'EXTRASENSORY PERCEPTION' (ESP) is merely the latest and now fashionable term for telepathy, clairvoyance, thought-transference and allied alleged faculties. I must qualify the word 'latest' as in the 'First Report on Thought-Reading,' by Barrett, Gurney and Myers, the term supersensuous perception was employed. This was in July, 1882.
Though the SPR was founded in 1882, Professor (later Sir William) Barrett and his friends had been conducting experiments in 'thought-reading' for many months previously - probably the first serious experiments in mental phenomena organized in any country. Among his subjects were five young girls, between the ages of ten and seventeen, all thoroughly healthy ... and perfectly simple and childlike'. These were the Misses Creery, four of whom, with a young maidservant, 'were frequently able to designate correctly, without contact or sign, a card or other object fixed on' in their absence.
Clever Creery Children
The Creery girls were the daughters of a clergyman, the Rev. A. M. Creery, of Buxton. During Easter, 1881, Sir William conducted a series of experiments with the girls, one of whom was sent out of the room. On a piece of paper Sir William then wrote, successively, the names of a number of common household objects, which he showed to the other members of the family, who were present. Such words as hair-brush, wine-glass, etc., were recorded. Then the girl was called in and proceeded to 'guess' - correctly - the names of the various articles, with few errors. At a second series of experiments, conducted by Myers and Gurney, held on April 13, 1882, playing-cards were employed. By this time, it had apparently dawned on the investigators that a code or collusion might have been used by these clever children. We are told that 'the experimenters took every precaution [not recorded] in order that no indication, however slight, should reach the child' percipient. And yet this girl 'with downcast eyes' guessed many of the playing-cards first time; guessed the names of objects such as 'box of almonds,' 'white penknife,' etc. Gurney and Myers were impressed.
In a leading article in Nature it was once emphasized that 'the first necessity [for the investigation of alleged abnormal phenomenal is a thorough knowledge of the art of mystification.' Messrs. Barrett, Myers and Gurney did not possess such knowledge and, for years, the Creery children - and the serving maid! - appear to have fooled them by codes to be found in any shilling conjuring book. At some sittings in Cambridge, in 1887, attended by Professor and Mrs. Sidgwick, two of the children were detected signalling the suits of the cards by slight head movements, scraping of the feet, coughing, etc. One of the girls finally confessed to 'a certain amount of signalling in earlier experiments'. And yet these simple tricks had deceived such men as Barrett, Myers, Gurney, Professor Balfour Stewart, Professor Alfred Hopkinson, etc. A good account of the Creery experiments is to be found in Phantasms of the Living, but as this was written before the exposure, its only value is to show how easily scientists can be hoodwinked.
Blackburn-Smith Fiasco
Another thought-reading investigation which ended in a fiasco was the Blackburn-Smith partnership. These two young Brighton men, Douglas Blackburn and G. A. Smith, semi-professional 'telepathists,' submitted their powers to a number of psychical researchers, including Myers and Gurney. They worked together, just as the Zancigs, the Trees, the Zomahs, and other vaudeville thought-readers did in later years. Smith, blindfolded, would seat himself at a table, while Blackburn, outside the room, would be shown some geometrical design drawn on a sheet of paper. Blackburn would then enter the room and stand behind Smith, who proceeded to trace on a piece of paper the 'impressions' of the drawing which, he said, he received from Blackburn's mind. When the control conditions were really tightened up (as for example in an experiment described by Sir James Crichton-Browne) the 'telepathists' failed. Blackburn finally confessed that the good results were obtained by codes and other trickery. He writes: 'I am the sole survivor of that group of experimenters and no harm can be done to anyone... I, with mingled feelings of regret and satisfaction, now declare that the whole of the alleged experiments were bogus, and originated in the honest desire of two youths to show how easily men of scientific mind and training could be deceived when seeking for evidence in support of a theory they were wishful to establish.' A full description of all the tricks and codes was given. Smith denied Blackburn's allegations.
He could hardly do otherwise considering that during the interval between the original experiments and the 'confession' Smith had closely collaborated with the SPR as hypnotist in some telepathic experiments conducted by the Sidgwicks, using various subjects. In these experiments at guessing numbers, and visualizing scenes, the subjects were, apparently, very successful. But Mr. S. G. Soal, in a brilliant analysis of this case, proves that it would have been as easy for Smith to have used a code during the Sidgwick experiments as it was for Blackburn when he deceived Myers and Gurney. Here we have two professional entertainers, one of whom eventually revealed his complete bag of tricks. His partner continues in the business. Is it not reasonable to suppose that his 'miracles,' too, can also be explained in terms of normality? I doubt if any of those who experimented with Blackburn and Smith knew that as early as 1884 the former showman had written an illuminating work on 'thought reading.'
The pages of the SPR publications are full of papers on telepathy - theoretical, experimental, spontaneous. Convenient lists of the principal papers have been published. Some of the experimental tests appear - on the surface - to be impressive, but few will bear scientific analysis (as for example the Guthrie series) and not one is capable of being duplicated successfully in a laboratory under properly controlled conditions. There is much food for thought in this fact when we consider that the SPR has been functioning for more than fifty years.
