Whenever the agent’s drawing was one which could be indicated by a name, and the percipient’s result corresponded to the extent covered by the name, it is easy to apply the theory of involuntary whispering if the agent was near the percipient. Granting that this was the case (which often, as will appear later, we cannot grant, since the facts forbid it), it is easy theoretically to explain the response “Sailboat” to the drawing of a sailboat. We have only to suppose that the agent was so intently interested that, unknown to himself, he faintly whispered the name, and that the percipient, having _ex hypothesi_, abnormal alertness of hearing, caught the word, or enough of it so that she successfully guessed the whole. Still easier is it to imagine the transmission of Y in the series of January 28–29. The agent, being absorbed and desirous, simply whispered “Y, Y, Y,” until the percipient got it. The reader may pick for himself other plausible instances in Mr. Sinclair’s book, or even from the materials furnished in this Bulletin, such as the helmet experiment (Figs. 5, 5a). It is even conceivable that the agent’s eye, flitting over the drawing of the peacock (Fig. 75) caused him to whisper “long neck” and “spots” or “eyes” (Fig. 75a), although no spots appear in this drawing and “peacock” is the word he would be expected to whisper, if any. But every increasing complexity in the agent’s drawing, which finds duplication in that of the percipient, every increasing difficulty of defining the drawing by one or two words increases the difficulty of the explanation. Take the remarkable correspondence between Figures 7, 7a. The agent, it seems, would have to whisper the following, or its equivalent: “Cross” (or “radiating figure”), “eight arms” (or “many arms”), “arms not made of a single line but having breadth,” “notches in the ends.” That is a lot for the agent to whisper, and it appears improbable, but maybe it is “conceivable.” A much-esteemed friend writes me: “Those willing to press the unconscious whispering hypothesis to its extreme consequences need not invariably postulate the _transmission direct_ of a word. They may go further. Let us suppose that in an experiment at close quarters the name thought of by the agent is ‘Napoleon,’ and that the percipient gets a small island and the name ‘Helen.’ It is theoretically conceivable that, nevertheless, the explanation is to be sought in involuntary whispering; the name ‘Napoleon’ was perceived in a normal way (unconsciously) and then in the percipient’s subconscious _transformed_ into an idea associated with Napoleon’s name. I do not say this is my opinion, but what I do say is that such an hypothesis is no more absurd than other ‘explanations’ put forward in the sphere of psychical research. Anyhow, experiments at close quarters seem to be open to the grave objection that some competent investigators reject them altogether—whatever we may think of the grounds of such objection.”