{11b} This child had a more curious experience. Her nurse was very
ill, and of course did not sleep in the nursery. One morning the
little girl said, "Macpherson is better, I saw her come in last night
with a candle in her hand. She just stooped over me and then went to
Tom" (a younger brother) "and kissed him in his sleep." Macpherson
had died in the night, and her attendants, of course, protested
ignorance of her having left her deathbed.
{11c} Story received from Lady X. See another good case in
Proceedings of the Psychical Society, vol. xi., 1895, p. 397. In this
case, however, the finder was not nearer than forty rods to the person
who lost a watch in long grass. He assisted in the search, however,
and may have seen the watch unconsciously, in a moment of absence of
mind. Many other cases in Proceedings of S.P.R.
{13} Story received in a letter from the dreamer.
{16} Augustine. In Library of the Fathers, XVII. Short Treatises,
pp. 530-531.
{18} St. Augustine, De Cura pro Mortuis.
{20} The professor is not sure whether he spoke English or German.
{24} From Some Account of the Conversion of the late William Hone,
supplied by some friend of W. H. to compiler. Name not given.
{28} What is now called "mental telegraphy" or "telepathy" is quite
an old idea. Bacon calls it "sympathy" between two distant minds,
sympathy so strong that one communicates with the other without using
the recognised channels of the senses. Izaak Walton explains in the
same way Dr. Donne's vision, in Paris, of his wife and dead child.
"If two lutes are strung to an exact harmony, and one is struck, the
other sounds," argues Walton. Two minds may be as harmoniously
attuned and communicate each with each. Of course, in the case of the
lutes there are actual vibrations, physical facts. But we know
nothing of vibrations in the brain which can traverse space to another
brain.
Many experiments have been made in consciously transferring thoughts
or emotions from one mind to another. These are very liable to be
vitiated by bad observation, collusion and other causes. Meanwhile,
intercommunication between mind and mind without the aid of the
recognised senses--a supposed process of "telepathy"--is a current
explanation of the dreams in which knowledge is obtained that exists
in the mind of another person, and of the delusion by virtue of which
one person sees another who is perhaps dying, or in some other crisis,
at a distance. The idea is popular. A poor Highland woman wrote to
her son in Glasgow: "Don't be thinking too much of us, or I shall be
seeing you some evening in the byre". This is a simple expression of
the hypothesis of "telepathy" or "mental telegraphy".
{31} Perhaps among such papers as the Casket Letters, exhibited to
the Commission at Westminster, and "tabled" before the Scotch Privy
Council.
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.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account