Telepathy, Genuine and FraudulentBaggally, W. W. (William Wortley)
Science
Telepathy, Genuine and Fraudulent
Baggally, W. W. (William Wortley)
Parapsychology -- Investigation; Telepathy
Later, on the same evening of the experiment with the numbers on my
cheque-book which I have described above, my wife and I attended the
public performance at the Alhambra. We were seated at a distance from
the stage. When Mr. Zancig came amongst the audience my wife handed him
a piece of something black, the nature of which it was difficult to tell
at first sight. He stooped down and asked in a whisper, "What is that?"
My wife answered, also in a whisper, "Liquorice." Madame Zancig
immediately called out from the stage, "Liquorice." No word had been
spoken by Mr. Zancig after my wife had whispered the word "Liquorice." I
then handed a visiting-card with a double name. Zancig read to himself
in a low voice the last name, which was Hutchinson, and said, "What is
the first name?" Madame Zancig called out "Berks"; this was correct. It
appeared to me suspicious, however, that the question, "What is the
first name?" although appropriate and natural, should contain the same
number of words as there are letters in the name Berks--namely, five.
Therefore some months after, at another performance, I wrote the same
name, Berks Hutchinson, on a piece of paper and handed it to Mr. Zancig.
This time he asked, "What is this?" Madame Zancig replied, "A piece of
paper with a name." Mr. Zancig said, "Give the name." She replied,
"Berks Hutchinson."
I attended a series of performances at the Alhambra, and took down the
questions and answers in order, if possible, to discover the code. On
witnessing a first performance the spectator might be led to believe
that word-coding alone is at the bottom of the mystery, but if notes are
taken at a number of performances he will find that the same question
is answered differently time after time.
From my experiments with the Zancigs I came to the conclusion that
although the alleged transmission of thought might possibly depend on a
code or codes which I was unable to unravel, yet their performance was
of such a nature that it was worthy of serious scientific examination.
On the assumption that they possessed genuine telepathic powers it would
be a pity that the opportunity of investigating their claim should be
missed. I therefore set myself to work to arrange with Mr. Alfred Moul,
managing director of the Alhambra, and Mr. Zancig for some experiments
to be tried before a Committee of the members of the Society for
Psychical Research.
An article appeared in the _Daily Mail_, inspired evidently by Mr. Moul,
from which I now quote:--
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