Part 4

The results were such as to make me glad that it was another person than myself, so as to afford a disinterested witness to these matters, so difficult of belief. I repeat that Bob is a young American business man, priding himself on having no “crank” ideas; he has had a Socialist brother-in-law for ten years or more without being in the slightest degree affected in manners, morals, or convictions. Here is his first drawing, done on a half sheet of green paper. The word “CHAIR” underneath, and the date, were written by Bob, while the words “drawn by Bob Irwin” were added for purposes of record by Craig (Fig. 16):

And now for Craig’s results. I give her report verbatim, with the two drawings which are part of her text:

“At 10 o’clock or a little before, while sewing (without effort) I saw Bob take something from black sideboard—think it was the glass candlestick. At 11:15 (I concentrate now) I saw Bob sitting at dining room table—a dish or some small object in front of him (on N. E. corner table). I try to see the object on table—see white something at last. I can’t decide what it is so I concentrate on seeing his drawing on a green paper as it is about 11:20 now and I think he has made his drawing. I try hard to see what he has drawn—try to see a paper with a drawing on it, and see a straight chair. Am not sure of second drawing. It does not seem to be on his paper. It may be his bed-foot. I distinctly see a chair like 1st on his paper.” (Fig. 16a.)

When Bob and my wife discussed the above test, she learned that he had sat at the northeast corner of the table, trying to decide what to draw, and facing the sideboard on which were silver candlesticks. Later he went to his bedroom and lay down, gazing through the foot of his bed at the chair which he had taken as his model for the drawing. The bed has white bars running vertically, as in my wife’s second drawing. The chair, like Bob’s drawing, has the strips of wood supporting the back running crossways, and this feature is reproduced in Craig’s first drawing. Her report goes on to add that she sees a star and some straight lines, which she draws; they are horizontal parallel lines, as in the back of the chair. The back of the chair Bob had looked at had a carved star upon it.

The second attempt was the next day, and Bob drew his watch (Fig. 17). Craig first drew a chair, and then wrote, “But do not feel it is correct.” Then she drew the following (Fig. 17a):

The comment was: “I see this picture. Later I think it is not flower but wire (metal, shining). The ‘petals’ are not petals but wire, and should be _uniform_. This is hasty drawing so not exact as seen. What I mean is, I try to see Bob’s drawing and not what he drew from. So I see no flower but shape of one on paper. Then decide it is of wire, but this may be merely because I see drawing, which would have no flower color. However, I see it shining as if it is metal. Later a glass circle.” Drawings then show an ellipse, and then a drinking glass and a glass pitcher. It is interesting to note that Bob had in front of him a glass bowl with goldfish.

The next day Bob drew a pair of scissors (Fig. 18):

The drawings of Craig follow without comment (Figs. 18a, 18b):

Three days later Bob drew the table fork, which has already been reproduced (Fig. 1), and Craig made the report which has been given in facsimile (Fig. 1a): “See a table fork. Nothing else.”

One more test between Bob and Craig, the most sensational of all. It is quite a story, and I have to ask your pardon for the medical details involved. So much vital knowledge hangs upon these tests that I have asked my brother-in-law to forget his personal feelings. The reader will please consider himself a medical student or hospital nurse for the moment.

The test occurred July 11, 1928. My wife made her drawing, and then told me about the matter at once. Also she wrote out all the details and the record is now before me. She saw a feather, then a flower spray, and then she heard a scream. Her first thought in case of illness or danger is her aged parents, and she took it for her mother’s voice, and this so excited her that she lost interest in the experiment. But soon she concentrated again, and drew a series of concentric circles, with a heavy black spot in the center. Then she saw another and much larger spot, and this began to spread and cover the sheet of paper. At the same time came a feeling of intense depression, and Craig decided that the black spot was blood, and that Bob had had a hemorrhage. Here is her drawing (Fig. 19a):

Two or three days later Bob’s wife drove him to our home, and in the presence of all four of us he produced the drawing he had made. He had taken a compass and drawn a large circle; making, of course, a hole in the center of the paper. “Is that all you thought of during the time?” asked my wife. “No,” said Bob, “but I’d hate to have you get the rest of it.” “What was it?” “Well, I discovered that I had a hemorrhoid, and couldn’t put my mind on anything else but the thought, ‘My God, my lungs—my kidneys—and now this!’”

