Chapter III: Part 3

I begin with series three, because of the interesting circumstances under which it was made. Late in the afternoon I phoned my secretary to make a dozen drawings; and then, after dark, Craig and I decided to drive to Pasadena, and on the way I stopped at the office and got the twelve sealed envelopes which had been laid on my desk. I picked them up in a hurry and slipped them into a pocket, and a minute or two later I put them on the seat beside me in the car.

After we had started, I said, “Why don’t you try some of the drawings on the way?” We were passing through the Signal Hill oil-field, amid thunder of machinery and hiss of steam and flashing of headlights of cars and trucks. “It will be interesting to see if I can concentrate in such circumstances,” said Craig, and took one envelope and held it against her body in the darkness, while I went on with my job of driving. After a few minutes Craig said, “I see something long and oblong, like a stand.” She got a pad and pencil from a pocket of the car, and switched on the ceiling light, and made a drawing, and then opened the envelope. Here are the pictures; I call it a partial success (Figs. 26, 26a):

Here is the next pair, done on the same drive to Pasadena (Figs. 27, 27a):

Then came a drawing of an automobile. Considering the attendant circumstances, it was surely not surprising that Craig should report it as “a big light in the end of a tube or horn.” There were many such lights in her eyes.

Then a fourth envelope: she said, “I see a little animal or bug with legs, and the legs are sticking out in bug effect.” When she looked into the envelope, she was so excited that she tried to get me to look—at forty miles an hour on a highway at night! Here is the drawing, meant to be a skull and cross-bones, but so done that a “bug with legs” is really a fair description of it (Fig. 28):

After we arrived at our destination, my wife did some more of the drawings, and got partial successes. On this telephone the comment was: “Goblet with another one floating near or above it inverted” (Figs. 29, 29a):

And then this arrow (Figs. 30, 30a):

Concerning the above my wife wrote: “See something that suggests a garden tool—a lawn rake, or spade.” And for the next one (Fig. 31) she wrote: “A pully-bone”—which is Mississippi “darky” talk for a wish-bone of a chicken. I don’t know whether it means a bone that you pull, or whether it is Creole for “poulet.” Here is what my secretary had drawn (Fig. 31):

I had asked my secretary at the outset to make simple geometrical designs, letters and figures, thinking that these would be easier to recognize and reproduce. But they brought only partial successes; Craig would get elements of the drawing but would not know how to put them together. There were seven in the first series, and there is some element right in every one. An oblong was drawn exactly, and then two fragments of oblongs added to it. A capital M in script had the first stroke done exactly, with the curl. A capital E in script was done with the curls left out.

And the same with the second series. Here is a square—but you see that the two halves of it are wandering about (Figs. 32, 32a):

And here is a letter Y, but by telepathy it has been turned from script into print (Figs. 33, 33a):

A quite different story began when my secretary allowed his imagination a little play. He knows that my wife lives in part on milk, and he knows that she is particular about the quality, because he has to handle the bills. So he has a little fun with her, and you see that immediately she gets, not the form, but the color and feeling of it (Figs. 34, 34a):

The comment reads: “Round white foamy stuff on top like soap suds or froth.” As she drinks her milk sour and whipped, you see that its foaminess is a prominent feature.

Then comes an oil derrick. We live in the midst of these unsightly objects, and are liable to be turned out of house and home by drilling nearby; moreover, I have written a book called “Oil!” and the exclamation mark at the end has been justified by the effect of it on our lives. My wife made a figure five with long lines going out, and wrote: “I don’t know why the five should have such a thing as an appendage, but the appendage was most vivid, so there it is” (Figs. 35, 35a):

After she had opened the envelope and seen the original drawing, the problem became, not why a figure five should have an appendage, but why an oil derrick should have a figure five. Craig puzzled over this, and then lay down and told her subconscious mind to bring her the answer. What came was this: the German version of my book, called “Petroleum,” has three oil derricks on the front, and a huge dollar sign on the back of the cover, and this was what Craig had really “seen.” She had looked at this book when it arrived, a year or more back, and it had been filed away in her memory. Of course, this may not be the correct explanation, but it is the one which her mind brought to her.

_12_

These drawing tests afford a basis for psycho-analysis, and it is interesting to note some of the facts thus brought up from the childhood of my wife. For example, fires! She was raised in the “black belt,” where there are nine Negroes to one white, and the former are still close to Africa. When Craig was a girl, a nurse in the family, having been discharged, set fire to the home while the adults were away, and the children asleep. Another servant, jealous of an unfaithful husband, put her two babies into a barrel full of feathers and burned them alive. Other fires occurred; so now, in her home, Craig keeps an uneasy eye out for greasy rags, or overheated stoves, or whatever else her fears suggest. When in these drawing tests there has been anything indicating fire or smoke, she has “got” it, with only one or two failures out of more than a dozen cases. Sometimes she “got” the fire or smoke without the object; sometimes she supplied fire or smoke to an object which might properly have it—a pipe, for example. The results are so curious that I assemble them together—a series of fire-alarms, as it were.

