Sinclair, Mary Craig, 1883-1961; Sinclair, Upton, 1878-1968; Telepathy; Telepathy -- Case studies
In the 290 drawings, the total of successes is 65, which is roughly 23
per cent. The total of partial successes is 155, which is 53 per cent.
The total of failures is 70, which is 24 per cent. I asked some
mathematician friends to work out the probabilities on the above
results, but I found that the problem was too complicated. Who could
estimate how many possible objects there were, which might come into my
head to be drawn? Any time the supply ran short, I would pick up a
magazine, and in the advertising pages find a score of new drawings to
imitate. Again, very few of the drawings were simple. We began with such
things as a circle, a square, a cross, a number or a letter; but soon we
were doing Chinese mandarins with long mustaches, and puppies chasing a
string. Each of these drawings has many different features; and what
mathematician could count the number of these features, and the chances
of reproducing them?
It is a matter to be judged by common sense. It seems to me any one must
agree that the chances of the twelve drawings so far shown having been
reproduced by accident is too great to be worth considering. A million
years would not be enough for such a set of coincidences.
_3_
Much of the evidence which I am using rests upon the good faith of Mary
Craig Sinclair; so, before we go further, I ask your permission to
introduce her. She is a daughter of the far South; her father a retired
planter, bank president and judge, of Mississippi. The fates endowed his
oldest child with the blessings of beauty, health, wealth and wisdom—and
then spoiled it, by adding a curse in the shape of a too tender heart.
The griefs of other people overwhelm Craig like a suffocation. Strangers
take one glance at her, and instantly decide that here is one who will
“understand.” I have seen her go into a store to buy a piece of ribbon,
and come out with tears in her eyes, because of a tragic story which
some clerk was moved to pour out to her, all in a moment, without
provocation. She has always said that she “gets” the feelings of people,
not by their words, but by intuition. But she never paid any attention
to this gift; never associated it with “psychic” matters. She was always
too busy, first with eight younger brothers and sisters, and then with
the practical affairs of an unpractical author-husband.
Early in childhood, things like this would happen: her mother would say
to a little negro servant, “Go and find Miss Mary Craig”; but before the
boy could start, Craig would know that her mother wanted her, and would
be on the way. This might, of course, have been coincidence; if it stood
alone, it would have no value. But the same thing happened with dreams.
Craig dreamed there was a needle in her bed, and woke up and looked for
it in vain; in the morning she told her mother, who slept in another
room. The mother said: “How strange! I dreamed the same thing, and I
woke up and really found one!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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