Chapter IX: Part 9

With favorable subjects experiments for telepathy can sometimes be and
sometimes have been carried on with all the rigidity of method and the
scrupulosity of a laboratory, or, if there remain doubts and
objections on grounds seemingly almost of as “occult” a nature as
telepathy itself, doubtless in time to come methods will be devised to
meet these doubts and objections. But subjects of singularly calm and
poised nature will be required. It seems to be a fact with which we
have to deal, however regrettable, that with most persons who under
friendly and unstrained conditions at times strongly evidence
telepathic powers, suddenly to place them in a room containing strange
apparatus, and before a committee of strangers, some perhaps cold and
stern in appearance, others whose amiable demeanor nevertheless
betrays an amused scepticism, is to make it improbable that they can
exhibit telepathy at all. It will have to be recognized as a
scientific datum that a state of mental tranquillity and passivity is
generally requisite for such manifestations. Nor is this peculiar to
psychical manifestations; the principle applies more or less to a
variety of psychological manifestations and powers. Mark Twain could
reel off witty utterances when he was mentally at ease, but had he
been surrounded by a solemn-visaged group of psychologists with his
wrists harnessed to a sphygmometer, and placed in face of an apparatus
for recording graphs and a stenographer with poised pencil, it is very
certain that his reactions would not have been those of brilliant and
original humor. So I have seen a prominent violinist, invited to play
at a reception, try to keep on amidst the waxing murmur of
conversation, and finally falter and almost break down.

In this laboratory-fixation age it is well to remember that certain
even of the physical sciences quite or mostly elude laboratory
experimentation. Take astronomy, a great and promising but difficult
and problematical field of research. No sun of all the millions, no
planet, no planetary satellite, no comet, no tiniest of the asteroids
can be brought into a laboratory. Once in a while a meteoric stone
reaches the earth, and this can be analyzed, but no laboratory can
control or predict time or place of its falling. It is necessary to
devise agencies, telescopes, spectroscopes and so on, which, in a
sense, go out and bring back data about the subjects of this science,
and to develop methods of mathematical deduction by which to reach
conclusions which are accepted by most people on authority only, since
to most people the mathematics is quite unintelligible.

Astronomy, perhaps entitled to be called the most ancient of sciences,
is one of the most difficult. A multitude of theories to account for
its multitudinous phenomena have been supplanted by others; within the
memory of persons now living many opinions once firmly held have been
discarded or at least called in question. This is not in the least to
the discredit of the science, but it is a fact. Today there are many
contradictions of opinion among astronomers. While an article by a
scientific man was printing in the _Scientific American_ expressing
the common view that in a little while, about a million million years,
the earth will become too cold for anybody to live on it, another
scientist was announcing to the world his reasons for questioning that
conclusion. Even facts of a declared visual character are called in
question. Professor Percival Lowell to his death in 1916 supported
Schiaparelli’s announced discovery of canals on Mars, described them
as he saw them through the telescope, and declared that they must be
of artificial origin. It is said that there are astronomers who can
see the canals but who question that they are artificial. And it is
certain that there are astronomers who deny that there are any canals
at all, and who claim that what seem to be canals to some are optical
illusions or sheer hallucinations. (Is not astronomy getting to look
like psychic research?)

But in spite of all its shifting and reconstruction of theories, its
assertions and counter-assertions, the complexity and enormous
difficulty of its numerous problems, and the exceedingly subtle
methods by which, in a great measure, these problems must be studied,
no one is so foolish as to think that astronomical investigation
should not be pursued, or that there does not lie before it a great
field for the pursuit of truth.

To a very large extent psychic research is analogous with astronomy.
It, the youngest of the sciences (by few as yet acknowledged to be a
science), has a very difficult field, lying as far apart from the
ordinary life of most men as the multitudinous realities of infinite
space lie outside the range of thought of ordinary men; its problems
are many, theories are shifting and contradictory, certain facts are
both affirmed and denied, and, what is more to the point for our
present purpose, only to a limited extent can its problems be taken
into the laboratory, but for the most part techniques and logical
methods have to be devised to fit the nature of the facts with which
we deal. In astronomy, most of the subjects of study can be found in
place at any time; the great drawback is that they are so fearfully
distant as to be sensed very slightly. On the other hand, with certain
exceptions, either of kind or degree, the subjects of psychical study
cannot be found in place whenever wanted but appear occasionally, yet
when they do appear often do so with a nearness and clearness which
spares the witnesses the necessity of those cautious qualifying
phrases so common in articles dealing with astronomy.

