Page:The Naturalisation of the Supernatural.pdf/42

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24
Experimental Thought Transference

see would be a magic-lantern picture. (This idea was suggested to by Whybrew, who had imagined earlier in the same day that he was seeing magic-lantern pictures when Mr. Smith was trying to transfer mental pictures to him.) Mr. Smith made him see the sheet and then went down-stairs with Miss Johnson and was asked by her to think of an eagle pursuing a sparrow. Mrs. Sidgwick, who remained upstairs with P., in a few minutes induced him to see a round disk of light on the imaginary lantern sheet and then he saw in it "something like a bird" (?) which disappeared immediately. He went on looking (with closed eyes of course) and presently thought he saw "something like a bird—something like an eagle." After a pause he said: "I thought I saw a figure there—I saw 5. The bird's gone. I see 5 again, now it's gone. The bird came twice." Mr. Smith then came up-stairs, and P. had another impression of an eagle. He was told that the eagle was right and there was something else besides, no hint being given of what the other thing was. He then said that the first thing he "saw was a little bird—a sparrow perhaps—he could not say—about the size of a sparrow; then that disappeared and he saw the eagle. He had told Mrs. Sidgwick so at the time."

In the next case, with the same percipient, the desired picture could not be elicited without a small amount of prompting. The subject set to Mr. Smith was "The Babes in the Wood."

No. 2.

To begin with P. sat with closed eyes, but when no impression came, Mr. Smith opened his eyes without speaking and made him look for the picture on a card. After we had waited a little while in vain, Mr. Smith said to him: "Do you see something like a straw hat?" P. assented to this, and then began to puzzle out something more: "A white apron, something dark—a child. It can't be another child, unless