630 E. Mr. A. Glardon's Experiments

The following experiments in the transference of diagrams were carried out by the Rev. A. Glardon, of Tour-de-Peilz, Vaud, Switzerland, as agent, with a friend of his, Mrs. M., as percipient, both being Associates of the Society for Psychical Research.

An earlier and somewhat less successful series of the same kind was carried out by them in 1893, at a distance of at least 200 miles from one another. (See Journal S.P.R., vol. vi. pp. 98-101.) This account is taken from the Journal S.P.R. vol. vii. pp. 325-329.

The original diagrams drawn by both agent and percipient, carefully dated and with the notes they made on them at the time, have been sent to us, and most of them are reproduced in the Plates.... It will be seen from the account what proportion of success was attained, though it is not easy to estimate this with exactitude, because the percipient several times made a number of little scribbles which might be counted either as parts of one drawing, or all as separate drawings. See e.g. Plate II., R.3. Where we have given the number of drawings she made, without reproducing all of them (see e.g. Plate I., R. 1 b) we have, of course, counted as many as possible, in order not to over-estimate the argument against chance coincidence. Thus, such a case as R. 3 would have been counted as eight drawings.

The experiments will be best understood by a full description of the Plates, which we now proceed to give.

In all cases the letter O on the Plates denotes the drawings of the agent and the letter R those of the percipient; and the dotted lines mark off the drawings belonging to each experiment.

Plate I

In the experiments here illustrated, the agent was at Tour-de-Peilz, and the percipient at Florence, and the former notes "10 p.m." on his sheet of diagrams as the hour of the experiments, also that he used the diagram O. 1 on May 8th and 9th [1893], and O. 2 on May 10th and nth.

The percipient made one drawing, reproduced as R. 1 a, on May 8th. On May 9th she made eight attempts, of which the one most nearly resembling O. 1 is given, as R. 1 b. On her paper is noted "1893, Tuesday, May 9th, 10.15." On May 10th, she attempted nothing. The whole of what she drew on May nth is reproduced as "R. 2"; her paper being marked, "May 11, '93; 10 P.M".

Plate II

The diagrams O. 3 and O. 4 were used in experiments in which the agent was at Tour-de-Peilz and the percipient at Torre Pellice, Italy; O. 3 was used on May 19th and O. 4 on May 22nd and 23rd; in all cases at 10 p.m. R. 3 represents all the drawings made by the percipient on May 19th; her paper is marked "19 May 1893; 10 p.m.;" and also bears the note: "a small very bright design or object." On May 23rd, at 10.5 p.m., she made three drawings, two of which are reproduced as R. 4. It will be observed that the bracket in the agent's drawing seems to be reproduced in the second of these, but this may be a mere chance resemblance. 0.5 is the diagram used by the agent on June 2nd at 10 p.m., he being still at Tour-de-Peilz, and the percipient at Vevey. She made no drawing on this date, but notes: "June 2nd, 1893; 10 p.m. See nothing but a sort of frame and a crown; too sleepy to draw it".

The agent's drawing corresponding to R. 6 is shown as 0.6 on Plate III. In this experiment, the agent and percipient were both in the same house at Tour-de-Peilz, but in different rooms. It occurred on June 7th, 1893, and Mr. Glardon gives the following account of it:: -

"Gryon-sur-Bex, Vaud. June 27th, 1893.

"Mrs. M. was sitting alone in a room adjoining the one I was in. I drew the diagram and fixed my attention on it. After two or three minutes, Mrs. M. called aloud, saying, 'I am too much excited to-day, don't go on;' and on my entering the room, she said,' I can see nothing but the design of the embroidery I have been working at this morning, and I will not draw it because I think it too silly'.

"She sent me afterwards that design; you can judge for yourself. The fact is that, unawares, I had drawn a diagram resembling closely that design."...

The rest of the diagrams on Plates III. and IV. belong to a later series of experiments, carried out between December 14th, 1893, and January 9th, 1894. They were sent to us in April 1894 by Mr. Glardon, who writes: -

Tour-dE-Peilz, April 24th, 1894.

