Dr. Charles W. Hidden, of Newburyport, Mass., U.S.A., reports a somewhat similar experience to that of Mark Twain and the above, which was reported in a recent number of the _Religio-Philosophical Journal_: A very peculiar plot impressed itself upon his mind, and he immediately based a story upon the plot. He read the story to his family, and was about to send it to a publication to which his wife had recently become a subscriber. When the next number arrived he opened it to learn how to forward his manuscript, and great was his surprise to find on the first page a story bearing the title of his own, and a plot almost identical with that which he had written. Parts of the published article appeared word for word. It is needless to add that Dr. Hidden tossed his manuscript into his desk, and it is there yet. His explanation is, that he caught the title and the plot from another, just as Mark Twain caught the plot of the “Big Bonanza” from his friend Simmons. It would be nigh impossible to illustrate the various phases of thought-transference, ranging, as they do, from the association of ideas which may be aroused by a hint, a half-uttered word, or a gesture, to the unmistakable facts of pure mental transference, and, higher still, to the region of pure psychism, where spirit influences inspire and direct spirit, and thought-bodies are no longer recognised as mere subjective spirits but living and tangible objective personalities, albeit discarnate. We can say truly with Voltaire, “There is a power that acts within us, without consulting us.” CHAPTER VI. Thought-Reading Experiments. Having satisfactory evidence of the reality of thought-transference, it would be interesting to know if this power or faculty can be cultivated, and if so, how? I propose in this chapter to show how this can be done, and how to give thought-reading entertainments. Experimental mind-reading may be distinguished, for the sake of study, as the abnormal, the normal, and the spurious. The abnormal, that which takes place in trance, dream, vision, or which may be the product of artificial somnambulism or of some super-sensitive condition of the nervous system, through disease. We observe thought-transference in these conditions, rather than attempt to cultivate it. The normal, where the phenomena takes place in the ordinary waking state, _without muscular contact_. The spurious mind-reading, so-called, as the result of musculation or _contact_, but which is, in fact, only muscle-reading. In both the abnormal and normal, direct transference of thought from mind to mind can only take place when there is the necessary development of psychic activity in the agent or operator, and the equally necessary sensitiveness in the sensitive or percipient.