A STUDY IN “ANTICIPATIONS”
Series of February 11, 1929
We have been pursuing the rigorous rule of estimating a percipient drawing by its correspondence or lack of correspondence with the agent drawing then in hand. Only when Mrs. Sinclair announced in advance that a described drawing would come in a series, and it actually came, have we given weight to an anticipation. Such an instance was that of the snow and sled drawing of February 8th. This is not by any means to say that other “anticipations” have not had weight, as a matter of fact. In some of the instances exhibited in Mental Radio the original drawings represented objects of such character that it was extremely unlikely that there should be a near correspondence among the half dozen or dozen reproductions constituting the whole series, or in fifty guesses.
Again, there could be a series with so many of these correspondences out of order that one is mathematically[[24]] and logically compelled to acknowledge that there was anticipation. Such a series is that of February 11, 1929.
1. Agt., a molar tooth; Per., an ellipse containing 19 tiny circles. This is emphatically a failure compared with the contemporaneous original drawing. However, see No. 12. Before the drawing was made, the percipient wrote “First see rooster. Then elephant.”
2. And now Agt.’s drawing was an elephant, as far back as but lacking hind legs. And Per. wrote “Elephant comes again. I try to suppress it, and see lines, and a spike sticking some way into something.” And she draws two vertical lines, related to each other in ribbon fashion, what looks like a pin with circle for head, crossing the band through a slit indicated by two short vertical lines, and below the “spike” two widely separated vertical lines. The “spike” crosses what I have called a ribbon exactly as the elephant’s tusk crosses his trunk, the round eye of the elephant has moved slightly to form the head of the “spike,” and the vertical lines below may stand for a feeling that something (really the front legs) should be below. We have some warrant for our interpretation from the words “Elephant comes again. I try to suppress it.” Had she not tried to suppress it (because of the erroneous notion that it is but a memory of the elephant impression of Experiment 1), it is fair to assume that she would have tried to draw an elephant. She “tried to suppress” the animal, but his eye and “spike,” which was really “sticking into something,” but not in the manner drawn, seem to have persisted. (See Figs. 66, 66a.)
3. And now Agt. did draw a rooster. Both elephant and rooster, with which she was impressed at Experiment 1, had come by the time Experiment 3 had been reached. This is rather too much for “chance coincidence,” especially as the Sinclairs do not have an elephant among their domestic pets. But this is not all. As Per. not only announced an elephant in advance but got details of the elephant when that animal actually was in hand as the original, so not only was a rooster announced in advance but when the original is a rooster, Per. gets correspondences. She writes “I don’t know what, see a bunch, or tuft clearly. Also a crooked arm on a body. But don’t feel that I’m right.” What she drew was remarkably like the rear three-quarters of the rooster, the “tuft” representing its tail, “the crooked arm” its two legs in conjunction. (See Figs. 67, 67a.)
4. Agt., a table; Per., “Flower. This is a very vivid one. Green-spine-leaves like century plant,” and a corresponding drawing with tall flowering spike in the center. (See Fig. [68a].) A flat failure, but wait for Experiments 7 and 11.
5. Agt., a fishhook; Per., no drawing but script: “Dog wagging tail—see tail in air busy wagging—jolly doggie—tail curled in the air.” Well, a fishhook is somewhat like a tail curled in the air. But script followed: “Now I see a cow. I fear the elephant and chicken got me too sure of animals. But I see these.” A tail curled in the air—a dog or a cow! Wait for No. 7.
6. Agt., a sun represented by a large circle surrounded by rays; Per., “Setting sun and bird in the sky. Big bird on wing—sea gull or wild goose.” Obviously this is a partial success.
7. Agt., what was intended for the rear half of a cow, with tail curled almost exactly like a fishhook. Remember that in No. 5 Per. had an impression of a dog with “tail curled in the air” and a later impression of a cow. As a matter of fact, Mr. Sinclair’s cow does not have a cow’s tail but one made in the fashion of a hound’s tail. Per. in this No. 7 experiment makes a drawing like that of No. 4, except that the central spike is not so long, and writes “This is a real flower. I’ve seen it before. It’s vivid and returns. Century plant. Now it turns into a candlestick. See a candle.” And she drew what she probably meant for a five-armed candlestick, with one candle in the center. But it is much like the plant called “cat-tail,” except that the leaves diverge too widely. (See Fig. [69a].)
