Soon after the publication of these results, Mr. Guthrie was fortunate enough to obtain the active co-operation of Dr. Oliver J. Lodge, Professor of Physics in University College, Liverpool, who carried out a long and independent series of experiments with the same two percipients, and completely convinced himself of the genuineness of the phenomena. In his report,1 he says: "... We have many times succeeded with agents quite disconnected from the percipient in ordinary life, and sometimes complete strangers to them. Mr. Birchall, the headmaster of the Birkdale Industrial School, frequently acted; and the house physician at the Eye and Ear Hospital, Dr. Shears, had a successful experiment, acting alone, on his first and only visit. All suspicion of a pre-arranged code is thus rendered impossible even to outsiders who are unable to witness the obvious fairness of all the experiments".

The objects of which the idea was transferred were sometimes things with names (cards, key, teapot, flag, locket, picture of donkey, and so on), sometimes irregular drawings with no name. Professor Lodge satisfied himself that auditory as well as visual impressions played a part - that in some cases the idea transferred was that of the object itself, and, in others, that of its name.... Of the two percipients one seemed more susceptible to the visual, and the other to the auditory impressions. A case where the auditory element seems clearly to have come in is the following. The object was a tetrahedron rudely drawn in projection, thus:

The percipient said: "Is it another triangle?" No answer was given, but Professor Lodge silently passed round to the agents a scribbled message, "Think of a pyramid." The percipient then said, "I only see a triangle" - then hastily, "Pyramids of Egypt. No, I shan't do this." Asked to draw, she only drew a triangle.

I will give only one other case from this series, which is important as showing that the percipient may be simultaneously influenced by two minds, which are concentrated on two different things. The two agents being seated opposite to one another, Professor Lodge placed between them a piece of paper, on one side of which was drawn a square, and on the other a cross. They thus had different objects to contemplate, and neither knew what the other was looking at; nor did the percipient know that anything unusual was being tried. There was no contact. Very soon the percipient said, "I see things moving about ... I seem to see two things... I see first one up there, and then one down there... I don't know which to draw.... I can't see either distinctly." Professor Lodge said: " Well, anyhow, draw what you have seen." She took off the bandage and drew first a square, and then said, "Then there was the other thing as well... afterwards they seemed to go into one," - and she drew a cross inside the square from corner to corner, adding afterwards, "I don't know what made me put it inside." The significance of this experimental proof of joint agency will be more fully realised in connection with some of the spontaneous cases.

Originals.

Repboduction.

1 Proceedings of the S.P.R., vol. ii. p. 189, etc.

Further experiments of Mr. Guthriés related to the transference of tastes, which he was the first to observe in the case of non-hypnotised persons (and of which some account has been given in 571 C), and of smells. In these, it is difficult to make the conditions such as to ensure that no indications reach the percipient through any of the ordinary channels of sense. With regard to the transference of pains in the normal state (akin to the community of sensation occasionally observed between hypnotists and their subjects, see 571) there is not the same difficulty of experimenting under satisfactory conditions, since a pain cannot travel like a smell. The following are some of Mr. Guthriés experiments carried out without contact between agent and percipient. I quote them from Phantasms of the Living, vol. i. p. 57: -

At seven of the Liverpool meetings, which took place at intervals from November 1884 to July 1885, the experiment was arranged in the following way. The percipient being seated blindfolded, and with her back to the rest of the party, all the other persons present inflicted on themselves the same pain on the same part of the body. Those who took part in this collective agency were three or more of the following: Mr. Guthrie, Professor Herdman, Dr. Hicks, Dr. Hyla Greves, Mr. R. C. Johnson, F.R.A.S., Mr. Birchall, Miss Redmond, and on one occasion another lady. The percipient throughout was Miss Relph. In all, 20 trials were made. The parts pained were:

1. Back of left hand pricked. Rightly localised.

2. Lobe of left ear pricked. Rightly localised.

3. Left wrist pricked. "Is it in the left hand ? " - pointing to the back near the little finger.

4. Third finger of left hand tightly bound round with wire. A lower joint of that finger was guessed.

5. Left wrist scratched with pins-. " It is in the left wrist, like being scratched".

6. Left ankle pricked. Rightly localised.

7. Spot behind left ear pricked. No result.

8. Right knee pricked. Rightly localised.

9. Right shoulder pricked. Rightly localised.

10. Hands burned over gas. " Like a pulling pain... then tingling, like cold and hot alternately " - localised by gesture only.

11. End of tongue bitten. " It is in the lip or the tongue".

12. Palm of left hand pricked. " Is it a tingling pain in the hand, here?" placing her finger on the palm of the left hand.

13. Back of neck pricked. "Is it a pricking of the neck ?"

14. Front of left arm above elbow pricked. Rightly localised.

15. Spot just above left ankle pricked. Rightly localised.

16. Spot just above right wrist pricked. " I am not quite sure, but I feel a pain in the right arm, from the thumb upwards, to above the wrist".

17. Inside of left ankle pricked. Outside of left ankle guessed.

18. Spot beneath right collar-bone pricked. The exactly corresponding spot on the left side was guessed.

19. Back hair pulled. No result.

20. Inside of right wrist pricked. Right foot guessed.

Thus in 10 out of the 20 cases, the percipient localised the pain with great precision; in 6 the localisation was nearly exact, and with these we may include No. 10, where the pain was probably not confined to a single well-defined area in the hands of all the agents; in 2 no local impression was produced; and in 1, the last, the answer was wholly wrong.

Some other experiments with diagrams in which the amount of success obtained was very striking (and which I omit here for want of space) were carried out by the "Committee on Thought-transference" of the S.P.R. in 1883, and are recorded in the Proceedings, vol. i. pp. 161-167 and 174- 215.