Chapter 12

Without possessing much intrinsic probative value of its own, it is certain that all this fits in very badly with the supposition of a purely mechanical automatism operated by the person making the experiments. And on the other hand it bears a close analogy to the mediumistic "specialities"; that is, to the well-known fact that one "medium," for instance, is good for "physical effects" (i.e. gives rise around it to dynamic phenomena), but is not good for "psychography"; or produces "incarnations" but not "apports," etc. In the same way, typtology or rapping, more or less systematic, seems a fundamental gift, common to all the various kinds of "mediums." And the fact is perhaps of a certain value that precisely the same thing is true of "thinking" animals; although we must always remember that an analogous relation may only be apparent or extrinsic. Besides, the tone also of the "communications" in the two fields seems to me very much akin. I allude to the curious, angular, enigmatic, spasmodic, often playful and bantering communications, with frequent "unexpected replies" and philosophic platitudes. I find all these in Lola, and I remember similar stories of Rolf and of the horses, giving me an impression very like that which I get from the accounts of mediumistic seances "with intellectual effects."

Premising all this, we may suppose that a peculiar psychic concordance, which failing a better term might be called mediumistic, exists between Lola and her mistress. The mistress then in some way will have "communicated" through the dog the substance of her psychic self (perhaps with eventual autonomous additions from the canine or other psychic entity); all this happening, we must suppose, in a subliminal way, with partial psychical disassociation on the part of the authoress, if not also probably on the part of Lola, about which I am quite certain (and in this I agree with Neumann) that it absolutely does not understand anything or know anything of almost all the manifestations of thought which it exhibits.

There remain the questions (if the possibility of such duplicate mediumistic phenomena is admitted _a priori_ to be possible) as to the point at which the normal relationship between a human person and an animal passes over into this supernormal one; and, finally, as to what particular known facts in the case of Lola, besides the rather too general analogies already mentioned, speak in favour of this hypothesis.

Into the mediumistic endowment of the investigator it seems to me useless to inquire since _a priori_ many persons, so it seems, are more or less strikingly endowed, and the conditions which determine results are not sufficiently known. At the most there exist some indications--e.g. in Morselli's masterly work (2)--of the existence of some concordances between the phenomenology of mediumism and hysterical, hysteroid, or at least "sensitive" temperaments. And I believe that--with the help of their own publications, properly analysed--it would not be too difficult to attribute one or the other of such physio-psychic varieties to those persons who have up to the present obtained the best results with "thinking animals."

More interesting appears to me the investigation of the question whether animals themselves have already given any clear proof of being able to be "sensitive" in the mediumistic sense. And I must say that such a proof seems to have almost been reached.

I may refer on this subject to the exhaustive monograph published in 1905 by Bozzano (1) and written with the special competency and clearness that distinguish the well-known Genoese psychist.

Bozzano at that time was necessarily ignorant of the "thinking" animals, for it was only afterwards that they came to notice. But there were other authors who introduced the possibility (or the necessity) of a supernormal relationship in order to explain the Elberfeld facts, as soon as they were known. Perhaps the first in chronological order was De Vesme, who published in 1912 an interesting article in that sense (3), showing the many analogies between the phenomena of Elberfeld and mediumistic phenomena generally, e.g. the typtological particularities; the wrong orthography ("Firaz" tapped by the horse to express its own name "Zariff," "Dref" instead of "Ferd," etc.); solutions of difficult problems and invincible resistance to simple inquiries; immediate promptitude of correct replies to complicated mathematical problems, etc.

A similar work was Maeterlinck's, written in 1909 for a German review, and then transformed into a long and interesting chapter of the well-known volume, "L'hote Inconnu" (10).

Then in 1914 was published a book by E. G. Sanford (5) containing some useful comparisons between "thinking" animals and mediumistic psychology.

In Italy there were indications in the same sense, in the work of Stefani (1913), Professor Siciliani (1914), and others. But the subject was but little followed up.

Even psychologists by profession seemed for a time to be willing to accept the hypothesis of some "telepathic" transmission of thought from the investigators to the Elberfeld horses.

Already Claparede (1912) had been forced to refer to this, although he refused, so to speak, to discuss the matter; then G. C. Ferrari, and F. Pulle, in an interesting account (4) relate how the horse taken by them for instruction sometimes guessed the numbers that they were proposing to them, and rapped out the answers before being asked to do so.

Whatever may be the fate of the telepathic hypothesis, it may not be amiss to remind the reader that it undoubtedly is very closely connected with the mediumistic. The distinction between them is not always easy; besides, both may exist together side by side.

