James Walsh - Psychotherapy

Telepathy, from the two Greek words, tele , at a distance, and pathos , feeling, has been much discussed in recent years. Many people who use the word glibly are inclined to think they know much about it. A long word, however, is not an explanation, and, just here, George Eliot's expression "we map out our ignorance in long Greek names" is worth recalling. There are a number of phenomena that seem to require some such theory as that of telepathy, but the phenomena are still under discussion and their significance is by no means clear. As we understand it, telepathy may mean either thought transference or mind reading, that is, either the active process by which we communicate our thought to someone at a distance, or the passive process by which we receive communications from others. These thoughts include the idea of mental influence at a distance; that is, we can by willing influence the wills, or at least the motives to action, of people at a distance and they may, in turn, influence ours. The further thought has come, that since the mind largely influences the body in matters of health, so mental influence from a distance by affecting mind, may either improve or injure health.

Some sensitive people are disturbed by the thought that they may be influenced from a distance by others, or at least that suggestions that come to them, may be due to telepathic influence. Investigation would probably show that there are at least as many persons disturbed by real or supposed telepathic influences as there are of those who have hallucinations. Sometimes it is said that such persons are not quite sane, but the more experience a physician has with them, the more he dismisses the thought of insanity and proceeds to use contrary suggestion and frank discussion, in order to counteract the mental influences. Insane persons think they are being influenced from a distance just as they hear voices and see visions, but such hallucinations may occur to the sane, as apparent telepathic experiences may also.

Witchcraft.—It used to be a common belief that people could be influenced, even at a distance, by the mere evil wishes or intentions of others. After all, the old beliefs in witchcraft that were so common in Europe and in America until well into the eighteenth century represent the conviction of mankind that at least certain people might, from a distance, seriously influence them for evil. Always the fear of malign influence was uppermost in people's minds and literally hundreds of thousands of witches were prosecuted, and many thousands of them put to death, because of this belief in the possibility of their working evil to others at a distance, merely by willing it. Occasionally some such material auxiliary to malign purpose as an image in wax of the one to whom the evil was to be done was used. Into this the ill wisher stuck pins according to the part that he or she would want to be affected in the enemy, but as a rule the will, and nothing more, was used.

Absent Treatment.—In our own time a system of healing, that has attracted many followers, has taken up the idea of beneficent mental influence at a distance. "Absent treatment" has now become a familiar expression. That those who believe in such favorable influence at a distance should also believe in unfavorable influence seems inevitable. As a matter of fact, we know that the founder of this special sect always insisted on the power for evil over herself and her followers of those who want to exert the injurious influence of animal magnetism—malicious animal magnetism as it is called. A very definite attempt was made to bring a case of this kind before the courts, the subject matter of which exactly resembled some of the old witchcraft trials in New England! And in spite of the insistence and emphatic assertion that no such thing is intended, from the principles that are accepted the necessary logical conclusion is a return to the belief in witchcraft.

Malignant Magnetism.—As a number of persons are likely to fear such evil influence of others upon them, the question of the possibility of it must come up for discussion in order that its status may be clear in the physician's mind, for by just as much as he can make certain to the patient that modern psychology refuses to accept distant influence, will he be able to reassure his patient. Of course, the patients who come with such complaints have usually some element of mental trouble. The alienist sees any number of people who are sure that enemies at a distance are working spells upon them, some by electrical, some by magnetic means, and some by telepathic absent treatment, or absent ill-wishing. Such notions are the delusions of the disequilibrated and these persons often cannot be reasoned with. Yet very often a distinct delusion may be reasoned out of even a subrational person, if it is taken seriously, and some striking expression of its irrationality and of its total disagreement with scientific views can be shown to the patient.

Action Without a Medium.—The medieval scholastic philosophers quoted as an absolutely accepted principle the Latin axiom, "actio in distans repugnat." Literally translated this means action at a distance is repugnant to reason. Expressed less technically, the principle declares that any action of one body on another, where there is no medium connecting them, no link that in some way places them in contact with one another, is absurd. The expression in distans means that the two bodies are separated from one another and stand in two places having no connection of any kind. This principle would ordinarily seem to preclude the possibility of one person acting on another, unless there is some mode of communication.

Crookes' Theory.—Sir William Crookes, at a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science about ten years ago, in discussing telepathy, directed attention to the fact that there exists by scientific hypothesis, generally accepted, a definite medium of communication by which minds at a distance might influence one another. The medium is the ether which, according to physical theories, besides carrying light, also carries heat and electrical waves, and in recent years is recognized as transmitting the impulses of wireless telegraphy. It is possible that when the cells of certain human minds are stimulated to a particular phase of vibration, they may, even at long distances, affect the cells of other individuals that resemble them, or are attuned to them, that is, have the same moment of vibration. This is the principle which underlies wireless telegraphy. Whether the vibrations of living nerve cells can be made thus to radiate out over the ether and arouse in any way other cells, especially to the extent of communicating ideas, is a matter still open for investigation. The possibility of this occurring cannot be denied. We are, however, still in the presence of a condition and not a theory. The question is whether minds are thus influenced at a distance—whether we have data enough to establish the occurrence of telepathy or mental communications of any kind at a distance.

No Practical Thought Transfer.—At the beginning, it is of the greatest importance to recall that, while many people think there must be something in telepathy and presume that the investigations of recent years have shown not only the possibility of the communication of ideas from mind to mind and of the mental influence of one person over another, even at long distances, but also its actual occurrence, yet all our ordinary life is founded on the absolute negation of any such phenomenon. For instance, our courts of law are conducted in direct contradiction of the possibility of anything like telepathy. Juries are summoned of twelve good men and true who, as far as possible, know nothing about the prisoner and as little as may be about the case. They are supposed to get all their information in the court room. We do not believe that any of them by any wonderful process might be able to know what was going on in the prisoner's mind in spite of his plea. Nor do we think for a moment that they can know what is going on, apart from what he communicates in evidence, in the mind of any witness. Neither is there the slightest presumption that the judge or any of our lawyers can know anything about what is in the minds of any of the persons present, except as they reveal it by outward signs.