Sinclair, Mary Craig, 1883-1961; Sinclair, Upton, 1878-1968; Telepathy; Telepathy -- Case studies
In our home he gave what appeared to be a demonstration of levitation
without contact. I do not say that it really was levitation; I merely
say that our friends who witnessed it—physicians, scientists, writers
and their wives, fourteen persons in all—were unable even to suggest a
normal method by which the event could have happened. There was no one
present who could have been a confederate, and the psychic had been
searched for apparatus; it was in our home, where he had no opportunity
whatever for preparation. His wrists and ankles were firmly held by
persons whom I know well; and there was sufficient light in the room so
that I could see the outline of his figure, slumped in a chair. Under
these circumstances a 34-pound table rose four feet into the air and
moved slowly a distance of eight feet over my head.
We saw this; our friends saw it; yet, in my mind, and likewise in
theirs, the worm of doubt would always creep in. There are so many ways
to fool people; so many conjuring tricks—think of Houdini, for example!
I was unwilling to publish what I had seen; yet, also, I was unwilling
not to publish it—for think of the possible importance of faculties such
as this, locked up in our minds! Here was my wife, ill, suffering pain;
and these facilities might perhaps be used in healing. If by
concentration and auto-suggestion it was possible for the mind to
control the body, and put a veto upon even a few of its disorders,
certainly it was worth while for us to prove the fact. I could not
escape the moral obligation to probe these matters.
This “psychic” claimed also to possess and demonstrate the power of
telepathy, or mind-reading. He would go out of the room while one of us
selected mentally some object in the room, not revealing the choice to
any one else. The “psychic” would then come back, and tell us to stand
behind him and concentrate our thoughts upon that object, and follow
close behind him, thinking of it. He would wander about the room for a
while, and in the end pick up the object, and do with it whatever we
mentally “willed” him to do.
We saw him make this test not less than a hundred times, in California,
New York, and Boston; he succeeded with it more than half the time.
There was no contact, no word spoken, nothing that we could imagine as
giving him a clue. Did we unconsciously make in our throats some faint
pronunciation of words, and did the young man have a super-acuity of
hearing? Again, you see, the worm of doubt, and we never could quite
decide what we really believed about this performance. After puzzling
over it for a year or more, my wife said: “There is only one way to be
certain. I am going to learn to do these things _myself_!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account