Part 7

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.

“Jack London tried to solve this problem by putting a sign on the front door which read, ‘Go to the back door,’ and on the back door one which read, ‘Go to the front door.’ But when I tried this, one seeker of inspiration took his seat halfway between the two doors, and declared that he would remain there the rest of his life, or until his wishes were acceded to. Another hid himself in the swimming-pool, and rose up from its depths to confront me in the dusk, when, as it happened, I was alone on the place, and went out into the garden for a breath of air. A third announced that he had a million dollars to present to my husband in person, and would not be persuaded to depart until my brother invited him to go downtown to supper, and so got him into a car. Having faithfully fed the hungry millionaire, my brother drove him to the police-station, where, after a serious talking-to by the chief, he consented to carry his million dollars away. A fourth introduced himself by mail as having just been released from the psychopathic ward in Los Angeles, and intending to call upon us, for reasons not stated. A fifth announced himself by telephone, as intending to come at once and shoot my husband on sight. Yet another, seven feet tall and broad in proportion, announced that he had a revelation direct from God, and had come to have the manuscript revised. When politely asked as to its nature, he rose up, towering over my none too husky spouse and declaring that no human eye had ever beheld it, and no human eye would ever be permitted to behold it. Such experiences, as a continuing part of a woman’s life, do not lead her to seek publicity; they tend rather to develop a persecution complex.

“Speaking seriously, I consider that I have every evidence of the effect of people’s thoughts on each other. And my distrust of human nature, in its present stage of evolution, is so great, that the idea of having many persons concentrate their attention on me is an idea from which I shrink. I agree with Richet that the fact of telepathy is one of the most terrifying in existence; and nothing but a deep love of truth has induced me to let this very personal story be told in print.”

Next, what about the possibility of unconscious fraud? This also is a question to be frankly met. All students of psychology know that the subconscious mind has dubious morals. One has only to watch his own dreams to discover this. A person in a trance is similar to one talking or walking in sleep, or a drunken man, or one under the influence of a drug. But in this case it must be noted that my wife has never been in a trance. In these mind-reading tests, no matter how intense the “concentration,” there is always a part of her mind which knows what she is doing. If you speak to her, she is immediately “all there.” When she has her mental pictures, she sits up and makes her drawing, and compares it with mine, and this is a completely conscious act.

Moreover, I point out that a great deal of the most impressive evidence does not depend upon Craig alone. The five drawings with her brother-in-law, Figures 1, 16, 17, 18, 19, constitute by themselves evidence of telepathy sufficient to convince any mind which is open to conviction. While it would have been possible for Craig and Bob to hoax Dollie and me, it could certainly not have been done without Bob’s connivance. If you suggest that my wife and my brother-in-law may have been fooling me, I reply that there is a still greater mass of evidence which could not have been a hoax without my connivance. When I go into my study alone—a little sun-parlor at the front of a beach-house, with nothing but a couch, a chair and a table—I certainly know that I am alone; and when I make a drawing and hold it before my eyes for five or ten minutes, I certainly know whether any other person is seeing it. This covers the drawings presented as Figures 2, 20, and 21, with four others told about in the same series. It seems to me these seven cases by themselves are evidence of telepathy sufficient to convince any open mind.

Furthermore, there are the several score drawings which I made in my study and sealed up in envelopes, taking them to my wife and watching her lay them one by one upon her body and write down more or less accurately what was in them. I certainly know whether I was alone when I made the drawings, and whether I made the contents of the envelopes invisible, and whether my wife had any opportunity to open the envelopes before she made her drawings. Of course, I understand the familiar conjuring trick whereby you open one envelope, and hide it in your palm, and pretend to be describing the next one while really describing the one you have seen. But I would stake my life upon the certainty that my wife knows no sleight-of-hand, and anyhow, I made certain that she did not open the first one; I sat and watched her, and after each test she handed me the envelopes and drawings, one by one—the envelopes having previously been numbered by me. She would turn out the reading-light which was immediately over her head, but there was plenty of light from other parts of the room, enough so that I could look at drawings as they were shown to me. Often these tests were done in the daytime, and then all we did was to pull down the window-shades back of the couch.

It should be obvious that I stand to lose much more than I stand to gain by publishing a book of this sort. Many have urged me not to take the risk. It is the part of prudence not to believe too many new and strange ideas. Some of my Socialist and materialist friends are going to say—without troubling to read what I have written: “Sinclair has gone in for occultism; he is turning into a mystic in his old age.” It is true that I am fifty-one, but I think my mind is not entirely gone; and if what I publish here is mysticism, then I do not know how there can be such a thing as science about the human mind.