"Telepathy," so called, (a term not less unfortunate than that of "medium" and its derivatives), or, better, the transmission of thought, is (shortly put) the hypothesis that at a certain moment an agent transmits, and a receiver perceives, some definite mental image or state of mind. The transmission may be more or less willed (i.e. conscious) on the part of the agent; on the part of the receiver, however, the fact of the transmission always remains unconscious, but the psychical elements perceived bring about a reaction in consciousness and the receiver knows what he is doing, or at any rate may do so, at the moment of the occurrence. Shortly stated, it may be regarded as a kind of suggestion, "à distance," with sometimes immediate and sometimes delayed effect; a kind of posthypnotic performances of a suggestion without the intervention of hypnotism (or, perhaps, with a partial subhypnotic state?), the receiver of the suggestion not receiving it in the form of acoustic vibrations or in any way by means of one of the ordinary senses.

Mediumistic phenomena on the other hand require for their explanation the possibility of a much more direct, more profound and more immediate relationship between the several minds taking part in them. One of these minds--more or less disassociated--might become the instrument of another--even of several others--although still itself in a state of more or less complete disassociation, and always remaining altogether unconscious of its relationship to the other. One of the minds might therefore be an agent, another a recipient, or even several of them simultaneously might join together to produce the phenomena, the subliminal nature of the relationship remaining fixed. The actors would in this way, for ever, all of them without exception, be absolutely unaware that they were the actors. It might also be the case that the recipient through whom the phenomena are produced (i.e. the "medium," or in our case the animal experimented on) would not be conscious at all of the resulting action. With human "mediums" we should find in such cases a more or less advanced state of trance or ecstasy. And with regard to animals, I remember the opinions of Ochorowicz and others--which were preceded, however, long ago by a similar opinion of Cuvier--according to which the consciousness of animals in an awakened state would correspond fairly closely to the consciousness of man in a hypnotic state.

If what has been said above is at all correct, it would seem as if the walls separating various minds one from another all of a sudden are opened wide, and by a partial interpenetration of one mind by the other the several minds join together to produce by mutual determination automatic action. And it is in these special psychical states that "supernormal" phenomena, viz., psychography, clairvoyance, clairaudience, etc., occur.

Now, although all this is to move in a very uncertain ambit, harassed by a multitude of diverse and vain dilettantisms and mysticisms, and only too frequently by fraud, it is not any longer possible nowadays to deny that facts, objectively known, compel the positive scientist to have recourse to some such suppositions. Also without making the "subliminal," with Myers, a kind of "deus ex machina" in the world, it is certain that mediumistic phenomena of the kind mentioned are henceforth to be considered as a subject of study for an open-minded psychology. I may refer in support of this view, among others, to the powerful work of Morselli. And to return to the "thinking" animals, we find that the mediumistic hypothesis, however shifty it may seem, is a better explanation than the telepathic hypothesis--which has already itself become rather more systematized in modern psychology.

After his visits to Elberfeld, Claparede, as I said, had found it difficult to treat as valid the telepathic hypothesis when applied to Krall's horses. What, indeed, had been "transmitted" to them? Numbers? Words? Single letters? (or orders to stop the foot at the right time?) It must be remembered that the horses were tapping their answers by using a sort of stenography, that usually left out the vowels: that besides, although the words could be recognized in the most certain manner, the spelling was most irregular, and, as I have already pointed out, sometimes reversed. Further, as to the words themselves, most infantile phrases were used, certainly such as no adult would have suggested. Was it suggestion then from one unconscious to another? But this is to fall back upon a supposition of the "mediumistic" type, and takes no count of the cases of replies to questions which were unknown to everybody present, and brings us to the single dilemma: either there is intelligence in the human sense in the animal, or a relationship of the mediumistic type above described between the several minds concerned.

As to the interesting observations reported by Ferrari and Pulle, it seems to me opportune to quote here some extracts from the first of these distinguished authors.

"This séance was particularly interesting, because I find it recorded in my notes that a fact was verified three times consecutively, which had occurred sporadically more than once before, and had been observed and noted by us and various other witnesses.

"It consisted in this: While I was putting in the box the number of balls which I had intended the horse to read, the horse, which often could not even have seen the number of balls, because I covered them partly with my head and hands, tapped out the correct number.

"The same thing happened when I took in one hand a card, the signs on which it could only have read with difficulty, the light being rather bad. The most curious thing about it was that the taps were then made upon the whole more rapidly and less strongly than usual; and that several times later on the horse gave the same number itself with some little difficulty.

