An Interpretation of Mrs. Sinclair’s Directions
Mrs. Sinclair, on pages [116]–128 of Mental Radio, outlines on the basis of her own experience the method which she thinks best calculated to develop an ability to attain at will a mental state which will enable some of her readers to receive and record telepathic impressions to an evidential degree. I propose, at the same time recommending that prospective experimenters shall obtain the book and read the full directions, to attempt a condensation of them. To some extent I shall interpret them; that is, state them in other terms, which it is hoped will not be the less lucid. As a matter of psychological fact, you cannot “make your mind a blank,” though you can more or less acquire the art of doing at will what you sometimes involuntarily do—you can practice narrowing the field of consciousness, so that instead of being aware of many things external and of various bodily sensations, your attention is fixed almost exclusively for a time on one mental object. Some persons at times become so absorbed in a train of thought that with eyes open and with conversation around them they are hardly conscious of anything seen or heard. But it is best to assist the attainment of such a state as Mrs. Sinclair does, by closing the eyes, and it is best that silence should prevail. When one remembers how in revery he has become oblivious to all around him, or how when witnessing an entrancing passage in a play everything in the theatre except the actors and their immediate environment has faded out of consciousness, he will have no difficulty in understanding what Mrs. Sinclair really means by saying that “it is possible to be unconscious and conscious at the same time,” although taken literally that is not a correct statement.
But, according to her, in order to be in the state best fitted for telepathic reception, it is not enough to narrow the field of consciousness until, approximately, only one train of thought on a mentally conceived subject occupies it. There must be cultivated also, in as high a degree as possible, an ability to shut out memories and imaginations, and to wait for and to receive impressions, particularly those of mental imagery, which seem to come of themselves, and to expend the mental energy upon watching, selecting from and determining these.
We are told that it is important to relax—“to ‘let go’ of every tense muscle, every tense spot, in the body,” and that auto-suggestion, mentally telling oneself to relax, will help. Along with this there should be a letting-go, or progressive quietening, of consciousness.
She wisely says that if in spite of you the selected mentally-visualized rose or violet rouses memories by suggesting a lost sweetheart, a vanished happy garden, or what not, you should substitute thinking of another flower which has no personal connotations for you. It must be some “peace-inspiring object,” even a spoon might suggest medicine. The reader will understand that we are now discussing the means for cultivating ability to fall at will into the state for telepathic reception; we are not talking about experiments with that end in view.
After considerable practice of this kind one will tend to fall asleep. It seems that it is right to nearly come to that point, but one must stop a little this side of the sleeping stage.
When one feels that some success has attended the practice described above, he may proceed to actual experiments. The amateur experimenter is advised at first to experiment in the dark, or at least in a dimly-lit room, as light stimulates the eyes.
She goes on to say what means that you should induce mental relaxation and passivity, narrow the field of consciousness. But at this point I must depart from Mrs. Sinclair’s precepts and recommend her own best practice. Her very first seven formal experiments were with her brother-in-law making his drawings some thirty miles away. The results were so remarkable that they deserve to arrest the attention of every psychologist. The next seven experiments were made with agent and percipient in different rooms, shut off from each other by solid walls; and their results also were very impressive. Therefore I see no reason why amateurs experimenting according to the light that they get from Mrs. Sinclair should not make their very first attempts in another room from the agent. Let the latter do as we find in the book was done; make his drawing, call out “All right” when he is done, and gaze steadfastly at the drawing until the percipient has made hers and signalized the fact by calling out “All right,” then proceed to make another and repeat the process. At least part of the time, let there be another person with the agent keeping watch upon his lips and throat muscles, lest the desperate theory should be advanced that at the distance of, say, thirty feet and through solid walls “involuntary whispering” on the part of the agent reached the ears of the percipient.
But how shall the percipient further conduct herself (we are here supposing the percipient is a woman) as the means of getting telepathic impressions? Adapting the directions given in the book, we should say that, lying on the couch with eyes dosed, and having sunk into that state of mental abstraction which she is supposed now to be capable of attaining, she is to order her subconscious mind, very calmly but positively, to bring the agent’s drawing to her mind.
And now we quote literally from the book, even to the expressions about making the mind a blank. Although not technically correct, it may be that to many not versed in psychology the expressions will be actually the best to suggest to them what they are to do.
Mrs. Sinclair warns that “the details of this technique are not to be taken as trifles,” and that to develop and make it serviceable “takes time, and patience, and training in the art of concentration.” There are special difficulties, at least in her case. In undertaking a new experiment what she last saw before closing her eyes again, particularly the electric light bulb which she lighted in order to make her drawing or drawings, appeared in her mind, and also the memory of the last picture. “It often takes quite a while to banish these memory ghosts. And sometimes it is a mistake to banish them,” a fact which we have noted several times in the account of her work. Another difficulty is to restrain one’s tendency when a part or what may be a part of the original appears, to guess what the rest may be, and to keep the imagination bridled.
It is quite probable—and this Mrs. Sinclair recognizes—that the procedure, now fairly clearly outlined, may not in all its details be suited to all minds capable of telepathic reception. Mr. Rawson, as we shall see in Part II, when successful, was nearly always so almost instantly. On the other hand, the percipients in the Schmoll and Mabire series were often as long as fifteen minutes making their choice. But it would be wise to begin along the lines of the instructions, and make modifications of method, if any, in the light of what personal experience suggests.
It is hoped that there will be readers of this Bulletin disposed to school themselves and to experiment in conformity with the above instructions, patiently and persistently, and that, successful or not, they will make careful records and report to the Research Officer.