did I think of?' and I told her a pair of tan
gloves--then sat down and wrote my account, and, when she read
it through, she said, 'Yes, you have exactly described Miss M.'s
gloves, which I was holding while I fixed my attention on them,'
and then she wrote her account."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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