Telepathic Powers of a Classicist
Perhaps the most interesting story of thought-transference is the account so dramatically interpolated by Professor Gilbert Murray in his Presidential Address to the SPR on July 9, 1915. He had been discussing Bergson's philosophy in regard to telepathy, when he remarked: 'What makes me incline to a belief in the transmission of thoughts or impressions by some method different from our normal five senses is chiefly my own experience in telepathy... The method followed is this: I go out of the room and of course out of earshot. Someone in the room, generally my eldest daughter, thinks of a scene or an incident or anything she likes, and says it aloud. It is written down, and I am called. I come in, usually take my daughter's hand, and then, if I have luck, describe in detail what she has thought of. The least disturbance of our customary method, change of time or place, presence of strangers, controversy, and especially noise, is apt to make things go wrong. I become myself somewhat over-sensitive and irritable, though not, I believe, to a noticeable degree.'
Professor Murray then proceeded to detail some experiments, 'where the subconscious impression chose some sensechannel by which to reach me.' His daughter thought of Savonarola at Florence and the people burning their clothes and pictures and valuables in the square. The professor at once thought of 'Italy.' Then he said: 'This is not modern.' At this point he hesitated until a small tarry bit of coal happened to fall out of the fire. This 'clue' made him smell oil or paint burning, and so he got the rest of the scene. In this experiment, the information came through the channel of the sense of smell.
Sometimes the visualization of the thought-of scene came through the sense of sight. Subject set: his daughter's grandfather at the Harrow and Winchester match 'dropping hot cigar-ash on Miss Thompson's parasol.' Professor Murray's verbatim answer: 'Why, this is grandfather. He's at a cricket match - why it's absurd: he seems to be dropping ashes on a lady's parasol.'
Similar successes were achieved many times, and the full and detailed report bMrs. Verrall, of 504 experiments, should be read, together with the 'Appendix' to the same report. A further 259 experiments are later detailed by Mrs. Henry Sidgwick, who described the experiments as 'perhaps the most important ever brought to the notice of the Society'.
Of course, hand-in-hand with Professor Murray's claims, went a good deal of criticism. It was suggested that, perhaps unconsciously, he saw his daughter's written description of the scene which, it will be remembered, was recorded on paper. Not only was it written, but the scene or object had first to be spoken aloud. Was it possible that Professor Murray possessed - or possesses - super-sensitive ears - i.e. hyperaesthesia of the sense of hearing? The Professor does not claim that his feats are performed by pure telepathy, and he does admit the possibility of hyperaesthesia.
But, as Soal points out, if this is the case, it is really incomprehensible 'that the experimenters should never have taken the trouble to test the theory in any way. It might be supposed that the obvious thing to do was to place Professor Murray at varying distances from the person who uttered the message and to have tried the effect of several intervening walls, etc. Yet apparently, no one even accompanied Professor Murray outside the room to see that he "played fair ... The records published by the SPR are merely the records of a parlour game, and not of a serious investigation.' Professor R. H. Thouless, the psychologist, in a letter (dated December 17, 1924) to the Manchester Guardian also hopes 'that these experiments will not stop at the point of demonstrating that communication of some sort exists. By the ordinary methods of scientific research-isolation and independent variation of all the conditions under which communication takes place - it should not be difficult to settle conclusively all the questions that are still in dispute. Such a research should show whether the results are to be explained by telepathy or by hyperaesthesia.' But this apparently has never been done.
I could cite many more similar experiments to those described above, but there is a sameness about them which becomes almost monotonous. They can be studied in detail in the pages of the SPR publications. Most of the extrasensory research work has been done in England, though certain foreigners have experimented in the field. Among these are Max Dessoir of Berlin, who sent his results to the compilers of Phantasms of the Living, where they are illustrated and discussed; Rene Warcollier of Paris; John Edgar Coover of Stanford University, who obtained 10,000 guesses with 100 students using playing cards; Naum Kotik, the Russian, and many others. The reader can conveniently study the work of all these experimenters in the Journal and Proceedings of the SPR The brilliant results with Ossowiecki have already been mentioned in these pages.
The most impressive experiments, in the opinion of Mr. S. G. Soal, who is the greatest authority on everything pertaining to ESP, were those conducted by Professor H. J. F. W. Brugmans, the late Professor G. Heymans, and Dr. A. A. Weinberg with the subject van Dam in the Department of Psychology at Groningen University. In these experiments, the subject was seated behind a curtain, blindfolded, and was only able to push his hand under the curtain to move a piece on a chessboard that was numbered and lettered in the Continental fashion. Brugmans and his assistants sat in a darkened room above and watched van Dam through a glass pane in the ceiling. The experimenters 'willed' van Dam to move the piece to a certain square determined by a random draw of a letter and number from two sets of cards. Nothing of van Dam could be seen except his hand. In 187 trials the subject obtained 60 successes as against 4 that chance would suggest. It was found that alcohol increased the percentage of successes. In the oft-quoted Experimental Telepathy and Clairvoyance in England, Soal remarks that 'the English experimenters in telepathy have produced no positive investigations which ate at all comparable in scientific precision' with the experiments carried out by Professor Brugmans and his colleagues.
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