8. Agt., a long line with seven short evenly-spaced lines running from it at right angles—probably meant for a rake-head; Per., what is probably intended for two sticks of wood, fire proceeding from one of them, and smoke above. Script: “Fire and smoke—flame.” Also, “Must be campfire as I now see an Indian warrior near it in a war dress—feathered headpiece, etc.” There is a certain amount of resemblance between the rake-head and the stick of wood with the more or less straight lines springing from one side of it. (See Fig. [43a].) And one remembers that an Indian headdress, of the type which hangs down the back, consists of feathers on one side and directed outwardly from the band to which they are attached. But these are only suggested possibilities of connection, and are doubtful. There is even another possible connection, for it may be that “Fire and smoke” was influenced by the cannon of the following original.
9. Agt., the forward part of an old-style cannon, a double-line ellipse marking its mouth seen in perspective; Per., the half of a double-line ellipse with a curving tangle as of smoke, labeled “Fire,” and outside the script: “Half circle, double lines—light inside—light is fire busy whirling or flaming.” Partly right and very suggestive. (See Fig. [44a].)
10. Agt., three concentric triangles; Per., two wheels and over them the suggestion of some vehicle-body—only a line and two angles. Failure.
11. Agt., a “cat-tail,” its leaves by no means correctly drawn, but there is no doubt of its identity; Per., a drawing doubtfully marked “Dog’s head,” its ears, if such they are, also its muzzle, long and pointed, much resembling the upper halves of Mr. Sinclair’s cat-tail leaves. But remember Mrs. Sinclair’s “century plant” of No. 2 with its somewhat similar leaves and its central spike; remember especially the “candlestick” of No. 7, which so much resembles a cat-tail. (See Figs. 69a, 70, 70a.)
12. Agt., ten small circles arranged in rows, pyramidal fashion; Per. wrote only “Nothing except all the preceding ones come—too many at once—all past ones crowding in memory.” I wish she had stated which past one, if any, crowded most, and which came first. For it happens that her drawing for No. 2, so different from the impressions “a rooster” and “an elephant,” set down at the same time, also consisted of little circles, also in rows, but more in number and enclosed within an elliptical line.
13. Agt., a drinking-glass with double elliptic line at the top and small ellipse indicating the bottom; Per., double elliptic line above, same below with indefinite lines rising from the latter. The script is more significant: “Think of a saucer, then of a cup. It’s something in the kitchen. Too tired to see.” Pretty close. (See Figs. 72, 72a.)
The occurrence of so many correspondences, direct and oblique, among thirteen consecutive experiments constituting the entire series performed at one time, and these by mere accidental coincidence, is practically unthinkable.
Later Experiments by Professor William McDougall
In the main, this review has dealt only with the period covered by Mental Radio, although it has exhibited some experiments not illustrated or even mentioned therein. A few of the special tabulations have also included a part or all of the later tests made by Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair, to the number of more than a hundred, the materials of which are in my hands. When the tabulations have reached so far, the fact has been stated.
But it may be well to say something about tests made by Professor William McDougall during a sojourn in California, July-August, 1930. He examined the proofs of previous work and consented to write an introduction to Mental Radio, saying: “A refusal would imply on my part a lack either of courage or of due sense of scientific responsibility. * * * It is the duty of men of science to give whatever encouragement and sympathetic support may be possible to all amateurs who find themselves in a position to observe and carefully and honestly to study such phenomena. Mrs. Sinclair would seem to be one of the rare persons who have telepathic power in a marked degree and perhaps other supernormal powers. The experiments in telepathy, as reported in the pages of this book, were so remarkably successful as to rank among the very best hitherto reported. The degree of success and the conditions of experiment were such that we can reject them as conclusive evidence of some mode of communication not at present explicable in accepted scientific terms only by assuming that Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair either are grossly stupid, incompetent and careless persons, or have deliberately entered upon a conspiracy to deceive the public in a most heartless and reprehensible fashion.” As we have seen, the circle of conspirators would have to be enlarged to admit Mr. and Mrs. Irwin, for they vouched for an extraordinarily successful series of experiments at long distance. And it would have to be enlarged to include Professor McDougall himself, since he sent me the materials of his experiments, whose results, though inferior to many of the series of 1928 and 1929, yet show a ratio and quality of correspondence vastly beyond chance expectation. Remember that the 260 Guessing tests resulted in not one drawing which, being compared with the original, could possibly be regarded as a Success, and this by the independent verdicts of two judges. Of course, this does not mean that another set of 260 guesses would not show one Success or more than one, but it does show the great improbability that a particular drawing made by guess will correspond with the particular original enough so that it is possible to call it a Success. The 260 guess-drawings, according to one of the judges, showed 3 Partial Successes, 1 according to the other. Then say there was no Success and but 3 Partial Successes, and it is still unlikely that a particular drawing made in any short guess series will correspond with the particular original to the extent of being worthy of the title Success or Partial Success. On the basis of those 260 guesses we would be warranted in assuming that there would be about one-third of a likelihood of getting either a Success or a Partial Success in a series of 25. But another series of 260 guesses might be more fortunate, so call it an expectation of getting one. Professor McDougall had 25 experiments with Mrs. Sinclair.
