Psychic phenomena : $b a brief account of the physical manifestations observed in psychical researchBennett, Edward T.
Philosophy
Psychic phenomena : $b a brief account of the physical manifestations observed in psychical research
Bennett, Edward T.
Parapsychology
(4) "Object--a teapot cut out of silver paper. Present--Dr. Herdman,
Miss R----d, and Miss R. Miss E. percipient. Miss R. holding
percipient's hands, but all thinking of the object. Told nothing. She
said, 'Something light.... No colour.... Looks like a duck.... Like a
silver duck.... Something oval.... Head at one end and tail at the
other.' ... The object being rather large, was then moved further back,
so that it might be more easily grasped by the agents as a whole, but
percipient persisted that it was like a duck. On being told to unbandage
and draw, she drew a rude and perverted copy of the teapot, but didn't
know what it was unless it was a duck. Dr. Herdman then explained that
he had been thinking all the time how like a duck the original teapot
was, and in fact had been thinking more of ducks than teapots."
[Illustration: No. 4.
ORIGINAL REPRODUCTION]
In the autumn of 1891 Sir Oliver Lodge was staying for a fortnight in
the house of Herr von Lyro at Portschach am See, Carinthia. While there
he found that the two adult daughters of his host were adepts in the
so-called "willing game." The speed and accuracy with which the willed
action was performed left little doubt in his mind that there was some
genuine thought-transference power. He obtained permission to make a
series of test experiments, the two sisters acting as agent and
percipient alternately. He hoped gradually to secure the phenomena
without contact of any kind. But unfortunately contact seemed essential,
though of the slightest description, for instance through the backs of
the knuckles. Sir Oliver Lodge says: "It was interesting and new to me
to see how clearly the effect seemed to depend on contact, and how
abruptly it ceased when contact was broken. While guessing through a
pack of cards, for instance, rapidly and continuously, I sometimes
allowed contact, and sometimes stopped it; and the guesses changed, from
frequently correct to quite wild, directly the knuckles or finger tips,
or any part of the skin of the two hands ceased to touch. It was almost
like breaking an electric circuit."
As Sir Oliver Lodge remarks, it is obvious how strongly this suggests
the idea of a code, and that therefore this flaw prevents these
experiments from having any value as tests, or as establishing _de novo_
the existence of the genuine power. But apart from the moral conviction
that unfair practices were extremely unlikely, Sir Oliver Lodge says
that there was a sufficient amount of internal evidence derived from
the facts themselves to satisfy him that no code was used. As examples,
two from a series of twelve drawings are given.
[Illustration:
ORIGINAL REPRODUCTION]
[Illustration:
ORIGINAL REPRODUCTIONS]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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