"... I have made a new series with the same correspondent, Mrs. M., she being in Ajaccio, Corsica, where she is still, and I here. The time was half-past nine p.m., French time; and the results have not been very satisfactory. During December 1893 and January 1894, we tried many times a week. Unfortunately, Mrs. M. did not always attend, and I myself was sometimes prevented by visits or committees from attending; so that, in all, we had only a dozen real experiments, both attending the same night and at the same moment. Of these, I send you four instances in which it seems to me that we achieved a fair amount of success. One is a striking example of delayed and persistent impression. Two nights running I tried to send a Maltese cross [see 0. 10]. Mrs. M. sat on the same days, and the two days following -pencil in hand and eyes shut as usual - on the 5th, the 6th, the 8th, and the 9th of January; and the approximation was every time greater, till the cross came out distinctly.

"On December 28th, Mrs. M. seems to have seen the comet I had drawn pretty well [see 0. 9]. On the 14th, she had an impression of something resembling a crown, and I had drawn a rose [see 0.7]. Finally, on the 21st, she reproduced at once and exactly my drawing, as you will see from her own bit of paper [see 0.8 and R. 8]. It is a pity she did not use for our sittings anything larger than a common note-book. However, I send you leaves torn from it, corresponding to my drawings".

Plate I.

Plate II.

Plate III.

Plate IV.

In these four experiments, we have reproduced all the drawings made by the agent, and also all made by the percipient on each occasion, except in the experiment of January 5th~9th, 1894, which is marked 0.10 and R, 10.

In her drawings marked in the Plate R. 7, she notes the date and hour as December 14th, 10 p.m.; and writes: "Like a pair of tongs - a tooth with prongs - a crown" the three descriptions apparently referring to her three drawings. The agent's drawing, 0. 7, is dated December 14th, 1893. Her drawings marked R. 8 are dated December 21st, 1893, 9.30 p.m., the agent's, 0. 8, being dated December 21st, 1893; and those marked R. 9 are dated December 28th, 1893, 9.30 p.m., the agent's, 0. 9, being also dated December 28th, 1893.

With regard to the experiment of January 5th-9th, 1894, the original diagram was a Maltese cross (Plate III., O. 10), which the agent notes that he used on January 5th and 6th, 1894. The percipient made on January 5th, at 9.30 p.m., four drawings, of which the one most like a Maltese cross is reproduced as R. 10 a. On January 6th, at the same hour, she made four drawings, none of which are at all like the cross. On January 8th, at 9.30 p.m., she made four drawings, the most successful of which is reproduced as R. 10 b. On January 9th, at 9.30 p.m., she made first two drawings, resembling each other pretty closely, and added the note, "same impression as last time." One of these is reproduced as R. 10 c She seems then to have gone off on an altogether wrong tack, as nine diagrams of a different character, some of them resembling a flag or key, follow. Next she appears to have made a fresh start, drawing three diagrams, one of which is R. 10 d. To these she appends the note: "Always come back to the same thing.

Probably he has sent nothing." Finally, on one corner of the sheet, she draws a Greek key pattern, marked " afterwards".

In this experiment, the large number of attempts made, and the fact that success was not attained until two or three days after the agent was trying to transfer the drawing, of course strengthen the probability that the success may have been merely due to chance. On the other hand, all the diagrams made on each day, except the last, resemble one another more or less closely, as if the percipient had had only one or two ideas of a form in her mind on each evening. On January 9th also, the drawings of each of the three sets just described show marked resemblances to one another. Consequently, the probability of a chance coincidence is not so great as the total number of drawings would make it appear to be.

We have also to remember that, as Mr. Glardon informs us, there was no written communication between agent and percipient during this time, so that she did not know that he was using the same diagram two days running. In answer to the question whether he attempted to transfer any diagrams to Mrs. M. on January 8th and 9th, Mr. Glardon says (May 2nd, 1894) that he does not remember, but he believes not.