Part 16

1. If advantage were to be taken of the relaxation of precautions it would plainly be but for one purpose, to increase the number or the excellence of favorable results, or both. But neither the number nor the excellence of favorable results was enhanced. On the contrary, not at once, but by a general though irregular decline, the results deteriorated. The last 120 experiments of the period covered by the book brought about half again as many complete Failures as the first 120 had done. Mr. Sinclair reminds us that “Series No. 6 which was carefully sealed up, produced 4 complete Successes, 5 Partial Successes, and no Failures; whereas Series 21, which was not put in envelopes at all, produced no complete Successes, 3 Partial Successes, and 6 Failures.” The declension, which has been noted in experiments with other persons, continued, in irregular fashion, after the period of the book. We have already noted that the worst consecutive run of 27 experiments during that last period yielded 19 Failures, while the worst consecutive run of experiments during the period of the book yielded but 10 Failures. Nor is there ever again, after precautions were relaxed, a single consecutive run of seven experiments with quite such astounding results as those of the first seven experiments of all, with “Bob,” at some thirty miles distance in an air-line. Hence the percipient took no advantage of the relaxation of conditions, or she did so to make her work poorer on the average than it had been, which is against human nature and practically inconceivable.

2. It was almost silly to go further after fixing the fact that the opening up of opportunities for improving results by clandestine means was followed not by improvement but deterioration of results. But an examination was made to see whether the drawings underwent any modification such as would rather be expected from the introduction of a new causative factor. None; they continued to express in seemingly the same proportions, some the shape, some the idea. Still in many cases they were unrecognizable as any namable object, yet when compared with the original, showed more or less of its marked characteristics.

3. We even went so far as to compare the most of the later drawings with what could be seen of them folded and in envelopes, but unenclosed in opaque paper, when held up to the light. To be sure, Mrs. Sinclair had been accustomed to subdue the light, to lie with closed eyes in such a position that only the ceiling would have been visible had they been open, and to hold the envelope, or after the envelope itself was discarded, the paper in her hand lying on her solar plexus, all of which is an arrangement ill-adapted to “peeking.” And, to be sure, Mr. Sinclair would have been considerably surprised had he come in and found a different situation. But our experiments were meant to test whether, on the supposition that she did alter her procedure, her drawings were such as would have been explained by what was seen, even accidentally, through the folded paper held up to the light. Certainly, in that case, there would have been signs of the selection of heavy lines which showed through clearly, and some evidence of the effects from the paper being doubled. The result of the tests was negative.

It is concluded, mainly on the basis of Section 1 above, but assisted by Sections 2 and 3 were assistance necessary, that Mrs. Sinclair was as honest when unwatched as when watched, since, had fraud been used, it would have left traces. But, let me reiterate, I am favorable to any proposition to take into account only the guarded experiments, or even those guarded to an extent beyond cavil.

Would Involuntary Whispering Explain?

F. C. C. Hansen and Alfred Lehmann, Danish psychologists, in 1895 published a pamphlet of 60 pages entitled _Über Unwillkürliches Flüstern_ (_On Involuntary Whispering_). This brochure reported experiments by the authors which, they claimed, showed that the apparent success in telepathic transmissions of numbers achieved under the control of representatives of the S. P. R. and published in its _Proceedings_ (Vols. VI and VIII) might not have been due to telepathy, but to involuntary whispering with closed lips. Messrs. Hansen and Lehmann sat between concave spherical mirrors so that the concentration of sound, their heads occupying the foci, would presumably be an equivalent for the hyperaesthesia of a _hypnotized_ “percipient.” Each in turn acted as agent, to see if figures could be conveyed by “involuntary whispering,” and seemed to have a large degree of success. How it is possible to test whether audible whispering can be produced with closed lips and do so without the exercise of volition is something of a mystery. And how they could be certain that some factor of telepathy did not enter into their own experiments is not clear.[26] But Professor Sidgwick, who five years before Hansen and Lehmann’s pamphlet had considered and discussed the possibility of “unconscious whispering,”[27] later instituted experiments of his own and concluded that something in this direction was possible. But he, William James and others thoroughly riddled the Hansen and Lehmann dream that perhaps they had explained the published S. P. R. series of experiments for the transfer of numbers. For one thing, a part of the experiments had been with the parties in different rooms. And the notion that when the voluntarily involuntary whisper[28] of a digit was misheard, a digit whose name somewhat resembled was most likely to be selected by the agent, was riddled too, so far as it applied to the English experiments. The Danish gentlemen had never claimed that their explanatory theory was proved, but only that it was probable. Later they quite frankly acknowledged that the Sidgwick and James “experiments and computations” had weakened even its probability.