"It is also curious that it should have repeated the performance, seeing that it was only once rewarded for it, and that, because it was agreed that it had done its reading well. I must add that the person who assisted me told me that generally, even when it was giving correctly the number decided on, it hardly looked to see how I was placing the balls in the box....

"Once when I was arranging three balls, because some one standing behind the horse had made me the sign 3, the horse tapped its three beats behind my shoulders while stretching out its neck by my side in order to try to take a salad leaf, thus showing that it was taking very little interest in the sign which I held out to it and in the taps which it was making.

"Certainly, this time at least, the animal seemed to perform an automatic action, and it seemed to me that we had guessed subconsciously what the horse intended to do. This may appear a crooked hypothesis, but it is less difficult for me than to think that the horse had read in my mind the number which I had there. It certainly did nothing on most occasions to upset the fairly clear and precise impression that it was obeying some more or less complex determinism."

It seems to me difficult to avoid the impression that what has just been stated does not reveal a simple telepathic relationship but something rather more deep. The want of interest by the animal in its behaviour is for me symptomatic, and agrees perfectly well with the sensation of the observer that he also had to obey some obscure determinism. I see here another case of a combined psychical (partial) operation of a "mediumistic" kind; and this hypothesis makes very plausible the other no less impressive hypothesis of the observer that his mind was reading (in a subconscious way) the mind of the horse. I call this hypothesis of Ferrari impressive, because in this case it was due to a person who is certainly not to be suspected of dilettantism, and still less of any pseudo-scientific mysticism.

For the rest I repeat that "telepathy" also may co-exist along with "mediumistic" action. In a general way, telepathy would seem to assume in the animal a greater amount of "human" psychic affinity, whilst in mediumistic action I look upon the animal as reacting to the intervention of the other mind in a much more "automatic" way: almost like a "speaking table," but a table provided with live feet rather than inert legs, and above all provided with a nervous system forming part of it, so that very little action on the part of the medium is required, but the subliminal action of the investigator is enough by itself to work it. (Of course, this does not exclude altogether action by others or by the horse itself).

Krall admits the possibility of telepathy (but in a very limited measure): and then, if I remember right, he was looking finally for an explanation which to-day I should perhaps call of the mediumistic type, if I had been better acquainted with it; but in fact I had of him, in his lifetime, only some vague hint on the point.

As to Miss Kindermann, she recognises the possibility of transmission of thought in certain cases (e.g. when Lola is tired or is unwilling to "work" any more). According to her it would be a question of a line of least resistance, along which the "work" of the animal becomes more easy. Hence arises the necessity, as she maintains, for the investigator to be very careful of the danger of falsified results and to _abstain with this object from any intentional thought_. But these are the very conditions which "mediums" impose on investigators, and if these conditions are not observed, mediumistic séances seem only to be successful with difficulty. Therefore, in trying to resist the danger of telepathic falsification, and without indeed being aware of the resulting consequences, Lola's mistress may have contributed to create the very conditions most favourable to the development of mediumistic action.

V. THE HYPOTHESIS OF CONCOMITANT PSYCHICAL AUTOMATISM

In various parts of her book Miss Kindermann emphasizes the fact that after having given for some days "communications" of a certain kind, a sort of tiredness or annoyance, that gets hold of Lola, completely prevents the repetition of similar communications; but that repetition can take place if some weeks of rest are allowed in the subject which has provoked the tiredness.

In another place she mentions that, with the progress of Lola's "education," the dog's attitude towards herself, and other persons generally, became harder and more difficult, almost hostile (a fact which I find confirmed by certain answers of Lola's referred to elsewhere); just as if the canine consciousness as it gained illumination began to understand the many wrongs done to it by man, which formerly it knew nothing about.

Other observers have repeatedly stated that a capital fact in the story of "thinking" animals is the necessity, which they regard as proved, of a _progressive_ "education" directed at getting from the animal results proportionate to the instruction received.

All these observations and several others of a similar nature would seem to be arguments in favour of a presumed "intelligence" rather than of an automatism in the animal. But they should be accepted _cum grano_. They may indeed contain a good dose of involuntary suggestion, active or passive. And again, it seems to me, for instance, a very doubtful procedure to maintain, after a positive result has been achieved by the animal, that the result should have been on the other hand negative, if the education has not yet reached the corresponding stage of development; and vice versa. As for me, when I read what Miss Kindermann writes about the rapidity of Lola's progress, I cannot help thinking that, if the authoress had believed that she was able to obtain at once from the dog the results which she did obtain after a year's work, she would have obtained them fully and completely.