In order at length to turn the attention of scientific men to a
quarter of reality to which most of them are now voluntarily blind, we
must continue to do what some people contemn as “old stuff,” and that
is to multiply the number of _intelligent_ and _reputable_ witnesses
by teaching people how to observe and how to record, and by ridding
them of the cowardice which now keeps at least five out of six
potential witnesses of such standing silent.

Footnote 7:

It is so judged from such expressions as “Or maybe she has been asleep
and comes out with the tail end of a dream, and has written down what
appears to be a lot of rubbish but turns out to be a reproduction of
something her husband has been reading or writing at that very
moment”; “Says my wife, ‘There are some notes of a dream I just had.’”

Footnote 8:

The words “Bob drew watch,” etc., were added by Mrs. Sinclair after
she had read his statement.

Footnote 9:

“Ulceration and bleeding are also common symptoms, hence the term
‘bleeding piles.’” _Encyclopedia Britannica._

Footnote 10:

[Deleted.]

Footnote 11:

“I explain that in these particular drawings the lines have been
traced over in heavier pencil; the reason being that Craig wanted a
carbon copy, and went over the lines in order to make it. This had the
effect of making them heavier than they originally were, and it made
the whirly lines in Craig’s first drawing more numerous than they
should be. She did this in the case of two or three of the early
drawings, wishing to send a report to a friend. I pointed out to her
how this would weaken their value as evidence, so she never did it
again.”

Footnote 12:

Of course, there would be theoretical possibility that the four
persons involved joined in a conspiracy to deceive, and there would be
the same theoretical possibility if four psychologists from the
_sanctum sanctorum_ of a laboratory announced similar results.

Footnote 13:

The cut does not show that the end is open like a pipe, but it is
plainly so in the pencil drawing.

Footnote 14:

“A Series” since there was another of the same date at a different
hour.

Footnote 15:

If it be objected that we are not told exactly what the conditions of
the series of February 15th were, though assured that all series were
carried out with scrupulous honesty, that is true. But it is also true
that the results of this series were not better than some where we do
know that the conditions were excellent, and that this series contains
no successes of such astounding significance as three in the
Sinclair-Irwin Group, when many miles separated the experimenters. I
would have been quite willing to have employed for the guessing tests
the originals in that group, plus those of February 17th, done under
excellently satisfactory conditions. (To be sure, the parties were in
the same room, but it will be shown later that, even granting all
which the egregious “unconscious whispering” theory claims, it could
not account for the results actually obtained.) In fact, the
Sinclair-Irwin Group was avoided for the test for the very reason that
it is an exceptionally good one. That of February 15th was selected
because I wanted a series of a considerable number of experiments, an
unbroken one produced at one time, and one which exhibited results of
a more nearly average character.

Footnote 16:

“_A_ series” because there were other experiments at another hour of
the same day.

Footnote 17:

The general assumption is that Mrs. Sinclair got her successful
results by telepathy. But could Mr. Sinclair remember just in what
order his drawings came, so to be thinking of each just when his wife
was holding that particular one? Unfortunately he did not record
whether he laid them down in the order of their production.

We have judged Experiment 1 to be a failure. And yet it is not
fanciful to say that if the drawing of the globe is looked at from its
left side there is considerable resemblance between the very
incorrectly drawn South America and Isthmus of Panama on the one hand,
and the “animal’s” head and neck on the other. If clairvoyance were
involved, there would be no necessary guarantee that the drawing would
be sensed—to a degree—right side up. Nor do we know how the envelope
was held.

Footnote 18:

Mr. Sinclair says, “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.”

It is psychologically likely that a drawing just before made or even
looked at sometimes unfortunately influences a succeeding drawing. The
most interesting apparent example of this is Figure 8a made just after
Mrs. Sinclair had been looking at the several concentric circles of
her last reproduction in the Sinclair-Irwin Group. First she got a
whirl of circles, then the whirl assumed the shape of a triangle, then
came two angles differently characterized, and finally the angles
multiplied and constituted a star duplicating the original. And a
careful study makes it impossible to doubt that there were
anticipations. Some are too striking to be likely as accidents in the
same series, and in some cases Mrs. Sinclair announced ahead that
such-and-such an object would be found among the originals, and was
right. Indeed, in cases where a set of originals was not viewed by the
agent one by one, as the tests were proceeding, but were submitted in
a heap together, it is a wonder that as a general rule the
correspondences were found in due order, and we are hardly able to
explain it. I do not, however, count any feature theoretically left
over from the previous drawing as evidential, but only as an
interesting glimpse into the mental processes. Neither does Mr.
Sinclair, as I understand him. Nor do I reckon any “anticipation” as
evidential, unless it was announced in advance, and then only in a
reduced degree. And Mr. Sinclair’s principles of estimation were
nearly the same. For he says (the italics mine):

“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_.”