You recall the fact that in one of the early drawing tests—those in which, instead of giving the drawings to my wife, I sat in my study and concentrated upon them—I drew a lighted cigarette, and thought of the curls of smoke. Craig filled up her drawing with curves, and wrote: “I can’t draw it, but curls of some sort.” At this time the convention that “curls stood for smoke” had not been established. But now, in the series drawn by my secretary, appeared a little house with smoking chimney, and you will see that my wife got the smoke better than the house (Figs. 36, 36a):

This apparently established in her mind the association of curls with smoke. So when, in series six, I drew a pipe with smoke-curls, my wife first drew an ellipse, and then wrote: “Now it begins to spin, round and round, and is attached to a stick.” She then drew (Figs. 37, 37a):

In series eight I drew a sky-rocket going up. My first impulse had been to draw a bursting rocket, with a shower of stars, but I realized that would be difficult, so I drew this instead (Fig. 38):

My wife apparently took my first thought, rather than my drawing. Anyhow, she made half a dozen sketches of whirligigs and light (Figs. 38a, 38b, 38c):

And here in series twenty-two is a burning lamp (Figs. 39, 39a):

And here in series thirty-four another, with comment: “flame and sparks” (Figs. 40, 40a):

I drew another pipe in series twenty-two, with the usual curls of smoke; and Craig wrote: “Smoke stack.” I drew another in series thirty-three with the result that, five drawings in advance of the correct one, Craig drew a pipe with smoke. Of course, this may have been a coincidence; but wait till you see how often such coincidences happen! (Figs. 41, 41a):

In series twenty-one I drew a chimney, and Craig drew a chimney, and added smoke. In thirty-four I drew an old-fashioned trench-mortar; and here again she supplied the smoke (Figs. 42, 42a):

Cannons are especially horrible things to her, as you may note again and again in her published war-sonnets:

The sharpened steel whips round, the black guns blaze,
Waste are the harvests, mute the songs of birds.

So when, in series eleven, I drew the muzzle half of an old-style cannon, Craig’s imagination got to work one drawing ahead of time. She wrote: “Fire and smoke—smoke—flame,” and then drew as follows (Fig. 43a):

The next drawing was the cannon, and I give it, along with the drawing Craig made to go with it. The comment she wrote was: “Half circle—double lines—light inside—light is fire busy whirling or flaming” (Figs. 44, 44a):

So much for fires, and things associated with fire. Now consider another detail about life in the Yazoo delta, brought out in the course of our psycho-analysis. In the days of Craig’s childhood, poisonous snakes were an ever-present menace, and fear of them had to be taught to children, and could hardly be taught too early. There is a family story of a little tot crawling under the house and coming back to report, “I see nuffin wiv a tail to it!” In the swamps back of Craig’s summer home on the Mississippi Sound I have counted a dozen copperheads and moccasins in the course of a half hour’s walk. Also, her father has some childhood complex buried in his mind, which causes him to have a spell of nausea at the sight of a snake. All this, of course, strongly affected the child’s early days, and now it is in her mental depths. So when I drew a hissing snake, just see the uproar I caused! She made no drawing, but wrote a little essay. I give my drawing, and her essay following (Fig. 45):

“See something like kitten with tail and saucer of milk. Now it leaps into action and runs away to outdoors. Turns to fleeing animal outdoors. Great activity among outdoor creatures. Know it’s some outdoor thing, not indoor object—see trees, and a frightened bird on the wing (turned sidewise). It’s outdoor thing, but none of above seems to be _it_.”

In other words, little Mary Craig Kimbrough is back on the plantation, seeing terror among birds and poultry, and not knowing what causes it! Study the drawing, and you see that I got the action of the snake, but didn’t get the coils very well, so they might be a “saucer of milk”—and a sure-enough kitten’s tail sticking out from it. Another childhood horror here! Craig was a fat little thing, and she slipped and plumped down on her favorite pet kitten, and exploded it.

_13_

The person whom we are subjecting to this process of psycho-analysis has a strong color sense, and wanted to be a painter. So we note that she “gets” colors and names them correctly. Here is my drawing of what I meant to be a bouquet of pink roses (Figs. 46, 46a):

Or take this case of a lobster. Craig’s comment was: “Gorgeous colors, red and greenish tinges.” Apparently I had failed to decide whether I was drawing a live lobster or a boiled one! My wife wrote further: “Now it turns into a lizard, camelian, reds and greens.” When she sees this about to be made public, she is embarrassed by her bad spelling; but she says: “Please do not overlook the fact that a chameleon is a reptile—and so is a lobster.” I dutifully quote her, even though her zoology is even worse than her spelling! (Figs. 47, 47a):

While we are on the “reptiles,” I include this menacing crab, which may have got hold of little Mary Craig’s toe on the beach of the Mississippi Sound (Fig. 48):

For the crab, Craig made two drawings, on opposite sides of the paper (Figs. 48a, 48b):

The comments on the above read: “Wings, or fingers—wing effect, but no feathers, things like fingers instead of feathers. Then many little dots which all disappear, and leave two of them, O O, as eyes of something.” And then, “Streamers flying from something.”

