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
The mental phenomena which most frequently occur are the spelling out
of the names of relatives of persons present, their ages, or any other
particulars about them. They are especially uncertain in their
manifestation, though when they do succeed they are very conclusive to
the persons who witness them. The general opinion of sceptics as to
these phenomena is, that they depend simply on the acuteness and
talent of the medium in hitting on the letters which form the name, by
the manner in which persons dwell upon or hurry over them,--the
ordinary mode of receiving these communications being for the person
interested to go over a printed alphabet, letter by letter, loud taps
indicating the letters which form the required names. I am going to
choose some of our experiments which show how impossible it is to
accept this explanation.
When I first received a communication myself I was particularly
careful to avoid giving any indication, by going with steady
regularity over the letters; yet there was spelt out correctly, first,
the place where my brother died, Para; then his Christian name,
Herbert; and lastly, at my request, the name of the mutual friend who
last saw him, Henry Walter Bates. On this occasion our party of six
visited Mrs. Marshall for the first time, and my name as well as those
of the rest of the party, except one, were unknown to her. That one
was my married sister, whose name was no clue to mine.
On the same occasion a young lady, a connection of Mr. R.'s was told
that a communication was to be made to her. She took the alphabet,
and instead of pointing to the letters one by one, she moved the
pencil smoothly over the lines with the greatest steadiness. I watched
her, and wrote down the letters which the taps indicated. The name
produced was an extraordinary one, the letters being Thomas Doe
Thacker. I thought there must be an error in the latter part; but the
names were Thomas Doe Thacker, the lady's father, every letter being
correct. A number of other names, places, and dates were spelt out on
this occasion with equal accuracy; but I give only these two, because
in these I am _sure_ no clue was given by which the names could have
been guessed by the most preternaturally acute intellect.