Sinclair, Mary Craig, 1883-1961; Sinclair, Upton, 1878-1968; Telepathy; Telepathy -- Case studies
April 21, 1929. I am over at the office fixing up this manuscript to
send to the publisher; and just as I have it nicely wrapped, it has to
be opened again—for this is what has happened. Craig, with her anxiety
complex, has had this thought: “Here is Upton committing himself in this
public way, on a subject about which people know so little and suspect
so much; and suppose this faculty, whatever it is, should be gone in
these last few weeks, while I have been fussing over spring
housecleaning! Suppose I should find I can never do it again!”
She has to make sure all over again. She has in her desk a fat envelope
marked: “To try.” A lot of old drawings, left-overs from different
series that she has tried and failed on during the past several months;
some that she herself has drawn for friends; some that she was
interrupted while doing—a job lot, in short. She does not know how many,
as she has stuck them in from time to time, and never looked into the
envelope; but it is well filled. Now she takes out some drawings, with
averted eyes, and lies down and tries them. The house is quiet, a good
opportunity, so she does nine drawings, and there is only one complete
failure in the lot.
One is a marvel—as good as any. It is a drawing I had made, a donkey’s
head and neck, with a wide collar. Craig writes: “Cow’s head in
‘stock’”—a “stock” being in Mississippi a wooden yoke made to keep
cattle from jumping fences. She draws the head of the so-called “cow”
and the “stock”; it is a perfect donkey’s head, facing just as mine
does.
And then there is a duck, about to eat a snail. Such a jolly duck, and
such a wheely snail shell! Craig has made this drawing to amuse the
little daughter of Bob and Dolly, who had a pet duck, called “Mary Ann,”
fed on snails. Craig made this drawing several months ago, to let the
child “concentrate” on, and try telepathy like the grown-ups. And now,
with this drawing under her hand, Craig writes: “See wheels. Think of
children. Has to do with children.” The drawing of the snail shell is
plainly a lot of “wheels.”
Now, of course, Craig had previously seen every one of these drawings,
and so they were all in her subconscious mind. But these drawings had
never been seen by her at the same time. They were put into the
envelope, some at one time, some at another. Now she has taken out a few
at random. What a jumble for any subconscious mind to keep track of! How
is Craig’s mind to know which drawings she has taken out, and which one
she is holding under her hand?
Again we have something more than telepathy. For no human mind knows
what drawings she has taken from that envelope. No human mind but her
own even knows that she is trying an experiment. Either there is some
superhuman mind, or else there is something that comes from the
drawings, some way of “seeing,” other than the way we know and use all
the time. Make what you can of this, but don’t laugh at it, for most
certainly it happens.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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