Another color instance: I drew the head of a horse, and Craig drew a lot of apparently promiscuous lines, and at various places wrote “yellow,” “white,” “blue,” “(dark),” and then a general description, “Oriental.” Afterwards she said to me: “That looks like a complete failure; yet it was so vivid, I can’t be mistaken. Where did you get that horse?” Said I: “I copied it from a Sunday supplement.” We got the paper from the trash-basket, and the page opposite the horse contained what Craig described. We shall note several other cases of this sort of intrusion of things I did not draw, but which I had before me while drawing.

Also anything with metal or shine seems to stand a good chance of being “got.” For example, these nose-glasses (Figs. 49, 49a):

The comment reads: “Opalescent shine or gleam. Also peafowl.”

Or again, a belt-buckle; my wife writes the word “shines” (Figs. 50, 50a):

Or this very busy alarm clock—she writes the same word “shines” (Figs 51, 51a):

She has got at least part of a watch whenever one has been presented. You remember the one Bob drew (Fig. 17). There was another in series thirty-three; Craig made a crude drawing and added: “Shines, glass or metal” (Figs. 52, 52a):

Also, on the automobile ride to Pasadena, series three, there was a watch-face among the drawings, and Craig drew the angle of the hands, and added the words, “a complication of small configurations.” Having arrived in Pasadena, she took the twelve drawings and tried them over again. This time, of course, she had a one in twelve chance of guessing the watch. She wrote: “A white translucent glimmering, or shimmering which I knew was not light but rather glass. It was like heat waves radiating in little round pools from a center.... Then in the center I saw a vivid black mark.... So it was bound to be the watch, and it was.”

And here is a fountain. You see that it appears to be in a tub, and is so drawn by Craig. But you note that the “shine” has been got. “These shine!” (Figs. 53, 53a):

Another instance, even more vivid. I made a poor attempt to draw a bass tuba, as one sees them on the stage—a lot of jazz musicians dressed up in white duck, and a row of big brass and nickel horns, polished to blind your eyes. See what Craig drew, and also what she wrote (Figs. 54, 54a):

The comments, continued on the other side of the sheet, are: “Dull gold ring shimmers and stands out with shadow behind it and in center of it. Gleams and moves. Metal. There is a glow of gold light, and the ring or circle is out in the air, suspended, and moves in blur of gold.”

You see, she gets the feeling, the emotional content. I draw a child’s express-wagon, and she writes: “Children again playing but can’t get exactly how they look. Just feel there are children.” Or take this one, which she describes as “Egyptian.” I don’t know if my pillar is real Egyptian, but it seems so to me, and evidently to my wife, for you note all the artistry it inspired (Figs. 55, 55a):

Sometimes Craig will embody the feeling in some new form of her own invention; as for example, when I draw an old-fashioned cannon on wheels, and she writes: “Black Napoleon hat and red military coat.” I draw a running fox—well drawn, because I copy it from a picture; she rises to the occasion with two crossed guns, and a hunting horn with a lot of musical notes coming out of it (Figs. 56, 56a):

I draw an auto, and she replies with the hub and spokes of a wheel. Not satisfied with this, she sets it aside, and tries again a little later—without looking at the original drawing—and this time she produces a horn, with indication of a noise. I give both her drawings, which are on two sides of the same slip of paper (Figs. 57a, 57b):

_14_

An extraordinary incident occurred in connection with the fourth series of drawings. While my secretary, E. M. Hart, was making the drawings, there came into the office his brother-in-law, R. H. Craig, Jr., a teller of the Security First National Bank of Long Beach, a person entirely unknown to my wife. He heard what was going on, and said, “I’ll give her some that’ll stump her.” He took a pen and drew two pictures, which were duly wrapped in sheets of green paper and sealed in envelopes, and put with the rest of the series. I was not at the office, and nothing was said to me about Mr. Craig having taken part in the matter.

My wife did this series under my eyes; and when she came to the first of Mr. Craig’s two drawings, she wrote, “Some sort of grinning monster,” and added an elaborate description. Then she opened the envelope, and found a roller skate with a foot and leg attached. This, naturally, was called a failure; but seven drawings later in the same series came Mr. Craig’s other drawing, which was as follows (Fig. 58):

Now read the amazing description which my wife had written, seven drawings back, when the first of Mr. Craig’s drawings had come under her hand:

“Some sort of grinning monster—see only the face and a vague idea of deformed neck and shoulders. It is a man, but it looks like a cat’s face, cat eyes and whiskers. Don’t know just how I know it is a man—it is a deformity. Not a cat. See color of skin which is deep, flat pink, as of a colored picture. The face of the creature is broad and weird. The flesh of neck, or somewhere, gives effect of rolls or creases.”

I asked my secretary what this drawing was meant to be, and he said “a Happy Hooligan.” My cultural backwardness is such that I wasn’t sure just what a “Happy Hooligan” might be, but my secretary told me it is a comic supplement figure, and I then looked it up in the paper, and found that the face of the figure as printed is a very pale pink, and the little cap on top is a bright red. I called Mr. Craig on the phone and asked him this question: “If you were to think of a color in connection with a ‘Happy Hooligan,’ what color would it be?” He answered, “Red.”

