Telepathy, Genuine and FraudulentBaggally, W. W. (William Wortley)
Science
Telepathy, Genuine and Fraudulent
Baggally, W. W. (William Wortley)
Parapsychology -- Investigation; Telepathy
"We have suggested to Mr. Zancig that in preference to
inquiries into telepathy by unskilled persons he should
place himself in the hands of the Society for Psychical
Research, of which Mr. Gerald Balfour is the President, and
of which Sir Oliver Lodge, Sir William Crookes, and other
distinguished scientists are leading members. Mr. Zancig has
informed us that he has already received a communication
from that Society, and that he was entirely willing to place
himself and Madame Zancig at the disposal of the Society for
a thoroughly scientific series of tests."
The investigation by the Society for Psychical Research, at which I was
present, took place on the 18th January 1907. I regret that I cannot
give an account of what took place at this meeting, as it was mutually
arranged between Mr. Moul and the S.P.R. that the results should not be
divulged. They appeared, however, sufficiently favourable to some of the
members present (though not to all) to induce them to subsequently form
an unofficial Committee to carry out further tests. These unofficial
experiments did not take place till 26th July 1907.
In the meantime I continued my own private experiments. A striking one
is the following. I was in the balcony of the Alhambra on the 19th
January 1907, and when Mr. Zancig came to that part of the house I
handed him a piece of paper on which I had written the word
"Istapalapan." I took care that he should not see the word previously to
my giving him the paper. Zancig remarked to me in a whisper, "This is a
long word." Owing to the distance from his wife it could not have been
possible for her to overhear these words. Then Mr. Zancig called out,
"Spell this." Madame Zancig immediately wrote on the blackboard which
was on the stage "Istapala," and when she came to the second "p" she
wrote "f" and then "san." I have often noticed that when Madame Zancig
makes a mistake in a letter or number there is a similarity in the form
of the letter or number to that which was to be transmitted; thus, she
would put down "f" for "p," "7" for "9." "fsan" in this case is very
like "pan," and Mr. Zancig may have mistaken the letters. I fail to
understand how in this experiment he was able to code such a long word
as "Istapalafsan" by the simple words "Spell this." It would appear as
if Madame Zancig really saw what Mr. Zancig was looking at. The reader
will recollect that in his preliminary remarks at each of his
performances Zancig says, "What I see, Madame Zancig sees."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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