Footnote 19:

When she reached the snake original, the percipient made no drawing,
but wrote “Man running fast.” If the reader will turn back to
Experiment 2 of February 8th, where the original was a snake, he will
again find the cat’s tail and living things fleeing. I more than ever
suspect that buried in her subconsciousness is the memory of some
incident wherein a snake and a cat and something else in flight
figure.

Footnote 20:

O—original drawing. R—reproduction. Quoted matter was written by Mrs.
S as a part of her result.

Footnote 21:

Statistically this must be rated a failure. But it is quite possible
that in fact there is an underlying real connection. Perhaps Mrs. S
had read the life of Napoleon, and had been aware that he was by
education primarily an artillerist, and that the increased and
peculiar use of artillery was the chief distinctive feature of his
campaigns. If so, it is quite possible that the idea of cannon,
struggling for emergence in her mind, by association of ideas got
sidetracked to Napoleon, and became expressed in “Black Napoleon hat
and red military coat.” I have not discovered what the uniform of
Napoleon’s artillerists was; his infantry, at any rate, wore coats
brilliantly faced with red.

Footnote 22:

Let it be understood that there were reproductions rated as
Suggestive, Partial Successes or even Successes, where there was no
such “correspondence.” That is to say, the reproduction might not
recognizably represent any living thing, might even be indeterminable
as to its nature, and yet so notably imitate the leading features of
the original (though omitting something necessary for identification)
as to give it one grade or another of ranking otherwise than Failure.

Footnote 23:

Here the original was not a drawing but a “red flower” that Mr.
Sinclair was simultaneously reading about.

Footnote 24:

Mathematically, that is, on the basis of a large number of counted
experiments in guessing.

Footnote 25:

Unless by “involuntary whispering,” a theory to be attended to later.

Footnote 26:

There was one experiment with drawings. One of the Danish
experimenters drew a candlestick, with a lighted candle in it. The
other in response drew what in the cut looks like a crooked
milk-bottle with a short curved line proceeding from one end and two
short curved lines proceeding from one side. The latter says he meant
it for a cat, but does not know why he furnished it with only two
“legs.” The only use made of this drawing in the pamphlet is to
compare it with a selected and very poor example from the Richet
series and to assert that it is as good a reproduction. The utmost I
should grant for the Richet drawing is that, regarded as one of a
series containing a number of far more impressive ones, it is
Suggestive, and the most I could grant for the “cat,” is that it may
possibly be Slightly Suggestive. But did Hansen and Lehmann think
there was any resemblance between their reproduction and original? If
so, how did they know that there was no thought-transference and why
did they not continue to experiment with drawings? Were they afraid
that if they did, they might have an intractable problem on their
hands? But if they thought there was no real resemblance, what
possible weight had their failure against a series of experiments
wherein a large percentage of the reproductions beyond question _did_
notably resemble the originals?

Footnote 27:

S.P.R. _Proceedings_, VI, 164–5.

Footnote 28:

Professor Sidgwick declared that the whispering of himself and his
colleagues was certainly voluntary, and that there was no success
otherwise.

Footnote 29:

Neither M. C. S. or I ever made the faintest trace of a sound during
an experiment. That was the law. And I never knew which drawing she
was holding. I had just one order: to watch steadily, and be able to
say that she never “peeked.” I did this, and I say it, on my honor.
This is an honest book.—Upton Sinclair.

Footnote 30:

She was undergoing the menopause; hence the special depression. It is
important that every such fact should be stated. It might even be that
the condition heightened the telepathic faculty.

Footnote 31:

Of course Mrs. Sinclair is solely responsible for this as every other
of her expressed opinions.

Footnote 32:

This was written when it was expected that the experiments with the
brother-in-law would continue some time. The general character of the
objects is stated. In fact neither duck nor basket of fruit figured.
The experiments with “Bob” soon ceased, not only because they involved
a strain upon him in his then condition of health but because Mrs.
Sinclair suspected that she was telepathically having her own feelings
of depression increased by his.

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

1. P. 66, changed “lizard, camelian, reds” to “lizard, chameleon, reds”. 2. P. 69, changed “Also, an the automobile ride to Pasadena” to “Also, on the automobile ride to Pasadena”. 3. P. 190, did not alter February 29, 1929. 4. Ignored variations in “MacDougall” and “McDougall”. 5. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling. 6. Archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed. 7. Footnotes were re-indexed using numbers and collected together at the end of the last chapter. 8. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.