Now I ask you, what chance do you think there is of a person’s writing a description such as the above by guess work? To be sure, my wife had eight guesses; but do you think that eight million guesses would suffice? And if we call it telepathy, do we say that my wife’s mind has the power to dip into the mind of a young man whom she has never seen, nor even heard of? Or shall we say that his mind affected his brother-in-law’s, the brother-in-law’s affected mine, and mine affected my wife’s? Or, if we decide to call it clairvoyance, or psychometry, then are we going to say there is some kind of vibration or emanation from Mr. Craig’s drawing, so powerful that when one of his drawings is handed to my wife, she gets what is in another drawing which has been done at the same time?

Whatever may be the explanation, here is the fact: Again and again we find Craig getting, not the drawing she is holding under her hand, but the next one, which she has not yet touched. When she picks up the first drawing, she will say, or write: “There is a little man in this series”; or: “There is a snow scene with sled”; or: “An elephant, also a rooster.” I am going to show you these particular cases; but first a word as to how I have counted such “anticipations.”

Manifestly, if I grant the right to more than one guess, I am increasing the chances of guesswork, and correspondingly reducing the significance of the totals. What I have done is this: where such cases have occurred, I have called them total failures, except in a few cases, where the description was so detailed and exact as to be overwhelming—as in the case of this “Happy Hooligan.” Even so, I have not called it a complete success, only a partial success. In order to be classified as a complete success, my wife’s drawing must have been made for the particular drawing of mine which she had in her hand at that time; and throughout this account, the reader is to understand that every drawing presented was made in connection with the particular drawing printed alongside it—except in cases where I expressly state otherwise.

Now for a few of the “anticipations.” In the course of series six, drawn by me on Feb. 8, 1929, drawing number two was a daisy, and Craig got the elements of it, as you see (Figs. 59, 59a):

Her mind then went ahead, and she wrote, “May be snow scene on hill and sled.” The next drawing was an axe, which I give later (Fig. 145); she got the elements of this very well, and then added on the back: “I get a feeling again of a snow scene to come in this series—a sled in the snow.” That was number three; and when number five came Craig made this annotation: “Opened it by mistake, without concentrating. It’s my expected sled and snow scene.” Here is the drawing (Fig. 60):

Series number eight, on Feb. 10, brought even stranger results. This is the series in which the laced-up football was turned into a calf wearing a belly-band (Figs. 15, 15a). But even while I was engaged in making the drawings, sitting in my study apart, and with the door closed, Craig’s busy magic, whatever it is, was bringing her messages. She called out: “I see a rooster!” I had actually drawn a rooster; but of course I made no reply to her words. She at once drew a rooster and several other things, and after I had brought my drawings into the room, but before she had started to work with them, she wrote as follows:

“While Upton was making these drawings I sat before the fire thinking how to dry felt slippers which I had washed. I had my mind on them. Hung them on grating to see if they would hang there without burning. Suddenly saw rooster crowing. Then thought, ‘Can U be drawing rooster?’ Decided to make note of this. Did so. Then saw”—and she draws a circle with eight radiating lines, like spokes of a wheel.

In due course came drawing number eight, and before looking at it, Craig wrote: “Rooster.” Then she added, “But no—it looks like a picture of coffee-pot—see spout and handle.” This is hard on me as an artist, but I give the drawing and let you judge for yourself (Fig. 61):

What about the circle and the radiating spokes? That was, apparently, a fore-glimpse of drawing number five. I give you that, together with what Craig drew for that particular test when it came. Her effort suggests the kind of humor with which the newspaper artists used to delight my childhood; a series of drawings in which one thing turns into some other and quite unexpected thing by gradual changes. You will see here how the hub of a wagon-wheel may turn into the muzzle of a deer! (Figs. 62, 62a):

_15_

What are the principles upon which I have classified the drawings, as between success, partial successes, and failures? I will use this series, number eight, to illustrate. There are eight drawings, and I have set them down as one success, six partial successes, one failure. The success is the rooster (Fig. 61), called “a rooster,” even though it “looks like a coffee pot.” The partial successes are, first, an electric light bulb, very crudely imitated as to shape in three drawings. Perhaps this was hardly good enough to be counted; it was a border-line case, and probably the poorest that I admitted to the classification of “partial successes” (Fig. 63a).

Second, the ascending sky-rocket, already printed as fig. 38, giving rise to six different drawings of whirligigs and light. Third, the following drawing, for which Craig wrote: “See spider, or some sort of legged pest. If this is not a spider, there is a spider in the lot somewhere! This I know!” (Fig. 64):

The fourth partial success was a drawn bow, with arrow fitted, ready to be launched. Craig wrote as follows: “Picked this up and saw inside as it dropped on floor—so did not try it. Suddenly recall I have already ‘seen’ it earlier.” Before starting the tests, along with her written mention of “a rooster,” she had drawn a bow and crude arrow, and the resemblance is so exact that it seems to me entitled to be called a partial success (Figs. 65, 65a):

Fifth, the wagon hub (Fig. 60), which became the deer’s muzzle. And finally the laced-up football (Fig. 15) which became a belly-band on a calf (Fig. 15a).

As for the failure in this series, it is a cake of soap, which was called “whirls.” There are a couple of other drawings in the series, marked: “Too tired to see it,” and “Tired now and excited and keep seeing old things”—meaning, of course, the preceding drawings.

