Chapter 2

What we desire, then, what we ask of all who sympathize with our efforts, is neither premature praise nor equally premature theorizing, but active co-operation in our endeavor to improve and extend our experiments in thought-transference. We want to get our telepathic transmissions distant, definite, and reproducible.

It is desirable to get them _at long distances_,--not because it is really more marvellous that thought should thus travel a million miles than that it should travel a millimetre,--but for the merely practical reason that at long distances it is easy to avoid two main sources of error, namely, _hyperæsthesia_, which may be quite unconscious, and _fraudulent codes_, which may be hard to detect. Most, nay, probably all, of the so-called experiments in thought-transference which have been offered by "thought-readers," etc., from the public platform, have really had nothing at all to do with thought-transference, have depended either on abnormal delicacy of tactile and other sensory perception, or on the adroit use of preconcerted signals. It is only when the observer has complete control of the conditions (which he never has in any public exhibition), that it is worth while to conduct experiments between two persons in the same room.

And even in cases where the good faith--the _conscious_ good faith--of everyone concerned is above suspicion, it must be remembered that there are both unconscious actions and unconscious perceptions which may wholly vitiate an experiment. The rule should be so to arrange the experiment that the percipient _cannot_ profit by unconscious indications; that he cannot (for example) see the expression of the agent's face, or hear the sound of his pencil as he writes down a number to be guessed. Such precautions should be a matter of course; and when they are taken, these experiments near at hand are certainly the easiest and best for private experimenters to begin with, although the desirability of gradually increasing the distance between the persons concerned should always be kept in view.

Let A and P begin their trial, then, in quiet and calm of mind; let A, the agent, sit behind P, the percipient, and not in contact. Let A be provided with a full pack of cards, in which he replaces the card drawn, after each trial, or with a bag of known numbers--say from ten to one hundred--a range convenient for computation--in which bag he replaces and shuffles up the number drawn, after each trial. Let him draw a card (to take cards as our example) say, "Now!" and gaze fixedly at it. Let P keep his mind as blank as possible, and make his guess only when some kind of image of color, suit, or pips, in some way floats into his mind. His first guess only must be counted, and must be received in silence. Let A continue this process for some prearranged number of times, say ten times, and record accurately all the experiments made. Let him renew the process, with intervals of hours or days between each batch of trials, until he has some hundreds of results to analyze. Then let him send his results, with description of the conditions under which the trials were made, to Dr. Richard Hodgson, 5 Boylston Place, Boston, Mass. Dr. Hodgson will tell him if it is worth his while to go on, and will advise as to modifications in the form of experiment.

These hints must here suffice as to experiments made close at hand. But experiment, or observation verging into experiment, is often possible at long distances as well. It often happens that some one tells me that he (or she) has so peculiar a sympathy with some given friend that what one of the pair is actually feeling or thinking at a distance is reproduced by the sensation or thought of the other. To such communications my invariable reply is, "Keep a 'psychical' diary. Put down therein at once every incident which you intend to count, if it turns out (so to say) a telepathic success, and no incident which you do _not_ intend to count. Let your friend keep a similar diary, without showing it to you; after a few months let me compare the two diaries with one another."

I am not armed with supernatural, or even with statutory powers; and my informants have for the most part thought that they had obliged me quite enough if they _promised_ to do as I told them. But just as I was beginning to imitate the dictum, "Miracles do not happen," with the dictum, "Psychical diaries are not kept," the lady termed Miss X----, in Proceedings XIV. and XVI., came to furnish an exception, to my rule. I shall not attempt to summarize the "Record of Telepathic and Other Experiences" in Proceedings XVI.; but I trust that it may be the prototype of many similar records, which can be kept the more easily now that this example has been set.

I will give in brief, one American example (to be found at length in S. P. R. Proceedings XVIII.) of well-recorded telepathic transmission. The incident thus transferred is trivial and even ludicrous; the fact of the transference was absolutely useless. But the case is not only none the worse for this; it is all the better. When we are trying to prove that such transmission exists, we want to keep clear, if we can, of emotional complications. If P is brooding over A's approaching death, and sees a figure of A, then, even if the hour coincides, we cannot help a suspicion that the brooding may have produced the figure. But few, I think, will explain the following incident as a mere outcome of morbid sentimentality. We owe it to the kindness of Dr. Elliott Coues, who knows both ladies concerned, and happened to call on Mrs. C---- the very day on which that lady received the following letter from her friend, Mrs. B----.

