The lack of interest in so-called psychical matters is somewhat
surprising.
There is, however, more hope of the clearing up of the scientific aspects
of these phenomena than ever before.
Sir William Crookes, late President of the British Association, has no
doubt that thoughts and images may be transferred from one mind to
another without the agency of the recognised organs of sense, and that
knowledge may enter the human mind without being communicated in any
hitherto known or recognised ways! The word recognised is important;
perhaps "not by the recognised action of the organs of sense," would be a
better expression.
In the "Alleged Haunting of B---- House," p. 33, Miss Freer says:
"Apparitions are really hallucinations or false impressions upon the
senses, created so far as originated by any external cause, by
other minds either in the body or out of the body, which are themselves
invisible in the ordinary and physical sense of the term, and really
acting through some means at present very imperfectly known." This would
include hypnotism at a distance, but also perhaps spirits.
Dr. Gowers has recently (reported in the _Lancet_), in a speech at
University College, pointed out the close connection of the optic and
auditory nerves with regard to cases of deafness.
The young lady who, when an attempt at transferring the sight of a candle
to her was made, heard the word candle or something like it, the first
letter doubtful, shows that thought transfer is to the ear as well as to
the eye, or at least goes over from one to the other; she says, "You know
I as often hear the name of the object as see the thing itself." This may
have been from a mental effort to receive distinctly an inefficiently
acute impression of her friend's. She saw a jug seen by her friend, and
heard the train she heard. The colour of the jug differed a little. The
distance fourteen miles. Audible speech might thus be helped by
despatching a picture of the idea from a distance. Other people must
be like Miss Campbell.[1] There must be material force in this, since a
|