I tried to avoid drawing the same object more than once, but now and then I slipped up. In series eleven I drew another rooster, and there followed, not one “anticipation,” but several. Drawing number one was a tooth; Craig wrote: “First see rooster. Then elephant.” Drawing number two was an elephant; and Craig wrote: “Elephant came again. I try to suppress it, and see lines, and a spike sticking some way into something.” She drew it, and it seems clear that the “spike” is the elephant’s tusk, and the head of the “spike” is the elephant’s eye (Figs. 66, 66a):

Next, number three, was the rooster. But Craig had set “rooster” down in her mind as a blunder, so now she wrote: “I don’t know what, see a bunch, or tuft clearly. Also a crooked arm on a body. But don’t feel that I’m right.” Here are the drawings, and you can see that she was somewhat right (Figs. 67, 67a):

This series eleven, containing fourteen drawings, is marked: “Did this lot rapidly, without holding (mind) blank. The chicken and elephant came _at once_, on a very earnest request to my mind to ‘come across.’” I have classified in this series two successes, five partial, and five failures: throwing out numbers twelve and fourteen, because Craig wrote: “Nothing except all the preceding ones come—too many at once—all past ones crowding in memory”; and again, “Nothing but everything in the preceding. Too many of them in my mind.”

The anticipations run all through this series in a quite fascinating way. Thus, for number four Craig wrote: “Flower. This is a vivid one. Green spine—leaves like century plant.” She drew Figure 68a:

And then again, for drawing number seven, she did more flowers, with this comment: “This is a _real_ flower, I’ve seen it before. It’s vivid and returns. Century plant? Now it turns into candle stick. See a candle” (Fig. 69a).

All this was wrong—so far. Number four was a table, and number seven was the rear half of a cow. But now we come to number eleven, the plant known as a “cat-tail,” which seems to resemble rather surprisingly the lower of the two drawings in Figure 69a. My drawing is given as Figure 70, and the one Craig made for it is given as 70a.

Comment on the above read: “Very pointed. Am not able to see what. Dog’s head?”

Drawing five was a large fish-hook; and this inspired the experimenter to a discourse, as follows: “Dog wagging—see tail in air busy wagging—jolly doggie—tail curled in air.” And then: “Now I see a cow. I fear the elephant and chicken got me too sure of animals. But I see these.”

Now, a big fish-hook looks not unlike a “tail curled in air.” But when we come to number seven, we discover what Craig was apparently anticipating. It is the drawing of what I have referred to as “the rear half of a cow.” It is badly done, with a cow’s hoof, but I forgot what a cow’s tail is like, and this tail that I drew would fit much better on a “jolly doggy,” you must admit (Fig. 71):

Drawing number six was a sun, as children draw it, a circle with rays going out all round. Craig wrote: “Setting sun and bird in sky. Big bird on wing—seagull or wild goose.” This I called a partial success. Number nine was the muzzle end of an old-style cannon, already reported in Figures 46, 46a.

I conclude the study of this particular series with drawing thirteen, to which was added the comment: “Think of a saucer, then of a cup. It’s something in the kitchen. Too tired to see” (Figs. 72, 72a):

In series fourteen, drawing three, Craig wrote: “Man running, can’t draw it.” She drew as follows (Fig. 73a):

Next came my drawing four, as follows (Fig. 73):

In series thirty-five I first drew a fire hydrant, and Craig wrote, “Peafowl,” and added the following drawing, which certainly constitutes a partial success (Figs. 74, 74a):

My next drawing was the peafowl, as you see. For this Craig wrote: “Peafowl again,” and apparently tried to draw the peafowl’s neck, and a lot of those spots which I had forgotten are an appurtenance of peafowls (Figs. 75, 75a):

In series twenty-nine I drew an elevated railway. If you turn it upside down, as I have done here, it looks like water and smokestacks. Anyhow, Craig drew a steamboat (Figs. 76, 76a):

And then came my next drawing—a steamboat! Craig wrote: “Smoke again,” and drew the smoke and the stack (Figs. 77, 77a):

She added two more drawings, which appear to be the wheel of the boat in the water, and the smoke (Figs. 77b, 77c):

In series thirty I drew a fish-hook with line, and you see it turned into a flower (Figs. 78, 78a):

Then came an obelisk, and Craig got it, but with novel effects, thus (Figs. 79, 79a):

Now why should an obelisk go on a jag, and have little circles at its base? The answer appears to be: it inherited the curves from the previous fish-hook, and the little circles from the next drawing. You will see that, having used up her supply of little circles, Craig did not get the next drawing so well (Figs. 80, 80a):

In series twenty-two I first drew a bed, and Craig made two attempts to draw a potted plant. My second drawing was a maltese cross, and Craig turned it into a basket (Figs. 81, 81a):

But she could not give up her plant. She added: “There is a flower basket in this lot, or potted plant.” The next drawing was a fleur-de-lis, which looks not unlike a potted plant or hanging basket (Fig. 82):

In drawing four she got the elements of a door-knob pretty well, and added: “See head of bird, too—eagle beak.” Drawing seven was a crane, with beak open.