A hemorrhoid is, of course, apt to be accompanied by a hemorrhage; and it seems clear that my wife got the mood of depression of her brother-in-law, his thoughts of blood and bodily breakdown, as well as the circle and the hole in the paper. There is another detail which does not appear in the written record, but is fixed in my memory. My wife said: “I wanted to draw a little hill.” Upon hearing that, I called up a physician friend who is interested in these tests, and asked him what a drawing of a hemorrhoid would look like, and he agreed that “a little hill” was about as near as one could come. I hope you will note that this particular drawing test is supported by the testimony of four different persons, my wife, her sister, the sister’s husband, and myself. I do not see how there could possibly be more conclusive evidence of telepathic influence—unless you suspect all four of us of a series of stupid and senseless falsehoods. Let me repeat that Bob and his wife have read this manuscript and certified to its correctness so far as concerns them. The comment written by my wife reads: “All this dark like a stain—feel it is blood; that Bob is ill—more than usual.”

(Note: Bob Irwin died not long afterwards.)

_8_

The experiments just described were all that were done with Bob, because he found them a strain. Craig asked me to make some drawings for her, and I did so, sitting in the next room, some thirty feet away, but always behind a closed door. Thus you may verify my assertion that the telepathic energy, whatever it may be, knows no difference between thirty feet and forty miles. The results with Bob and with myself were about the same.

The first drawings made with me are those which have already been given (Figs. 2, 2a), but I give them again for the sake of convenience. 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.

After my wife and I had compared the above drawings, she wrote a note to the effect that just before starting to concentrate, she had been looking at her drawing of many concentric circles, which she had made in a test with Bob the previous day (Fig. 19a). So her first vision was of a whirl of circles. This turned sideways, and then took the shape of an arrowhead, and then of a letter A, and finally evolved into a complete star. As the agent in this test, I wish to repeat that I made my drawing in my study with the door closed, that I kept the drawing before my eyes the entire time, and that the door stayed closed until Craig called that she was through.

I do not find it easy to concentrate on a drawing, because my active mind wanders off to side issues. If I draw a lighted cigarette, I immediately think of the odious advertising now appearing in the papers; or I think: “Will Craig get this right, and what does it mean, and will the world accept evidence on this subject from me?”—and so on. Several times my wife has “got” such thoughts, and so we took to noting them on the record. On July 29, I drew a cigarette, with two little curls for smoke, each running off like a string of the letter “eeeee,” written by hand. Underneath I wrote as follows: “My thought: ‘cigarette with curls of smoke.’ I said to myself these words: ‘she got the curls but not the cigarette.’” This would appear to be telepathy coming from Craig to me, for her drawing was found to contain a lot of different curves—a curly capital S, several other half circles twisted together, and three ??? one inside the other. She added the following words: “I can’t draw it, but curls of some sort.”

Again, here is a work of art from my facile pen, dated July 21, and having underneath my notation: “Concentrated on bald head” (Fig. 20).

My wife’s note was: “Saw Upton’s face.” Then she drew a line through the words, and wrote the following explanation: “Saw two half circles. Then they came together making full circle. But I felt uncertain as to whether they belonged together or not. Then suddenly saw Upton’s profile float across vision.”

July 20 I drew a three-pronged fork, and made the note that I was not sure if it was a hay-fork or an oyster-fork, and decided it was the latter, whereupon my mind went off to “society” people and their many kinds of forks. Craig wrote: “I thought it was an animal’s head with horns and the head was on a long stick—a trophy mounted like this”—and she drew a two-pronged fork.

July 17 I drew a large round stone with a smaller stone on top: at least so I thought, and then decided they were two eggs. Craig drew two almost tangent circles, and wrote: “I see two round things, not one inside the other, as in Bob’s drawing of circles. Then the above vanished and I saw as below”—and she drew four little oblongs, tangent, which might be a cluster of fish-eggs or fly-eggs.

July 20 I drew two heavy straight lines making a capital letter T, and Craig drew a complete cross or square X, which is, of course, the T with vertical arm prolonged. July 14 I drew a sort of jack-lantern. It is on next page (Fig. 21). I looked at this drawing and thought of the eyes of M.C.S., and said mentally, “I should have drawn the curves over eyes.” Afterwards I told Craig about this, and she noted it down on the drawing. On the reverse side of the sheet she added the following: “I told U. it was shaped like a half moon with something in center—I supposed it must be a star, though I did not see it as star but as indistinct marks.” Her drawing follows, turned upside down for greater convenience (Fig. 21a):

_9_

A new method of experiment invented itself by accident; and makes perhaps the strangest story yet. There came a letter from a clergyman in South Africa, saying that he was sending me a copy of his wife’s novel dealing with South African life. I get many letters from strangers, and answer politely, and as a rule forget them quickly. Some time afterwards came two volumes, entitled, “Patricia, by Marcus Romondt,” and I did not associate them with the clergyman’s letter. I glanced at the preface, and saw that the work had something to do with the religious cults of the South African natives. I didn’t read more than twenty lines—just enough to classify the book as belonging in Craig’s department. Everything having to do with philosophy, psychology, religion and medicine is first read by her, and then fed back to me in her eager discourses. I took the volumes home and laid them on her table, saying, “This may interest you.” The remark attracted no special attention, for the reason that I bring her a book, or a magazine, or some clippings at least once a day. She did not touch these volumes, nor even glance at the title while I was in the room.