Since their pamphlet had attracted much and widespread interest, as it deserved to do, and since if they could establish or even strengthen the probability of their theory it would mean a restoration and enhancement of their prestige, set back by the counter-strokes of Sidgwick, James, Schiller and others, it would seem that the inducement not to stop short, but to go on with the experimentation would be almost irresistible. But they either did stop there or their results were disappointing, for nothing more, so far as I can learn, was ever heard from them on this subject.

Nevertheless, the possibility, especially on the part of a hyperaesthetic percipient, of catching, to some extent, the sound of unintended whispering by the agent stationed nearby, especially where there is no guarantee that his lips are always closed, must be admitted. This possibility has impressed some investigators, and especially Herr Richard Baerwald, even beyond all logical grounds. The named writer has said _also fort mit den Nahversuchen_ (so away with near-experimentation)! I certainly agree that experiments for telepathy should be made with sufficient space between agent and percipient to make the suggestion that there may have been some perception of involuntary whispering manifestly incredible and absurd. Such was Mrs. Sinclair’s success under such conditions as to make it probable that if there had been many scores of experiments under the same conditions a like staggering ratio of success would have been maintained. Nevertheless, I must maintain that the involuntary whispering theory fails to touch many of the Sinclair experiments attended with one or another degree of success, considering their nature and the peculiar character of the percipient drawings.

In the first place, let me observe that where the experiments were to transfer numbers the range of choice on the part of the percipient, endeavoring to interpret any faintly heard indications by the posited involuntary whispering, was strictly limited. If the agent were to choose a figure from one to naught inclusive, the percipient’s range for guessing would be but ten digits. If the agent was to choose some figure from one to ninety-nine inclusive, the range for guessing would of course be greater, yet more limited than at first appears to be the case. There would be the ten digits, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, and in addition only combinations from among the foregoing or made up of a digit with “teen” or “ty” added. But where the agent drew whatever he pleased, generally an object, his range was unlimited, and the task of the percipient interpreting any indications by involuntary whispering would be much more difficult. But still it would be theoretically possible. So we turn to the next and overwhelming point.

Whenever the agent’s drawing was one which could be indicated by a name, and the percipient’s result corresponded to the extent covered by the name, it is easy to apply the theory of involuntary whispering if the agent was near the percipient. Granting that this was the case (which often, as will appear later, we cannot grant, since the facts forbid it), it is easy theoretically to explain the response “Sailboat” to the drawing of a sailboat. We have only to suppose that the agent was so intently interested that, unknown to himself, he faintly whispered the name, and that the percipient, having _ex hypothesi_, abnormal alertness of hearing, caught the word, or enough of it so that she successfully guessed the whole. Still easier is it to imagine the transmission of Y in the series of January 28–29. The agent, being absorbed and desirous, simply whispered “Y, Y, Y,” until the percipient got it. The reader may pick for himself other plausible instances in Mr. Sinclair’s book, or even from the materials furnished in this Bulletin, such as the helmet experiment (Figs. 5, 5a). It is even conceivable that the agent’s eye, flitting over the drawing of the peacock (Fig. 75) caused him to whisper “long neck” and “spots” or “eyes” (Fig. 75a), although no spots appear in this drawing and “peacock” is the word he would be expected to whisper, if any. But every increasing complexity in the agent’s drawing, which finds duplication in that of the percipient, every increasing difficulty of defining the drawing by one or two words increases the difficulty of the explanation. Take the remarkable correspondence between Figures 7, 7a. The agent, it seems, would have to whisper the following, or its equivalent: “Cross” (or “radiating figure”), “eight arms” (or “many arms”), “arms not made of a single line but having breadth,” “notches in the ends.” That is a lot for the agent to whisper, and it appears improbable, but maybe it is “conceivable.”

A much-esteemed friend writes me: “Those willing to press the unconscious whispering hypothesis to its extreme consequences need not invariably postulate the _transmission direct_ of a word. They may go further. Let us suppose that in an experiment at close quarters the name thought of by the agent is ‘Napoleon,’ and that the percipient gets a small island and the name ‘Helen.’ It is theoretically conceivable that, nevertheless, the explanation is to be sought in involuntary whispering; the name ‘Napoleon’ was perceived in a normal way (unconsciously) and then in the percipient’s subconscious _transformed_ into an idea associated with Napoleon’s name. I do not say this is my opinion, but what I do say is that such an hypothesis is no more absurd than other ‘explanations’ put forward in the sphere of psychical research. Anyhow, experiments at close quarters seem to be open to the grave objection that some competent investigators reject them altogether—whatever we may think of the grounds of such objection.”