On July 19th, “five cards drawn or chosen and sealed in envelope and thick paper at Santa Monica and presented in turn sealed to Mrs. S. at Long Beach.” Reproductions 1, 3 and 4 were failures. But agent’s No. 2 was a “prairie schooner” showing two wheels with spokes and a long black line crossing the wheels at their hubs and standing for both the bottom of the vehicle-body and the shafts in front, while the percipient drew (1) a wheel with spokes and a long black line running from the hub, and (2) a wheel-like shape without spokes, but the line extending far in one direction and passing through the hub and beyond the wheel a short way in the other direction, as in the original. Here we have a distinct Partial Success. Agent’s No. 5 was a postal-card picture of a part of Oxford, the most conspicuous feature in which is the tower of Magdalen College with pinnacles and high, narrow windows. The percipient made a drawing which anyone would recognize as a tower, with bristling short lines projecting upward from the top suggesting pinnacles, and high, narrow windows. The proportions of height and width are approximately correct. Below the lower window level are two parallel horizontal lines, which call attention to such lines in the original. This was drawn, however, while the percipient was holding agent’s No. 4, his No. 5, the tower, still being in his pocket. It looks like an anticipation. But when she arrived at No. 5 she wrote “Turret of a castle and trees,” and now she is right for the very original in hand, which does display, besides a river, a bridge and buildings, the conspicuous tower, and trees prominent in the picture. She added “Sword,” “Scissors,” and “Key,” which may possibly be erroneous impressions from the pinnacles. So we have here a striking result, worthy to be called a Success. I have again taken pains to go through all the originals and all the reproductions, 413 of each, and find that but once besides did an original represent a tower. It was the Eiffel Tower, and all will remember its tall, slender and tapering shape. The percipient’s drawing represented a long, slender and tapering cone—a Partial Success. And but once besides, among all 413 drawings, did the percipient present a tower. This was on the following August 16th, when, apparently as an experiment, the drawings were “done in a hurry” and no record made of the order. If compared with a particular one of the originals, the “tower top” is a Partial Success, but it probably was a Failure. So here we have the factors: out of 418 agent drawings two represent towers, and one results in a percipient Success, the other in a Partial Success; out of 418 percipient drawings two represent towers, and one is a Success, the other a Failure.
On July 20th Professor McDougall made 5 drawings “at one end of a long room, while Mrs. Sinclair tried to reproduce them at the other end.” The agent made what is supposed to be a stork, each foot furnished with three toes. The percipient made two long legs with three-toed feet, the legs extending from a curved line like the under side of a bird. Above and isolated is what looks like a crest, which the stork does not have. Partial Success. The 4th agent drawing is of a ringed target and a feathered arrow sticking in it, the barb not visible. The percipient drawing is practically the feathered part of the shaft. Partial Success. The 5th agent drawing shows a drum-like object with elliptical top, from the center of which a tube or spout projects vertically, with water rising from the spout, parting and falling to right and to left so that it looks something like a tree. The percipient drew (1) an ellipse, (2) an ellipse, (3) something like a very round teapot, with elliptic top and spout at an angle of 45 degrees, (4) something like the vertical trunk of a tree surmounted by a ball of foliage. Success; there are too many suggestive partial parallels to allow this to be doubted.
July 26th there were 5 experiments, all drawn by Professor McDougall except one, that being a postal-card picture of trees, bushes and the yucca in bloom. Agent’s No. 2 was a wheel with spokes and tire nicely drawn. Percipient made three circles in a row with something like the connecting rod of a locomotive across them. This is at least Suggestive. Directly before the yucca picture, the percipient described plants with flowers, but the description did not fit the original next to come, nor did the impression of flowers persist when the yucca was at hand, so I do not allow this to count at all. There were no other successes in any degree.
Then followed experiments, one a day, with Professor McDougall drawing at Santa Monica, Mrs. Sinclair drawing at the same time at Pasadena, thirty miles distant.
July 30th. A failure.
August 2nd. Original drawing: a coffee-pot, its spout at the right of peculiar shape, somewhat like the profile of a boat’s stern. The percipient’s drawing was principally made up of a vertical line like the edge of the coffee-pot, and turned to the right from its upper extremity a projection curiously like the coffee-pot’s spout. To the left of the vertical line seven dots. It may be a mere coincidence that in the original there are several, but not seven, dark spots in the drawing, placed relatively about as far from the right edge of the coffee-pot as the dots are from the vertical line in the percipient drawing. The drawing is Suggestive, at least.