I went into the kitchen to get some lunch, and when it was ready I called, “Are you going to eat?” “Let me alone,” she said, “I am writing a story.” That also is a common experience. I ate my lunch in silence, and then came into the living room again, and there was Craig, absorbed in writing. Some time later she came to me, exclaiming, “Oh, I have had the most marvelous idea for a story! Something just flashed over me, something absolutely novel—I never heard anything like it. I have a whole synopsis. Do you want to hear it?” “No,” I said, “you had better go and eat”—for it was my job to try to keep her body on earth. “I can’t eat now,” she said, “I am too excited. I’ll read a while and get quiet.” So she went to her couch, and there was a minute or two of silence, and then an exclamation: “Come here!”

Craig had picked up one of the two volumes from South Africa, and was staring at it. “Look at this!” she said. “Look what I opened to!” I looked at a page in the middle of the book—she has the devilish habit of reading a book that way—and in the center of the page, in capital letters, I read the words: “THE BLACK MAGICIAN.” “What about it?” I said. “Did you ever hear of that idea?” asked Craig. I answered that I had, and she said, “Well, I never did. I thought it was my own. It is the theme of the ‘story’ I have just been writing. I have made a synopsis of a whole chapter in this book, and without ever having touched it!”

So Craig had a new set of experiments to try all by herself, without bothering her busy husband. She would go to one of my bookcases, with which she had hitherto had nothing to do, since her own books are kept in her own place. With her back to the bookcase, she would draw a book, and take it to her couch and lie down, placing the book upon her solar plexus, and taking every precaution to make sure that it never came into her line of vision. Most of the books, being new, were in their paper jackets, so there was no lettering that could be felt with her fingers. This, you note, is not a test of telepathy, for no human mind knew what particular book Craig’s hand had fallen upon. If she could tell anything about the contents of that book, it would appear to be clairvoyance, or what is known as “psychometry.”

My books are oddly varied in character. There are new novels, and works of history, biography, travel and economics. In addition, there are what I call “crank books”; the queerly assorted volumes which are destined by donors all over the world to convert me to vegetarianism, antivivisection, anarchism, Mormonism, Mohammedanism, infanticide, the abolition of money, or the doctrine that alopecia is caused by onanism. Believe me, the person who sets out to guess the contents of the books that come to me in the course of a month has his or her hands full!

But Craig was able to do it. She did it on so many occasions that she would sit and stare at me and exclaim, “Now what do you make of _that_?” She would insist that I sit and watch the process, so as to be able to state that she never had the book in her line of vision. In my presence she picked out a volume, and, keeping it hidden from both of us, she said, “I see a blue cover, with a rising sun and a bare landscape.” It happened to be a volume circulated by the followers of “Pastor Russell,” and as the preface tells me that 1,405,000 have been sold, it may be that you too have it in your library. The title is _Deliverence_, by J. F. Rutherford, and it has a blue cloth cover, with a gold design of a sun rising behind a mass of clouds and a globe.

On another occasion Craig wrote: “One big eye, with nothing else distinct—then lines or spikes came around it, or maybe these project from the head like stiff long hairs, or eye-lashes. Can’t tell what kind of head—but feel it must be a tropical something, tho the eye looks human,” etc. The book was _Mr. Blettsworthy on Rampole Island_, by H. G. Wells, and in this book is a chapter headed, “The Friendly Eye,” with the following sentences: “I became aware that an Eye observed me continually.... It was a reddish brown eye. It looked out from a system of bandages that also projected a huge shock of brown hair upward and a great chestnut beard ... the eye watched me with the illuminating but expressionless detachment of a head-lamp.... Polyhemus, for that was my private name for the man.”

A long string of such surprises! Craig picked up a book and wrote: “Black wings—a vampire flying by night.” The title of the book was _The Devil’s Jest_. She picked up one and wrote: “A Negro’s head with a light around it.” It is a German volume, called “Africa Singt,” and has a big startling design exactly as described. She picked up a book by Leon Trotsky, and wrote the word “Checkro”—which may not sound like Russian to Trotsky, but does to Craig! And a book with Mussolini on the cover, wearing a black coat and feeding a lion: she got the shape of the Duce’s figure, only she labeled him “Black Bird.” And here is a part of the jacket design of “wings” on the “Literary Guild” books—and below is what Craig made of it. She added the comment: “Motion—the thing is traveling, point first (Fig. 22, 22a).”