_16_

I could go through all thirty-five of the series, listing such “anticipations” as this: but I have given enough to show how the thing goes. Such occurrences make it hard for Craig because, when she has once drawn a certain object, she naturally resists the impulse to draw it again, thinking it is nothing but a memory. Thus, in series thirteen, my first drawing was a savage woman carrying a bundle on her head, and Craig drew the profile of a head with a long nose. My next drawing was the profile of a head, with a very conspicuous nose, and Craig wrote: “Face again, but [I] inhibit this. Then come two hands, and below”—and she draws what might be a cross section of a skull, side view.

Yet sometimes she overcomes this handicap triumphantly. Series twelve is marked: “Hastily done,” and she adds the general comment: “Several times saw bristles on things of different shapes, some flowers, some bristled brushes. Saw flower, also more than once”—and then she appends a drawing of a four-leaf clover. As it happened, this series contained a three-leaf clover, and it contained another flower, and also a cactus-plant—more of one kind of thing than it was fair to put into one set of drawings. Nevertheless, Craig scored one of her successes with the cactus, setting it down as “fuzzy flower” (Figs. 83, 83a):

Nor was she afraid to repeat herself when she came to another “fuzzy flower” in this series (Figs. 84, 84a):

Frequently she will make a good drawing of an object, but name it badly. In that same series twelve I drew a hoe, and she got the shape of it, but wrote: “May be scissors, may be spectacles with long stem ears” (Figs. 85, 85a):

Also in the same series these reindeer horns, which she calls “holly leaves.” It is psychologically interesting to note that reindeer and holly trees were both associated with Christmas in Craig’s childhood (Figs. 86, 86a):

And in series eighteen, this fat baby bird of mine is hardly recognizable when called “flounder” (Figs. 87, 87a):

This very dim stalk of celery, drawn by me, I must admit looks more like a fish-fork (Figs. 88, 88a):

Craig’s verbal description of the above reads: “Stone set in platinum; may be diamond, as points seem to be white light—at least it shines, not red shine of fire but white shine.” How does a stalk of celery, which looks like a fish-fork, come to have a diamond set in it? You may understand the reason when you hear that three drawings later in the same series is a diamond set in a stick. Just why it occurred to me to set a diamond thus I cannot now recall, but the drawing is plain, and it led to a bit of fun. I had been to lunch with Charlie Chaplin that day, and had come home and told my wife about it; so here my sparkling diamond undergoes a transfiguration! “Chaplin,” writes my wife, and adds: “I don’t see why he has on a halo” (Figs. 89, 89a):

From the point of view of bad guessing, the most conspicuous series is number twenty. In this I have recorded four successes, seven partial, and one failure; yet there is hardly an object that is correctly named. Here are the three which I call successes; there may be dispute about any one of them, but it seems to me the essential elements have been got. You may be surprised at a necktie which “began to smoke”—but not when you see that the next drawing is a burning match! (Figs. 90, 90a; 90, 91a; 90, 92a):

As for the partial successes, I give six of them by way of samples. For the first, Craig’s comment was: “The body is vague, but see there is a body.” You will agree that my mountain landscape looks oddly like a body (Figs. 93, 93a):

And the pedals of this harp make a charming pair of lady’s feet (Figs. 94, 94a):

This balloon is described in my wife’s comment as: “Shines in sunlight, must be metal, a scythe hanging among vines or strings.”

This, which is called “front foot and leg of dog, though I don’t see the dog,” is really drawn more like the spigot of my drawing (Figs. 96, 96a):

A butterfly’s wings are “got” remarkably well (Figs. 97, 97a). And the trade-marks on my little box are called “tiny stars, or sparks” (Figs. 98, 98a):

_17_

I have referred to the fact that my wife’s drawings sometimes contain things which are not in mine, but which were in my mind while I was making them, or while she was “concentrating.” One of the most curious of such cases came in series twenty-eight, which was after we had given up, as too great a nuisance, all precautions in the way of sealing the drawings in envelopes. I made eight drawings, and laid them face down on my wife’s table, and then went out and took a walk while she did them. So, of course, it was easy for her to do what she pleased—and maybe she “peeked,” the skeptic will say. But as it happens, she didn’t get a single one right! Instead of reproducing my drawings, what she did was to reproduce my thoughts while I was walking up and down on the ocean front. It seems to me that in so doing, she provided a perfect answer to those who may attribute these results to any form of deception, whether conscious or unconscious.

There was a moon behind a bank of dark clouds, and it produced an unusual effect—a well-defined white cross in the sky. I watched it for nearly half an hour, and my continued thought was: “If this were an age of superstition, that would be a portent, and we should hear about it in history.” It was so strange that I finally went home and called my wife out onto the street. I did not tell her why. I wanted to see her surprise, so I purposely gave no hint. I said: “Come out! Please come!” Finally she came, and her comment was: “I just drew that!” We went back into the house, and she handed me a drawing. I give it alongside my drawing of an Indian club, which Craig had held while doing hers. You may see exactly how much of her impulse came from that source (Figs. 99, 99a):

The “comment” reads: “Light ‘fingers’—moonlight.” Also: “black shadow.”