Conceivable, yes, though hardly likely. When a medium for “automatic” writing or speaking is in undoubted trance, she habitually makes direct response to any intimations from without, and it is common to make it a reproach that she makes direct and unblushing use of any information inadvertently dropped by a person present. Why the subconscious should act in so devious a fashion in another species of experimentation, why it should either from device or some mechanism now set in motion withhold the word “Napoleon” caught from the agent’s involuntary whispering and set down instead words significantly associated with Napoleon, is something of a puzzle. The trance-medium’s subconscious, according to the explanation theory, is always eager to shine, and takes advantage of every source of information or inference to improve its product. Yet the subconsciousness of the percipient in experiments for telepathy, having heard the word “Napoleon” involuntarily whispered, deliberately avoids achieving a full success! If done at all, I should judge this was consciously done, that the percipient consciously heard and consciously avoided the word. And this is conceivable.

_But that there should be so many reproductions which strikingly resemble the originals in shape, yet which do not represent the objects which the agent drew, and have no more ideational connection with them than can be traced between a cockroach and an archangel, or between a violin and an eel, and yet that the explanation for the correspondences should lurk in the involuntary whispering of the agent, I maintain is practically inconceivable._ Between Figures 25 and 25a there is an unmistakable close resemblance of shape, in each two lines forming an inverted and sprawling V, with a swirl of lines in each forming a similar shape of similar dimensions proceeding in the same direction from the apex. But the percipient wholly misinterpreted the meaning of what she was impressed to draw. What affinity is there between an active volcano and a “big black beetle with horns”? Run through all the terms you can think of which the agent could have involuntarily whispered descriptive of his drawing, if he whispered anything—“volcano,” “mountain,” “smoke,” “angle,” etc., and what could possibly have suggested the impression which the percipient received? Look at Figures 118, 118a in the same series, and ask what the agent could have whispered about his caterpillar which should suggest a shape considerably resembling that of the caterpillar but intended to represent a long narrow leaf with serrated edge. To be sure, a caterpillar sometimes walks on a leaf, as a big black beetle may perhaps light on the side of a volcano, but surely it will not be concluded that the agent would have whispered so discursive a remark. Whispering “caterpillar” would not result in “leaf,” and if “legs” had been whispered, surely legs would have resulted and “many” would at least have increased their number beyond the number of points in the reproduction. View again Figures 108 and 108a in the same series with the two foregoing. If the agent whispered anything, would it not have been “hand,” solely first and principally? Imagine, if you please, that he also whispered “thumb sticking up.” But a negro’s head is not a hand, nor what the word “hand” would suggest, nor does a thumb ever grow out of a negro’s head, yet out of this negro’s head rises that projection curiously like a thumb. Neither would “hand” suggest a “pig’s head,” yet the pig’s ear resembles the thumb, and the rest of the head carries a certain amount of analogy with the hand. Again, “rabbit’s head” is written, but little more than the ears are drawn, each a thumb-like projection, and as in the other attempts at reproduction and in the original, straight upward. There is no association of ideas between a hand and a pig’s or rabbit’s head. Look at Figure 20, representing a coiled snake, and read again the description of her impressions which the percipient wrote. Between the snake and much of that description there _is_ an association of ideas which we can follow. The whispered word “snake” might naturally rouse a picture of the fright which the apparition of a snake inflicts upon birds and small animals. While it does not seem like either the conscious or subconscious, having heard the word “snake,” which surely would have been the first and foremost one to whisper, to suppress it and make a clear success a debatable one, we admit that this is “conceivable.” But what about the “saucer of milk”? The agent may theoretically be supposed to whisper “snake,” “coiled,” “tail,” “head,” but hardly “saucer.” I may here be reminded that some snakes drink milk, whether from a saucer or any other receptacle. But in Mrs. Sinclair’s imagery it is a kitten that is associated with the milk—a much more common combination. Leaving this case, which is conceivably conceivable as the result of involuntary whispering plus a strange effort to spoil a success in hand, let us turn to the series of February 15th. Most of its members are to the point, but we will mention only a few. What association of ideas is there between a spigot and a dog’s leg (Figs. 96, 96a)? The name “Napoleon” might indeed cause one to think of an island named St. Helena, or another one named Elba, or a woman named Josephine. But why on earth should the whispered word “spigot” cause one to think of a dog’s leg and “front foot”? The association of ideas is not there, but the curiously resembling particulars of shape are there. Whatever the agent may be supposed to whisper in connection with the drawing shown in Figure 98, surely “box” would be a part of it. And as surely, if the three marks of the box were mentioned in the whispering they would have been called “crosses,” and not “stars” or “sparks” as in the reproduction. And “crosses” do not naturally suggest either stars or sparks. Figures 94 and 94a unquestionably have resemblances in general shape, in the two pedals which are transformed into feet, in vertical lines within the periphery. But why should the word “harp” bring a woman’s skirt and feet peeping beneath it? Perhaps we shall be told it is because a woman plays on a harp. A _woman_ does, yes, but not half a woman, and that half standing so that her skirt takes the form of a harp. If conceivable that “Napoleon” should rouse a vision of an island and induce the drawing of an island, would the island take the shape of half of Napoleon’s body? The mind, conscious or subconscious, does not act in that fashion. Again, the percipient’s drawing which was the sequel to the agent’s balloon (Figs. 95, 95a) is not by itself recognizable as a balloon, and was not recognized by the percipient as a balloon, for she wrote, as we inadvertently neglected earlier to state, “Shines in sunlight, must be metal, a scythe hanging among vines or strings.” The involuntarily whispered word “balloon” would hardly, by any association of ideas, have led to such a reaction; nor would the agent have whispered “half a balloon” or “scythe.” But we _can_ understand how the agent’s eye may have dwelt upon one side or half of the balloon and how his attention may have wandered to the cords, with corresponding telepathic results. See Figures 92, 92a. Here the analogies of form, although imperfect, are nevertheless unmistakable, but what association of ideas could have led from the involuntarily whispered word “chain” or “links,” to “eggs” and “smoke,” or to “curls of something coming out of the end of an egg”? At a later date the agent drew a mule’s head and neck, with breast-strap crossing the lower part of his neck, forming a strip curving very slightly up from the horizontal. The percipient’s drawing is of the head and part of the neck of a cow, turned in the same direction. The long ears of the mule have become the horns of the cow, and matching the breast-strap of the mule there appears a narrow horizontally extended parallelogram in front of the cow’s neck and extremity of its muzzle, which last the percipient seemingly tries to explain by the script “Cow’s head in ‘stock.’” But if the agent involuntarily whispered “mule,” it would hardly suggest a cow, if he whispered “long ears,” it should not have resulted in long horns, if “breast-strap” or “strap” or “harness,” this would hardly bring as its reaction the narrow parallelogram, which, whatever it is, is manifestly no part of a harness. The resemblances in shape are distinct and unmistakable, but they are incomprehensible as the result of overheard whispering. Or look again at Figures 78, 78a. The percipient, especially in the first of her two drawings, very nearly reproduces the original, but the barb of the fishhook has become a tiny flower with a curving stem. The resemblance in shape is exceedingly impressive, but what words could have been whispered about a fishhook which by association of ideas led to the flower?