_Monday Evening, January 14, 1889._

MY DEAR FRIEND,--I know you will be surprised to receive a note from me so soon, but not more so than I was to-day, when you were shown to me clairvoyantly, in a somewhat embarrassed position. I doubt very much if there was any truth in it; nevertheless, will relate it, and leave you to laugh at the idea of it.

I was sitting in my room sewing, this afternoon, about two o'clock, when what should I see but your own dear self; but, heavens! in what a position. Now, I don't want to excite your curiosity too much, or try your patience too long, so will come to the point at once. You were falling up the front steps in the yard. You had on your black skirt and velvet waist, your little straw bonnet, and in your hand were some papers. When you fell, your hat went in one direction and the papers in another. You got up very quickly, put on your bonnet, picked up the papers, and lost no time getting into the house. You did not appear to be hurt, but looked somewhat mortified. It was all so plain to me that I had ten to one notions to dress myself and come over and see if it were true, but finally concluded that a sober, industrious woman like yourself would not be stumbling around at that rate, and thought I'd best not go on a wild goose chase. Now, what do you think of such a vision as that? Is there any possible truth in it? I feel almost ready to scream with laughter whenever I think of it; you did look _too_ funny, spreading yourself out in the front yard. "Great was the fall thereof."

This letter came to us in an envelope addressed: Mrs. E. A. C----, 217 Del. Ave., N. E., Washington, D. C., and with the postmarks, Washington, D. C., Jan. 15, 7 A. M., 1889, and Washington, N. E. C. S., Jan. 15, 8 A. M. Some further letters in the postmarks are illegible.

Now the point is that every detail in this telepathic vision was correct. Mrs. C---- had actually (as she tells me in a letter dated March 7, 1889) fallen in this way, at this place, in the dress described, at 2.41, on January 14. The coincidence can hardly have been due to chance. If we suppose that the vision preceded the accident, we shall have an additional marvel, which, however, I do not think that we need here face. "About 2," in a letter of this kind, may quite conceivably have meant 2.41.

The _definiteness_ of the details here reproduced, is all, I think, that we can reasonably desire. But most important, and I fear, most difficult to obtain, of all the qualities of our ideal telepathic experiment, is that of _reproducibility_. This is, I think, a difficulty which inheres in the very nature of the phenomenon itself. We are mainly concerned here with the powers not of the waking or empirical, but of the submerged or unconscious self. The transference of the telepathic message, though it may be helped by conscious concentration, takes place (as I hold) mainly in strata of our being which lie below the threshold of ordinary consciousness. It seems as though the influence of the _percipient's_ conscious self, at any rate, were merely hurtful to the experiment, so that to get the percipient at his best we have to catch him in a state of original innocence which he cannot long maintain. It too often has happened that so soon as his own curiosity was roused, so soon as he began to speculate on the process which was going on, and to wonder how he caught the impression, so soon did the impression cease to travel, and his unconscious self could send its message upwards no more.

I am disposed to think that for the present it is to hypnotism that we must look for cases where the telepathic message can be sent repeatedly and at will. It is in the rare cases of _sommeil à distance_, or such cases as those of Mrs. Pinhey, Dr. Héricourt, and Dr. Gley, reported in Vol. II. of _Phantasms of the Living_, that there has as yet been the nearest approach to that clock-work regularity and repeatability which is the experimental ideal. It is, therefore, on the medical profession that I would urge the importance of watching for cases of this sort, which are likely to be found more frequently as the therapeutic use of hypnotism extends.

I have mentioned several different forms in which these telepathic messages may be observed by careful seekers. I certainly do not assert that the power or agency operative in each of these cases is precisely the same. On the contrary, I think it probable that there are varieties and complexities quite beyond our present speculation. But at least these cases fall for us under the same primary or obvious category; they are all cases where a thought, a feeling, an impulse, a picture, has been transferred from one mind to another without the agency of the recognized organs of sense.

There are some, both among friends and among opponents, who are inclined to represent telepathic experiment as a petty thing. "What does it come to," say the opponents, "even though you do get a few silly thoughts or meaningless numbers out of one head into another?" "Enough of telepathy!" say the friends; "go on to something of vaster scope!"

These friends and these opponents are not those who have best realized the import of the telepathic claim. The true, the scientific opposition is of a quite different type. It asserts, not that the alleged discovery is a trifle which may be admitted with a sneer, but that it involves a new departure in science greater than its advocates can probably conceive, or have as yet come near to justify. Brushing aside all our further extensions of theory, they take their stand simply and decidedly against telepathy itself; and wisely so, for if telepathy be once admitted, there is, as seems to me, no logical halting-place until we reach a far-off point which I will not confuse my present argument by attempting to specify.