August 10th. Original drawing a teapot, and percipient’s drawing, a palm frond, was relatively to it, a failure.
August 11th. Agent drew a faucet. Percipient wrote “Teapot,” which is a failure. But agent had drawn a teapot the previous day—did percipient get a deferred telepathic impression?
August 13th. Agent drew a palm tree and percipient’s result was a failure. But, records agent, “Had it in mind to draw the palm in patio several days before. Mrs. S. seemed to get it August 10th.” No agent should have in mind to draw one thing when he actually draws another. If the result is from telepathy, not clairvoyance, a percipient is at least as likely to get that on which the agent’s mind has dwelt. On the whole it would perhaps be fair to count this as a Success.
August 16th. Agent drew a flower-pot and in it a plant with sword-shaped leaves, somewhat like a century plant. Percipient first drew what one might take to be a stalk with five straight, short leafless branches, but with the script “Velvet bow with band.” She added, “Then saw” and drew a plant—no pot—with leaves exactly of the form of the leaves in the original, and added, “I have too many leaves in the above.” Right: she had 11 leaves, the original had 7. This certainly is at least a Partial Success.
August 17th, August 18th and August 19th each yielded a Failure.
Now let us take account of stock. On the basis of our 260 experiments in guessing we would have about one-third of an expectation of finding in the McDougall experiments one Partial Success, but as another series of 260 guesses might be more fortunate we proposed to reckon a full likelihood of getting one Success or Partial Success, on the theory that Mrs. Sinclair was guessing also. But we have found 3 Successes and 4 Partial Successes (not counting a possible “anticipation,” and 2 instances of Suggestive). It is not mathematics, it is not logic, it is not common-sense to conclude that we have not, even in this series of Professor McDougall, although it does not equal some which have been exhibited, something for which chance is wholly unable to account.
It is not at all difficult to account for the fact that Professor McDougall’s results were not quite up to the average of Mrs. Sinclair’s work during the period covered by Mental Radio, both quantity and quality taken into consideration. In the first place, it has for many years been evident that something depends upon the degree of rapport between agent and percipient; in other words, that some persons are better suited than others to act as agents in relation to a particular percipient. Thus, we are told in the book (pages [33]–34) that among the friends of Mrs. Sinclair there was one peculiarly adapted in this respect—Mrs. Kate Crane-Gartz. I venture to relate my own very limited experience, as fact, not scientifically guaranteed. I have had reason to suppose that I was getting telepathic messages only with two persons. One was with my wife the first time I ever experimented with her, and then I got most of the objects she was thinking of, more or less satisfactorily, in about eight trials. But I never again had any measurable success with her, though I tried repeatedly. The other person I was for a time in sympathetic relations with, and there occurred a number of incidents which convinced me that I was acting as a spontaneous percipient. The most striking category of these is the same which Mr. Sinclair describes when he says: “My wife will say to me, ‘Mrs. Gartz is going to phone,’ and in a minute or two the phone will ring.” Repeatedly, when I had no particular reason to think that the lady to whom I refer would ‘phone me, and when I was occupied with work, I would suddenly, as by a jerk, look at the ‘phone, expecting it to ring, and in a few moments it would do so. I have even gone to the ‘phone, almost without thinking, and stood there for half a minute or so before it did so. This period lasted for perhaps three or four months only, then faded out. Never at any other time, nor with any other person, not even with my daughter between whom and me there is the most cordial sympathy, has there been evidence of this kind sufficiently striking and repetitious to arrest serious attention. So it may well be that Professor McDougall, however amiable and fairminded he is, not having been long known to the percipient and being invested with the awe of a psychologist of extended reputation, was not so well adapted to be an agent in relation to her as her husband or her brother-in-law.
But again, while at times Mrs. Sinclair to the last of her experimentation analyzed by me got excellent results, I find that, whether because she was wearied, or too much occupied by other things, or more anxious and less spontaneous, or for whatever reason, did not in the later months do so well on the average as during the earlier months. The poorest stretch of the period after the material covered by the book was that from August 1 to August 28, 1929, inclusive. There were 27 experiments, of which, according to my reckoning, 2 were Successes, 1 a Partial Success, 3 Suggestive, 2 Slightly Suggestive and 19 Failures in a series of 27 experiments. The poorest stretch of experiments during the book period was that ending with the series of February 17, 1929, nevertheless shown on account of its significance. Here there were 4 Successes, 8 Partial Successes, 4 Suggestive, 1 Slightly Suggestive and 10 Failures out of the same total number of 27. So, after all, while the McDougall results did not reach the highest level of the later period, they did not by any means mark the lowest level. They greatly transcend the expectation of chance, and, with the exception of five experiments only, were achieved when agent and percipient were either thirty miles apart or at the two ends of a long room.