William Baggally - Telepathy, Genuine and Fraudulent

At the time that Miss Telbin got the impression of the diagram with three sections, she made the remark that it looked like three leaves.

The correspondence between the drawings and the diagrams is very great, and difficult to account for by chance.

The following points have to be considered. First, that Miss Telbin only made two drawings and not many from which two might have been selected in which there was a resemblance to the diagrams. Secondly, that Mr. Thomas's diagram was correctly reproduced although in a reversed position (the reversal of a figure sometimes happens in experiments in telepathy). Thirdly, that my diagram of three triangles, although not reproduced in the form of triangles, was drawn correctly as regards there being three sections, and that the relative position of the sections was given correctly. Fourthly, that Miss Telbin had not previously seen any of the diagrams, and therefore the chances against her being able to hit upon any diagram which was then being used were very great. Fifthly, that the chances against her being able to hit upon two diagrams simultaneously were even greater.

The explanation that the result might have been due to collusion between the persons experimenting of course cannot be entertained, at least by myself, who was one of the experimenters.

It was not possible for the percipient to see through the large screen which was behind her, and there were no mirrors in the room in which the small diagrams could have been reflected. No word was spoken to give her the slightest clue. These two successful telepathic experiments led to further ones at a distance between this lady and myself.

It will be of interest to insert here an account of an experiment in telepathy, similar to the one I have just described, between two agents and one percipient, which Sir Oliver Lodge carried out in the year 1884.

When the experiment was tried with Miss Telbin, Mr. Thomas, and myself I was not aware that Sir Oliver Lodge had already tried an experiment of a like nature.

"My own first actual experience of thought transference, or experimental telepathy, was obtained in the years 1883 and 1884 at Liverpool, when I was invited by Mr. Malcolm Guthrie of that city to join in an investigation which he was conducting with the aid of one or two persons who had turned out to be sensitive, from among the employees of the large drapery firm of George Henry Lee & Co.

"A large number of these experiments had been conducted before I was asked to join, throughout the spring and autumn of 1883, but it is better for me to adhere strictly to my own experience and to relate only those experiments over which I had control.

"Most of these experiments were confirmations of the kind of thing that had been observed by other experimenters. But one experiment which I tried was definitely novel, and, as it seems to me, important; since it clearly showed that when two agents are acting, each contributes to the effect, and that the result is due, not to one alone, but to both combined. The experiment is thus described by me in the columns of Nature , vol. xxx., page 145, for 12th June 1884: —

"Those of your readers who are interested in the subject of thought transference, now being investigated, may be glad to hear of a little experiment which I recently tried here. The series of experiments was originated and carried on in this city by Mr. Malcolm Guthrie, and he has prevailed on me, on Dr. Herdman, and on one or two other more or less scientific witnesses, to be present on several occasions, critically to examine the conditions, and to impose any fresh ones that we thought desirable. I need not enter into particulars, but I will just say that the conditions under which apparent transference of thought occurs from one or more persons, steadfastly thinking, to another in the same room blindfold and wholly disconnected from the others, seem to me absolutely satisfactory, and such as to preclude the possibility of conscious collusion on the one hand or unconscious muscular indication on the other.

"One evening last week – after two thinkers, or agents, had been several times successful in instilling the idea of some object or drawing, at which they were looking, into the mind of the blindfold person, or percipient – I brought into the room a double opaque sheet of thick paper with a square drawn on one side and a St. Andrew's cross or X on the other, and silently arranged it between the two agents so that each looked on one side without any notion of what was on the other. The percipient was not informed in any way that a novel modification was being made; and, as usual, there was no contact of any sort or kind – a clear space of several feet existing between each of the three people. I thought that by this variation I should decide whether one of the two agents was more active than the other; or, supposing them about equal, whether two ideas in two separate minds could be fused into one by the percipient.

"In a very short time the percipient made the following remarks, every one else being silent: 'The thing won't keep still.' 'I seem to see things moving about.' 'First I see a thing up there, and then one down there.' 'I can't see either distinctly.' The object was then hidden, and the percipient was told to take off the bandage and to draw the impression in her mind on a sheet of paper. She drew a square, and then said, 'There was the other thing as well,' and drew a cross inside the square from corner to corner, saying afterwards, 'I don't know what made me put it inside.'

Originals.

Reproduction.

"The experiment is no more conclusive as evidence than fifty others that I have seen at Mr. Guthrie's, but it seems to me somewhat interesting that two minds should produce a disconnected sort of impression on the mind of the percipient, quite different from the single impression which we had usually obtained when two agents were both looking at the same thing. Once, for instance (to take a nearly corresponding case under those conditions), when the object was a rude drawing of the main lines in a Union Jack, the figure was reproduced by the percipient as a whole without misgiving; except, indeed, that she expressed a doubt as to whether its middle horizontal line were present or not, and ultimately omitted it."

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Reproduction.

As I have said, the two successful telepathic experiments which I have described, and which took place in the rooms of the Society for Psychical Research, led to further experiments at a distance between Miss Telbin and myself.

It was arranged that we should sit on certain days in the week, and that at a fixed hour I should act as agent and transmit to her my thoughts, she being at the time in her residence in West Hampstead, and I in Kensington. The distance between these localities as the crow flies is four miles. The result of our first sitting, which took place on 20th May 1902, is shown on the preceding page.