And over all this far-stretching field there is a harvest of experiment, a harvest of observation, which only needs laborers to cut and carry, to thresh and winnow it. The reality, the extent, the importance of the phenomena which lie around us, unnoted and unexplained, are more fully recognized as each year's work adds at once to our knowledge and to our corresponding consciousness of ignorance. Such recognition, I say, is beginning to spread; but it has thus far brought with it all too little of active co-operation in the work of inquiry, that work which in America Dr. Hodgson, backed by Prof. W. James and Prof. W. S. Langley, pushes forward at once with caution and with energy. Those who wish our work to succeed must in some way help towards its success. No enterprise, I think, could promise more fairly. But we are still at the beginning of that great work and the end is far.

FASHION'S SLAVES.

BY B. O. FLOWER.

The last session of the International Council of Women discussed no question of greater importance to civilization than that of dress reform. The fact that this world's congress, representing the most thoughtful, conscientious, and broad-minded women of our age, has taken up this subject with a firm determination to accomplish a revolution which shall mean health and happiness to the oncoming generation, is itself a prophecy pregnant with promise of a substantial and enduring reform. It will not be surprising if in the near future it is found that this earnest though somewhat timid discussion marked a distinct step in the world's progress; certainly it was the most significant and authoritative utterance from united womanhood that has yet been made touching a problem which most vitally affects civilization.

To the student of sociology nothing is more perplexing or discouraging than society's persistency in blindly clinging to old standards and outgrown ideals which can no longer be defended by reason; and this is nowhere more marked than in the social world where fashion has successfully defied all true standards of art, principles of common sense, rules of hygiene and what is still more important, the laws of ethics which underlie all stable or enduring civilizations.

At the very threshold of this discussion, I ask the reader to, as far as possible, divest his mind of all prejudice arising from preconceived opinions, and view in a perfectly candid and judicial manner this problem upon which the last word will not be spoken until woman is emancipated. As long as free discussion is tabooed and conservatism finds it possible to dismiss the question with a flippant jest, a ribald joke, or a basely unjust imputation, the old order will stand; partly because woman feels her helplessness and largely because so few people stop to trace cause and effect or patiently reason upon results of the most serious character. Conservatism is strongly entrenched in the minds of the millions, and to a certain degree mental lethargy broods over the world. It is true that in woman's sphere to-day mental activity is more marked than in any other age, and the best brains and most thoughtful women of our time are boldly denouncing the bondage of fashion and bravely pleading for such radical reforms in dress as will secure to womanhood health and comfort, while being genuinely artistic and graceful, breathing true refinement and conforming to æsthetic principles rather than the caprice of fashion. To me there is something infinitely pathetic in the brave protests that have from time to time flashed from the outraged sensibilities of those who represent the very flower of American womanhood, when discussing this subject, for running through their almost every utterance is the plaintive note of helplessness, mingled with the consciousness of the justice of the cause for which they plead. The talented and universally respected Mrs. Abba Woolson Gould some years ago thus gave expression to her feelings when writing of the long, heavy, disease-producing skirts of women:

Do what we will with them, they still add enormously to the weight of clothing, prevent cleanliness of attire about the ankles, overheat by their tops the lower portion of the body, impede locomotion, and invite accidents. In short, they are uncomfortable, unhealthy, unsafe, and unmanageable. Convinced of this fact by patient and almost fruitless attempts to remove their objectionable qualities, the earnest dress-reformer is loath to believe that skirts hanging below the knee are not transitory features in woman's attire, as similar features have been in the dress of men, and surely destined to disappear with the tight hour-glass waists and other monstrosities of the present costume.... Any changes the wisest of us can to-day propose are only a mitigation of an evil which can never be done away till women emerge from this vast swaying, undefined, and indefinable mass of drapery into the shape God gave to His human beings.

Mary A. Livermore voices a sad and terrible truth when she observes:

The invalidism of young girls is usually attributed to every cause but the right one; to hard study--co-education--which, it is said, compels overwork that the girl student may keep up with the young men of her class; too much exercise, or lack of rest and quiet at certain periods when nature demands it. All the while the physician is silent concerning the glove-fitting, steel-clasped corset, the heavy, dragging skirts, the bands engirding the body, the pinching, deforming boot, and the ruinous social dissipation of fashionable society. These will account for much of the feebleness of young women and girls. For they exhaust nervous force, make freedom of movement a painful impossibility, and frequently shipwreck the young girl before she is out of port.

