Telepathy, Genuine and FraudulentBaggally, W. W. (William Wortley)
Science
Telepathy, Genuine and Fraudulent
Baggally, W. W. (William Wortley)
Parapsychology -- Investigation; Telepathy
I have had many other experiments with this gifted couple, but have not
yet obtained the crucial test of getting Mr. Zancig to be in a distant
room with closed doors, while his wife was in another room. The
possibility of their using a sound code at one time and a visual code at
another is therefore not entirely precluded.
Although I have been quite unable to discover the methods by which they
can possibly communicate when a visual and a sound code are not
detected, yet I will reserve my ultimate opinion until I obtain tests
under the crucial conditions that I have named.
Not only did I personally meet with difficulties in endeavouring to
explain the performances of Mr. and Madame Zancig, but also the members
of the unofficial Committee that I have referred to. I now give an
extract from our unofficial report.
"... It must be remembered that the antecedent probabilities
in favour of a code to explain all performances of this kind
are enormous.
"While we are of opinion that the records of experiments in
telepathy made by the Society for Psychical Research and
others raise a presumption for the existence of such a
faculty at least strong enough to entitle it to serious
scientific attention, the most hopeful results hitherto
obtained have not been in any way comparable as regards
accuracy and precision with those produced by Mr. and Madame
Zancig. Further, there is, so far as we are aware, no case
of any public performers (including certain recent examples)
where the use of a code or apparatus has not been more or
less readily discoverable or clearly to be inferred. In
considering, therefore, the claim of Mr. and Madame Zancig
to the possession of a genuine telepathic faculty, one is
faced by the initial difficulty that such a faculty must be
regarded as unique in quality, and Mr. and Madame Zancig
themselves as unique in kind, a difficulty on the force of
which it is not necessary to insist. On the other hand, the
difficulty of suggesting by what method, if not by
telepathy, they communicate is considerable. Those who have
only witnessed the public theatre performances, clever and
perplexing as these are, will not appreciate how hard it is
to offer any plausible explanation of their _modus
operandi_."
In conclusion, I would wish to point out that the establishment of the
fact that telepathy is a scientific truth would have bearings of the
greatest importance.
It would show that the transmission of thought could occasionally be
effected otherwise than by the ordinary sense channels.
It would change the materialistic conception that thought only acts
within the limits of the brain.
It would modify the materialistic scientific view of the relation of
mind to matter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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