Mysterious Psychic Forces: An Account of the Author's Investigations in Psychical Research, Together with Those of Other European Savants — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Mysterious Psychic Forces: An Account of the Author's Investigations in Psychical Research, Together with Those of Other European Savants
John Stuart Mill · en
If telepathy take place we have two physical facts--the physical
change in the brain of A, the suggester, and the analogous physical
change in the brain of B, the recipient of the suggestion. Between
these two physical events there must exist a train of physical causes.
Whenever the connecting sequence of intermediate causes begins to be
revealed the inquiry will then come within the range of one of the
sections of the British Association. Such a sequence can only occur
through an intervening medium. All the phenomena of the universe are
presumably in some way continous, and it is unscientific to call in
the aid of mysterious agencies when with every fresh advance in
knowledge it is shown that ether vibrations have powers and attributes
abundantly equal to any demand--even to the transmission of thought.
It is supposed by some physiologists that the essential cells of
nerves do not actually touch, but are separated by a narrow gap which
widens in sleep while it narrows almost to extinction during mental
activity. This condition is so singuarly like that of a Branly or
Lodge coherer as to suggest a further analogy.
The structure of brain and nerve being similar, it is conceivable
there may be present masses of such nerve coherers in the brain whose
special function it may be to receive impulses brought from without
through the connecting sequence of ether waves of appropriate order of
magnitude. Roentgen has familiarized us with an order of vibrations of
extreme minuteness compared with the smallest waves with which we
have hitherto been acquainted, and of dimensions comparable with the
distances between centers of the atoms of which the material universe
is built up; and there is no reason to suppose that we have here
reached the limit of frequency. It is known that the action of thought
is accompanied by certain molecular movements in the brain, and here
we have physical vibrations capable from their extreme minuteness of
acting directly on individual molecules, while their rapidity
approaches that of the internal and external movements of the atoms
themselves.
Confirmation of telepathic phenomena is afforded by many converging
experiments, and by many spontaneous occurrences only thus
intelligible. The most varied proof, perhaps, is drawn from analysis
of the sub-conscious workings of the mind, when these, whether by
accident or design, are brought into conscious survey. Evidence of a
region below the threshold of consciousness has been presented, since
its first inception, in the "Proceedings of the Society for Psychical
Research;" and its various aspects are being interpreted and welded
into a comprehensive whole by the pertinacious genius of F. W. H.
Myers.