11. I now resolved to supply the message myself (same conditions), and told him that he would be able to see the lengths of the words with the naked eye, and to read them with the magnifier. The telegram was to be [To] "Myers, Cambridge - Oxford won by half a length. Harris." With the naked eye he could see that there were only two words in the address, the second rather long. With the magnifier he gradually picked out letters here and there - saw the capital letters right, partly saw and partly guessed my name - could not make out the message. Experiments such as this show, I think, that there is some appropriateness in speaking of messages or communications from one to another stratum of the Self. Judging from the analogy of many other post-hypnotic suggestions with the same subject, we can hardly doubt that the whole of this simple telegram was remembered by the hypnotic self, and could have been reproduced in obedience to a direct order. But the order was to reproduce it with a certain degree of obscurity; and that obscurity turned out to be slightly greater than the magnifying-glass (however acting) could overcome.

The suggestion was thus slightly too complex; but, although never fully delivered, the " inter-state " or "methectic" message - call it as you will, but let us have some name for it - was ready made up, and waiting to be transmitted from the hypnotic to the supraliminal self.

12. The experiments thus far described, although presenting some novel points, have been such as any observer with good hypnotic subjects at his disposal will probably be able to repeat. Those to which I now come involve the rarer phenomenon of thought-transference, which cannot be guaranteed in the case of any hypnotic subject, although it would doubtless be oftener found if it were oftener looked for. The evidence for Mr. G. A. Smith's power of transmitting ideas, without the use of ordinary means, to the minds of these and other subjects has been so often discussed in these Proceedings that I need here only remark that in all these experiments a close watch was kept by Dr. Dill or myself, or both of us, to guard against indications (which, of course, may be quite involuntarily given), while at the same time the picture to be discerned in the crystal involved conceptions more complicated than a mere card-name or number. I omit the first of these experiments, which was successful, but during which I left the room to speak to Dr. J. Gordon Dill, a physician who had previously assisted in similar experiments, and who kindly consented to help me in these, in which it is naturally desirable to have two observers.

In each case Dr. Dill or I wrote down the desired picture carefully on a piece of paper out of sight of the subject and showed it to Mr. G. A. Smith, while the subject was entranced (in the last two experiments after he was awakened). Mr. G. A. Smith then stood at some distance from the percipient, and out of his sight, while the percipient fixed his eyes on the glass of water, and made remarks to which (unless otherwise stated) no one replied. Dr. Dill watched Mr. Smith, and I watched the percipient, or vice versā. Such precautions imply no distrust of either agent or percipient, but should be taken as a matter of course in all experiments of this kind. Were I myself acting as agent I should prefer to be watched, since no one can be absolutely certain as to what sounds or movements he may unconsciously make. If it is once for all assumed that the human organism, when used in experiments which do not in themselves present any means of eliminating the "personal equation," needs some other eye to guard against possible idiosyncrasies which may confuse the experiments, then such supervision may be submitted to with no more sense of discredit than the astronomer feels when his individual observations are accepted not as absolute truth, but as data to be corrected in a special recognised way.

I wrote down "Two cats fighting," and showed the paper carefully to Dr. Dill and Mr. Smith - whom I will call D. and S. T. (in waking state) at once saw "two cats - both with their backs up - fighting, one black and striped, the other with patches of white." "Where are the cats?" "On a wall." S. had mentally reproduced a picture of two cats fighting, done in whitewash on a wall - so that his cats were both white. During this experiment D. left the room for a few minutes: I watched T., whose eyes, as I believe, never left the glass of water.

13. Next time both subjects (hypnotised and awakened as usual) were to see in the same water-glass the same theme, written down by D. and shown to S. and myself: "Boat putting off from beach." P. saw nothing. T. saw "A room cleared for dancing, the gas-branches wreathed with flowers." This appeared to be a deferred picture belonging to a previous series. He had been told, in an experiment which I have omitted, to see four scenes of his past life, at different ages. He had seen three, and this scene was probably enough the fourth, which was to be typical of his adolescence. At any rate he was simply hypnotised again, and again awakened (D. and I watching throughout). On reawaking he said: "There are boats - several steamers and two boats rowing in front, like a picture of a boat-race in the Graphic" This was an approximation to the desired picture.