So we might go on citing examples in the same category, which the doctrine of transformation by association of ideas of words whispered and heard utterly fails to explain. But the reader may find them for himself, either in this Bulletin or from the wider range of illustrations in _Mental Radio_.[29]

Concluding Observations

We have remarked that if there was involuntary whispering, it could easily explain the percipient response “Sailboat,” and that by no circumambulatory process but by direct reaction, since the original drawing was a sailboat and “sailboat” would be the most natural if not inevitable word for an agent, intent on the experiment, and anxious for its success, to whisper involuntarily. The same may be said of the goat (Fig. 138), the chair (Figs. 16, 16a), the fork (Figs. 1, 1a), the star (Figs. 2, 2a)—except the extraordinary correspondence of odd shape, and the man’s face (Fig. 20). But the star and man’s face results were obtained when the agent was thirty feet away in another room with closed door between, while the agent looked at it but probably did not whisper so as not to attract his own attention but to be audible through walls for thirty feet. The chair and the fork were reproduced when the agent was some thirty miles away. The sailboat and goat were made in the latter period when the percipient was left alone with the drawings, and involuntary whispering is not a possible explanation. Part of the other examples given are from the period when Mr. Sinclair sat in the same room and watched the percipient’s work, and partly from the later unguarded period.

So, in order to explain the results of the experiments as a whole they have to be divided into three categories, and a different theory applied to each.

I. Experiments in which the agent was near the percipient. Theory: _Involuntary Whispering_. Insuperable difficulty in applying the theory: _Many of the percipient drawings are shaped significantly like the originals in whole or in parts, yet do not represent the same objects as do the originals, or objects which whispered words relevant to the original objects would suggest, directly or by association of ideas._

II. Experiments of the later stage when the percipient was left alone unwatched with the original drawings in her possession. Theory: _Conscious or unconscious inspection of the original drawings_. Difficulty which the theory faces: _The results did not improve or undergo alterations due to a new cause during the unguarded period_.