We have a theory, generally accepted in civilized society, which we never formulate in speech but to which we are very loyal in practical life. This theory, put in plain language, is as follows: God knows how to make boys; and, when He sends a boy into the world, it is safe to allow him to grow to manhood as God made him. He may be too tall or too short, for our notions, too stout or too thin, too light or too dark. Nevertheless, it is right, for God knows how to make boys. But when God sends a girl into the world, it is not safe to allow her to grow to womanhood as He has made her. Some one must take her and improve her figure, and give her the shape in which it is proper for her to grow.

Accordingly, the young girl comes some day from the dressmaker with this demand: "Mme. ---- (the dressmaker) says that I am getting into horrid shape, and must have a pair of corsets immediately." The corsets are bought and worn, and the physical deterioration begins.

Miss Frances E. Willard thus touchingly refers to the bondage of fashion:

"But there came a day--alas! the day of my youth--on which I was as literally caught out of the fields and pastures as was ever a young colt; confronted by a long dress that had been made for me, corsets and high-heeled shoes that had been bought, hair-pins and ribbons for my straying locks, and I was told that it simply 'wouldn't answer' to 'run wild' another day. Company from the city was expected; I must be made presentable; 'I had _got_ to look like other folks.'

"That was a long time ago, but I have never known a single physically reasonable day since that sweet May morning, when I cried in vain for longer lease of liberty."

Mrs. Frances E. Russell, whose significant paper read at the Woman's Council elicited universal approbation, in the following extract from her able essay in THE ARENA sounds a more hopeful note than her illustrious predecessors, for she is nearer the dawn, and the horizon of woman's freedom is broadening:

The fiction that women have no legs is now fully discredited, for in the show windows of the largest dry goods stores stand dummies of the female figure dressed only in the combination undersuit made of wool or silk "tights," covering the whole body, except the head, hands, and feet. By this time everyone must know that woman, like man, is a biped. Can anyone give a good reason why she must lift an unnecessary weight of clothing with every step she takes,--pushing forward folds of restricting drapery and using almost constantly, not only her hands, but her mental power and nervous energy to keep her skirts neat and out of the way of harm to herself and others?

Much discussion has been wasted over the question whether a woman should carry the burden of her voluminous drapery from the shoulders or the hips. Why must she carry this unnecessary weight at all?

Now let us join hands, all lovers of liberty, in earnest co-operation to free American women from the dominion of foreign fashion. Let us, as intelligent women, with the aid and encouragement of all good men, take this important matter into our own hands and provide ourselves with convenient garments; a costume that shall say to all beholders that we are equipped for reasonable service to humanity.

Conservative critics have so frequently misrepresented those who have honestly pleaded for dress reform, that it is no longer safe to be frank, and this fact alone has constrained numbers of earnest writers from expressing their sentiments who have felt it their duty to speak in behalf of health, beauty, and common sense; indeed so certain is one to be misrepresented who handles this subject in anything like a reasonable and unconventional manner, and so surely will his views be assailed as improper, owing to the age-long cast of conventional thought, that were it not that this question so intimately affects fundamental, ethical, and hygienic laws, and bears such a vitally important relation to true progress, I frankly admit that I doubt whether I should have the courage to discuss it. But I find it impossible to remain silent, believing as I do most profoundly that the baleful artificial standards so long tolerated must be abolished, that the fetish of the nineteenth century civilization must be overthrown, and that it is all-important that people be thoroughly acquainted with the far-reaching and basic significance of this problem, through courageous and persistent agitation and education, in order that manhood and womanhood be brought up to the ethical plane which marks enduring civilization. In the examination of this subject I desire to very briefly notice it from æsthetic, hygienic, and ethical points of view. It is a singular fact that every effort made toward a healthful and common sense reform in woman's apparel has been assailed as inartistic or immoral; while fashions at once disgusting, indecent, destructive to life and health, and degrading to womanhood have been readily sanctioned by conventionalism. This antagonistic attitude toward any movement for an improvement in woman's attire founded on the laws of health, art, comfort, and common sense was characteristically expressed in a recent editorial in a leading Boston daily, wherein the writer solemnly observed:

The simple truth is, the great majority of the women _appreciate the fact that it is their mission to be beautiful_, and the dress reformers have never yet devised any garment to assist the women in fulfilling this mission.

The author of the above fairly represents the attitude of conventional thought,--its servility to fashion, its antagonism to reformative moves. The implied falsehood that fashion represents beauty and art, or is the servant of æstheticism has been reiterated so often that thousands have accepted it as truth.