Let me add also that in the eight drawings I handed to Craig there was neither moon, cloud, cross, nor light. Two of these eight my wife failed to mark, and so I cannot identify them as belonging to this series; but we examined all eight at the time, and made sure of this point. Those which I now have are a flag, a bearded man, a chiffonier, a cannon, a dirt-scraper, and the Indian club, given above.

You will ask, perhaps, did Craig look out of the window. As it happened, this sky effect was invisible from any window, and I have her word that she had not moved from her couch. I should add that she is nervous, and keeps the curtains tightly drawn at night, and never goes out at night unless it is to be driven somewhere. It was early in March, with a cold wind off the sea, and I had to labor to persuade her to put a wrap over her dressing gown and step out into the middle of the street to look up at the sky.

_18_

The casual reader may be bored by too many of these drawings, but they are easy to skip, or to take in at a glance, and there may be students who will want to examine them carefully. So I will add a selection of the significant drawings, with only brief remarks. I begin with what I have called partial successes, and then add a few more of those I have called “complete.”

Let us return to the early drawings, made by my secretary. On the automobile ride to Pasadena, there was an ash-can (Fig. 100):

For the above my wife wrote: “I see a chain dangling from something—resembling little chimney pot on top of house.”

And here is design for which the comment was: “These somehow belong together but won’t get together” (Figs. 101, 101a):

Here is a fan, with comment: “Inside seems irregular, as if cloth draped or crumpled” (Figs. 102, 102a):

Here is a one-half success (Figs. 103, 103a):

Here is a broom, drawn by my secretary (Fig. 104), and several efforts to reproduce it (Figs. 104a, 104b):

The comments accompanying these drawings read: “All I’m sure of is a straight line with something curved at end of it; once it came” (here is drawing of the flower). “Then it doubled, or reappeared, I don’t know which. (Am not sure of curly edges.) Then it was upside down.”

The next drawing was a heart, and my wife got the upper half with what are apparently blood-drops added (Figs. 105, 105a):

The above is interesting, as suggesting that whatever agency furnished the information knew more than it was telling. For if Craig’s drawing, a pair of curves, constituted a crude letter N, or had no significance, why add the blood-drops, which were not in the original? On the other hand, if her subconscious mind knew it was a heart, why not give her the whole heart, and let her draw it?

So much for the drawings of my secretary; and now for my own early drawings. When I was a school boy, we used to represent human figures in this way; and, as you see, Craig got the essentials (Figs. 106, 106a):

Several weeks later, I drew a pair of such figures in action and the comment was: “It’s a whirligig of some sort” (Figs. 107, 107a).

After the following drawing, Craig asked me not to do any more hands, for the reason that she “got” this, but thought it was my own hand doing the drawing. She guessed something else, and wrote: “Turned into pig’s head, then rabbit’s” (Figs. 108, 108a):

Next, this bat, with very striking comment.

“Looks like ear-shaped something,” and again:

“Looks like calla lily” (Figs. 109, 109a):

A butterfly net (Figs. 110, 110a).

A key (Figs. 111, 111a):

This highly humorous sunrise (Figs. 112, 112a):

A carnation which came after the preceding drawing, and apparently had been anticipated in the “sunrise” (Figs. 113, 113a).

Note that this camp-stool, as I drew it, really does appear to be standing on water (Figs. 114, 114a):

For this little waiter, who follows, no drawing was made by my wife. Her written comment was: “I see at once the profile of human face. Am interrupted by radio tune. Something makes me think of a cow. Now see two things sticking out like horns” (Fig. 115).

The following had no comment (Figs. 116, 116a):

Nor the next ones (Figs. 117, 117a):

The comment on this caterpillar was: “Fork—then garden tool—lawn rake. Leaf.” I might add that we have a lawn-rake made of bristly bamboo, which looks very much like my drawing (Figs. 118, 118a):

In the following case I drew sixteen stars, and you may count and see that Craig got twelve of them, and made up the difference with a moon! (Figs. 119, 119a):

Comment on the following: “Looks like a monkey wrench, but it may be a yardstick” (Figs. 120, 120a):

In the next one, the curve of the worm is amusingly reproduced by the bird’s neck. The comment added: “But it may be a snake.” Craig says this is an example of how one part of the drawing comes to her, and then, in haste, her memory-trains and associations supply what they think should be the rest (Figs. 121, 121a).

The umbrella brings up Craig’s reptile “complex” again. I assure you that in her garden, she turns sticks into snakes when they are far less snake-like than my drawing. Her comment was: “I feel that it is a snake crawling out of something—vivid feeling of snake, but it looks like a cat’s tail” (Figs. 122, 122a):

I drew a wall-hook to hang your coat on (Figs. 123, 123a):

A design, evidently felt as a design, though not well got (Figs. 124, 124a):

A screw, with comment: “light-house or tower. Too fat at base.” If Craig’s drawing were made narrower at base, it would reproduce the screw very well. Note that in the right-hand “tower” the screw-like effect of the “set backs” is kept (Figs. 125, 125a):

Here is a love story which seems to go wrong, the hearts being turned to opposition (Figs. 126, 126a):

Here is the flag, made simpler—“e pluribus unum!” (Figs. 127, 127a):

Here is a cow, as seen by the cubists. Comment: “Something sending out long lines from it” (Figs. 128, 128a):