We have made repeated tests to see what happens; we have written down our observations as we go along; we have presented the evidence carefully and conscientiously, without theories; and what any scientist can do, or ask to have done, more than this, I cannot imagine. Those who throw out these results will not be scientists, but merely another set of dogmatists—of whom new crops are continually springing up, wearing new disguises and new labels. The plain truth is that in science, as in politics and religion, it is a lot easier to believe what you have been taught, than to set out for yourself and ascertain what happens.

Of course the thing would be more convincing if it were done in the presence of strangers. That brings up a question which is bound to be asked, so I will save time by answering it here. The first essential to success in these tests is a state of mind; and at present my wife is a sensitive woman, at the stage of life described as “glandular imbalance.” She has never tried these experiments in the presence of a stranger, and has no idea whether she could get the necessary concentration. She learned from her experiments with her sick brother-in-law that the agent can send you pain and fear, as well as chairs and table-forks, and she would certainly not enter lightly into a condition of _rapport_ with those whom she did not know and trust.

She insists that the way for you to be really certain is to follow her example. If you sat and watched her do it, you might go away with doubts, as she did after her experiments with Jan. But when you have done it yourself, then you _know_. One reason the thing has not been proven to the public is that people depend on professional mediums, many of whom are deliberate and conscious cheats. Others are vain and temperamental, difficult to manage; and research is hindered by their instability. That is why Craig set to work and learned to do it, and she believes that others can do the same, if they have the desire and the patience.

_21_

The next thing is to carry out our promise and tell you the technique. My wife has, among her notes, a mass of writing on this subject in the form of instructions to Bob, and others who were interested. I tried to condense it, but found I could not satisfy her, and in the end I realized that her point of view is correct. No one objects to repetition of phrases in a legal document, where the one essential is precision; and the same thing applies to descriptions of these complicated mental processes. This was the most difficult writing task she ever undertook, and the reason lies in its newness, and the complexity of the mind itself.

If you want to learn the art of conscious mind-reading, this will tell you how; and if you don’t want to learn it, you can easily skip this section of the book. Here is Craig’s statement:

“The first thing you have to do is to learn the trick of undivided attention, or concentration. By these terms I mean something quite different from what is ordinarily meant. One ‘concentrates’ on writing a chapter in a book, or on solving a problem in mathematics; but this is a complicated process of dividing one’s attention, giving it to one detail after another, judging, balancing, making decisions. The kind of concentration I mean is putting the attention on _one_ object, or one _uncomplicated_ thought, such as joy, or peace, and holding it there steadily. It isn’t thinking; it is inhibiting thought, except for one thought, or one object in thought.

“You have to inhibit the impulse to think things about the object, to examine it, or appraise it, or to allow memory-trains to attach themselves to it. The average person has never heard of such a form of concentration, and so has to learn how to do it. Simultaneously, he must learn to relax, for strangely enough, a part of concentration is complete relaxation.

“There seems to be a contradiction here, in the idea of simultaneous concentration and relaxation. I do not know whether this is due to a contradiction in the nature of the mind itself, or to our misunderstanding of its nature. Perhaps we each have several mental entities, or minds, and one of these can sleep (be blankly unconscious), while another supervises the situation, maintaining the first one’s state of unconsciousness for a desired period, and then presenting to it some thought or picture agreed on in advance, thus restoring it to consciousness.

“Anyway, it is possible to be unconscious and conscious at the same time! Almost everyone has had the experience of knowing, while asleep, that he is having a bad dream and must awaken himself from it. Certainly some conscious entity is watching the dream, and knowing it is a dream; and yet the sleeper is ‘unconscious.’ Or perhaps there is no such thing as complete relaxation—until death.

“All I can say is this: when I practice this art which I have learned, with my mind concentrated on one simple thing, it is a relaxation as restful, as seemingly ‘complete’ as when I am in that state called normal sleep. The attention is not allowed to be on the sensations of the body, or on anything but the one thing it is deliberately ‘concentrated’ on.

“Undivided concentration, then, means, for purposes of this experiment, a state of complete relaxation, under specified control. To concentrate in this undivided way you first give yourself a ‘suggestion’ to the effect that you will relax your mind and your body, making the body insensitive and the mind a blank, and yet reserving the power to ‘break’ the concentration in a short time. By making the body insensitive I mean simply to relax completely your mental hold of, or awareness of, all bodily sensation. After giving yourself this suggestion a few times, you proceed to relax both body and mind. Relax all mental interest in everything in the environment; inhibit all thoughts which try to wander into consciousness from the subconsciousness, or from wherever else thoughts come. This is clearly a more thorough affair than ‘just relaxing.’