One word more needs to be said. The evidence, of which samples are presented in the following pages, is as yet hardly adequate for the establishment of telepathy as a fact in nature, and leaves much to be desired for the elucidation of the laws under which it operates. Any contributions to the problem, in the shape either of accounts of experiments, or of recent records of telepathic visions and similar experiences, will be gladly received by me on behalf of the Society for Psychical Research, at 19 Buckingham Street, Adelphi, W.C. FRANK PODMORE. _August 1894._ FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 1: The book actually bore on the title-page the names of Edmund Gurney, F. W. H. Myers, and the present writer. But the division of authorship, as explained in the Preface, was as follows:--"As regards the writing and the views expressed, Mr. Myers is solely responsible for the Introduction, and for the 'Note on a Suggested Mode of Psychical Interaction;' and Mr. Gurney is solely responsible for the remainder of the book.... But the collection, examination, and appraisal of evidence has been a joint labour."] [Footnote 2: Some account of the earlier experiments by MM. Janet and Gibert was included in the supplementary chapter at the end of the second volume of _Phantasms_.] [Footnote 3: See Chapters V. and X. of the present book.] APPARITIONS AND THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY--SPECIAL GROUNDS OF CAUTION. It is salutary sometimes to reflect how recent is the growth of our scientific cosmos, and how brief an interval separates it from the chaos which went before. This may be seen even in Sciences which deal with matters of common observation. Amongst material phenomena the facts of Geology are assuredly not least calculated to excite the curiosity or impress the imagination of men. Yet until the middle of the last century no serious attempt was made to solve the physical problems they presented. The origin of the organic remains embedded in the rocks had indeed formed the subject of speculation ever since the days of Aristotle. Theophrastus had suggested that they were formed by the plastic forces of Nature. Mediæval astrologers ascribed their formation to planetary influences. And these hypotheses, with the alternative view of the Church, that fossil bones and shells were relics of the Mosaic Deluge, appear to have satisfied the learned of Europe until the time of Voltaire, who reinforced the rationalistic position, as he conceived it, by the suggestion that the shells, at any rate, had been dropped from the hats of pilgrims returning from the Holy Land. Yet Werner and Hutton were even then preparing to elucidate the causes of stratification and the genesis of the igneous rocks. Cuvier in the next generation was to demonstrate the essential analogies of the fossils found in the Paris basin with living species; Agassiz was to investigate the relation of fossil fishes and to show