Telegraph wires, apparently seen as waves in the ether (Figs. 129, 129a):

Comment on the following: “Horns. Can’t see what they are attached to” (Figs. 130, 130a):

And here is a parrot turned into a leaf, with comment. “See veins and stem with sharp vivid bend in it”—which seems to indicate a sense of the parrot’s beak (Figs. 131, 131a):

_19_

The border-line between successes and failures is not easy to determine. Bear in mind that we are not conducting a drawing class, nor making tests of my wife’s eyesight: we are trying to ascertain whether there does pass from my mind to hers, or from my drawing to her mind, a recognizable impulse of some sort. So, if she gets the essential feature of the drawing, we are entitled to call it evidence of telepathy. I think the fan with “crumpled cloth” (Fig. 102), and the umbrella handle that may be a “snake crawling out of something,” but that “looks like a cat’s tail” (Fig. 122), and the screw that was called a “tower” (Fig. 126)—all these are really successes. I will append a number of examples, about which there seems to me no room for dispute, and which I have called successes. The first is a sample of architecture (Figs. 132, 132a):

And here is an hourglass, with sand running through it. Not merely did Craig write “white sand,” but she made the tree the same shape as the glass. I have turned the hourglass upside down so that you can get the effect better. It should be obvious that “upside-downness” has nothing to do with these tests, as Craig is as apt to be holding a drawing one way as another (Figs. 133, 133a):

And these three circles, with comment: “Feel sure it is,” written above the drawing (Figs. 134, 134a):

As to the next comment, “Trumpet flower,” let me explain that we have them in our garden, whereas we do not have any musical trumpets or horns (Figs. 135, 135a):

This strange object from my pencil tried to be a conch-shell, but got a bad start, and was left unclassified. Craig made it “life buoy in water,” which is good, except for the spelling. She insists upon my pointing out that shells also belong in water (Figs. 136, 136a):

This one, described in good country fashion, “Muley cow with tongue hanging out” (Fig. 137):

This next one was described by the written word: “Goat” (Fig. 138):

And this one is so striking that I give the words in facsimile (Figs. 139, 139a):

For the following, my wife described a wrong thing, and then added: “Now a sudden new thing, cone-shaped or goblet-like. This feels like _it_” (Figs. 140, 140a):

This was correctly named: “2 legs of something running” (Figs. 141, 141a):

This Alpine hat with feather seems to me no less a success because it is called “Chafing dish” (Figs. 142, 142a):

Nor this wind-mill because the sails are left off (Figs. 143, 143a):

These concentric circles are called “Horn (very curled), or shell” (Figs. 144, 144a):

And here is a curious one, which came early in the tests. I call attention to the comment about the handle, which ran off the sheet of paper without any ending, just as she says. “Letter A with something long above it. Key or a sword, there seems to be no end to the handle. Think it’s a key” (Figs. 145, 145a):

And finally, this still more astonishing one, to serve as a climax. Let me explain that I am not so good an artist as this; I copied my drawing from some magazine (Figs. 146, 146a):

You note that my wife “got,” not merely the whole top of the drawing, but some impression of the arms, which are crossed in a peculiar way. I ask her about this case—the drawing having been made less than a month ago—and I find that she remembers it well. She saw what she thought was a turban wound about the head, and got the impression of color. She wrote the words “not hair” to make this clear. The rest of the comment written at the time was: “See back of head, ear, and swirling scarf tied around head.”

_20_

I have now given nearly all the 65 drawings which I call “successes,” and about half the 155 which I call “partial successes.” This, I think, is enough for any purpose. No one can seriously claim that such a set of coincidences could happen by chance, and so it becomes necessary to investigate other possible explanations.

First, a hoax. As covering that point, I prepared a set of affidavits as to the good faith of myself, my wife, her sister, and her sister’s husband. These affidavits were all duly signed and witnessed; but friends, reading the manuscript, think they use up space to no purpose, and that the reader will ask no more than the statement that this book is a serious one, and that the manuscript was carefully read by all four of the persons mentioned above, and approved by them as representing the exact truth.

That a group of persons should enter into a conspiracy to perpetrate a hoax is conceivable. Whether or not it is conceivable of the group here quoted is something of which the reader is the judge. But this much is clear: any reader who, having read the above, still suspects us, will not be convinced by further protestations.

How about the possibility of fraud by one person? No one who knows Mary Craig Sinclair would suspect her; but you who do not know her have, naturally, the right to consider such an hypothesis. Can she be one of those women who enjoy being talked about? The broaching of this idea causes her to take the pencil away from her husband, and you now hear her own authentic voice, as follows:

“I happen to be a daughter of that once very living thing, ‘the Old South,’ and there are certain ideals which are in my blood. The avoidance of publicity is one of them. But even if I had ever had a desire for publicity, it would have been killed by my actual experiences as the wife of a social crusader. My home is besieged by an endless train of persons of every description, who travel over the place, knocking on doors and windows, and insisting upon having a hearing for their various programs for changing the nature of the universe. I have been driven to putting up barriers and fences around my garden, and threatening to flee to the Himalayas, and become a Yogic mistress, or whatever a Yogic ‘master’ of my sex is called.