Another volume was described as follows: “A pale blue book. Lonely prairie country, stretch of flat land against sky, and outlined against it a procession of people. Had feeling of moving—wheeled vehicle which seemed to be baby-carriage. This was strange, because country was covered with snow.” Upon examination, the book proved to be bound in mottled pale blue boards, title, “I’m Scairt,” with subtitle, “Childhood Days on the Prairies.” On the first page of the preface occurs the following: “It was in those days that a company of Swedes left their beloved homeland in the far North and came to make a home for themselves and their children on the Kansas prairie.”

Finally, I have obtained the publisher’s consent to reproduce the jacket design of a recent book, so that I may put Craig’s telepathy alongside it, and give you a laugh or two. Observe the jolly little tourists, and what they have turned into! And then the efforts of Craig’s subconscious mind at French. They taught it to her in a “finishing school” on Fifth Avenue, and you can see that it was finished before it began (Figs. 23, 23a).

Yet another form of experiment invented itself under the pressure of necessity. Impossible to have such a witch-wife without trying to put her to use!

I have the habit of working out a chapter of a new book in my head, and writing down a few notes on a scrap of paper, and sticking it away in any place that is handy; then, next day, or whenever I am ready for work, it is gone, and there is the devil to pay. I wander about the house for an hour or two, trying to imagine where I can have put that scrap of paper, and reluctant to do the work all over again. On one occasion I searched every pocket, my desk, the trash-baskets, and then, deciding that I had dropped it outdoors, where I work with my typewriter, I figured the direction of the wind, and picked up all the scraps of paper I saw decorating the landscape of our beach home. Then I decided it must be in a manuscript which I had given to a friend in Los Angeles, and I was about to phone to that friend, when Craig asked what the trouble was, and said, “Come, let’s make an experiment. Lie down here, and describe the paper to me.”

I told her, a sheet off a little pad, written on both sides, and folded once. She took my hand, and went into her state of concentration, and said, “It is in the pocket of a gray coat.” I answered, “Impossible; I have searched every coat in the house half a dozen times.” She said, “It is in a pocket, and I will get it.” She got up off the couch, and went to a gray coat of mine, and in a pocket I had somehow overlooked, there was the paper! Let me add that Craig had had nothing to do with my clothing in the interim, and had never seen the paper, nor heard of it until I began roaming about the house, grumbling and fussing. Neither of us know of any “normal” way by which her subconscious mind could have got this information.

My secretary lost two screw-caps of the office typewriter, and I said to my wife, “I will bring him over, and you see if you can tell him where to look.” But my wife was ill, and did not want to meet any one, so she said, “I will see if I can get it through you.” Be it understood, Craig has not been in the office in a year, and has met my secretary only casually. She said, “I see him standing up at his typewriting.” That is an unusual thing for a typist to do, but it happened to be true. Said Craig: “He has put the screw-caps on something high. They are in the south room, above the level of any table or desk.” I went to the phone to ask my secretary, and learned that he had just found the screws, which he had put on top of a window-sash in the south room.

The third incident requires the statement that, a few months back, while my wife was away, our home had been loaned to friends, and I had camped at the little house which I was using as an office. Some medical apparatus had been left there; at least I had a vague impression that I had had it there, and I said, “I’ll go and look.” Said Craig: “Let’s try an experiment.” She took my hand, and told me to make my mind a blank, and presently she said, “I see it under the kitchen sink.” I went over to the office, and found the object, not under the sink, but under the north end of the bathtub. I took it back to the house, and before I spoke a word, my wife said: “I tried to get you on the phone. I concentrated again, and saw the thing and wrote it out.” She gave me a slip of paper, from which I copy: “Down under something, wrapped in paper—on N. side of room—under laundry tub on floor or under bath tub on floor in N. corner.”

You may say, of course, if you are an incurable skeptic: “The man’s wife had been over to the office and seen the object; she had been searching his pockets, and had seen the paper.” Craig is positive that she did nothing of the sort; but of course it is conceivable that she may have done it and then forgotten it. Therefore, I pass on to a different and more acceptable kind of evidence—a set of drawing tests, in which I watched and checked every step of the proceedings at my wife’s insistence. Here again I am a co-equal witness with her, and the skeptic has no alternative but to say that the two of us have contrived this elaborate hoax, making nearly three hundred drawings with fake reproductions, in order to get notoriety, or to sell a few books. I really hope nobody will say that is possible. Very certainly I could sell more books with less trouble by writing what the public wants; and if I were a dishonest man, I should not have waited until the age of fifty-one to begin such a career.

_10_