But this extreme supposition may be exaggerated. I have already repeatedly referred to the hypothesis that the psychic automatism in question may be only concomitant. That is, I am convinced from what I have seen myself and read that a foundation of intelligence, of logical reasoning and of self consciousness, must go to constitute in the animal the substratum on which the wonders of the "new zoopsychology" are built up.

At first I was rather inclined to believe (as so many others) that the facts discovered at Elberfeld and at Mannheim could and should be explained simply by the recognition of "intelligence" in the animal. The chief results obtained up to then (i.e. up to the date of my last publications on the subject), were the mathematical prodigies performed by Krall's horses, and the first "philosophic" manifestations of Rolf. I accordingly thought that I should be able to interpret the new (and, in its complexity, rather modest) canine "knowledge" by the animal's memory of words which it had heard. But since then the educators have taken pleasure in raising the whole level of these wonders. Rolf's "philosophy" was developed; and in the end they went so far as to make him compose poetry, as I have already had occasion to mention. Then came the performances of Lola. And at this point I, too, must say: "Too much, too much!" At least, as far as concerns the hypothesis of intelligence in the animal.

I understand perfectly that just on account of that "too much," people may be tempted to throw up the whole thing. But as far as I am concerned, I repeat that I do not consider myself justified in doing so. I do not forget the possible intervention of active or passive suggestion: I referred to this a short time ago. But a great abuse is often made of this explanation. In practice "suggestion" explains but little to any one who wants to get to the bottom of things. Neither does it explain the bulk of the facts of the "new zoopsychology." Neither do I forget that in this field also (as in every field of psychological experiments) there may be an interfering although subconscious misuse of spurious factors, such as signs (not intentional or perceptible) by the experimenter to the subject experimented with; a certain amount of falsification in interpretation of results on the part of the experimenters, etc.... But the irreducible residue of the facts is, in my opinion, still enormous as compared with the little that could perhaps be eliminated by these means from the discussion. Therefore, in the absence of anything better for the moment, and subject to further information, I hold to the hypothesis of a psychic automatism of the mediumistic type, as a concomitant phenomenon developed from the normal "rapport" which is _necessary_ and pre-existent.

This "rapport" is that of a master to a child; but to a very special kind of child, a "child" moreover who, from the biological point of view, has not been corrupted by the thousands of years of reasoning and society that weigh on the human child. It is, therefore, nearer to the "fountains of life" if I may be allowed to express myself in that way; and nearer to the mathematical potentiality (which was at first unself-conscious, but which has subsequently been developed). But, of course, it is not enough for mathematics "to be" in something, for that something to begin at once to tap numbers. The table of the mediumistic séances contains much mathematics (in its physical assemblage), but in order to make it "tap" there must be somebody to move it: in fact, a "medium." In my view, as soon as the animal subject has been able to understand "numbers"--and this postulate of the new zoopsychology, I repeat, I believe to be indispensable to the whole edifice--the animal finds itself sufficiently in harmony with the master to become capable (in principle) of all the subsequent "wonders."

This it is which constitutes the first discovery, as I have called it, of the "new zoopsychology." And on that discovery, in my opinion, are based through various gradations its chief results, on the supposition that at a certain moment there takes place a new specific action, the "déclanchement" of the mediumistic relationship between the animal and the experimenter. And it may be that the development of such a very special relationship between man and animals may be comparatively easy. That is, it may be that the animal is relatively easily _permeable_ by a mind provided with a reasoning intelligence (without, however, being itself aware of the logical content of such an intelligence), exactly because it is rather poor in logical self-conscious content--or, again, it may be, that the animal in a certain sense is nearer than we to the "fountains of life." (9).

The possibility of this "déclanchement" would therefore constitute the second and more serious discovery made by the educators of animals; although without their knowing it, as is proved by all their accounts which make no mention of it.

It is difficult to say what the precise moment is at which the grafting of this supernormal connexion on the normal one takes place. The most that I can say at present is this: that the grafting in question appears relatively to be quicker as regards the mathematical results. And this would lend an indirect support to the view that generally mathematics must be presupposed as underlying the phenomena. But the wonderful performances of Lola show that even so far as there is real "intelligence" in the animal, the supernormal relationship enters very quickly on the scene. In other words, the subject very quickly learns to express itself by means of a true "xenoglossy," i.e. by means of a language that may be clear to other people although it probably is not understood by the animal or medium making use of it.