PERCIPIENT SEQUELAE TO CERTAIN CATEGORIES OF AGENT DRAWINGS
Mr. Sinclair remarks that “when in these drawing tests there has been anything [that is, in his drawings] indicating fire or smoke she has ‘got’ it, with only one or two failures out of more than a dozen cases.” This would mean a much larger ratio of success for the drawings so characterized than that for the total number of drawings. Mr. Sinclair accounts for this by the fact that his wife, owing to terrifying incidents in her childhood, is exceedingly sensitive to the thought of fire and given to taking unusual precautions. Readers will probably agree that this is a plausible and sensible theory. I propose to tabulate all such tests, including the original drawings significant of light.
Original Drawings Indicating Fire or Smoke
1928
1. July 29. O:[[20]] Smoking cigarette—R: Various curved lines, and “I can’t draw it, but curls of some sort.”
1929
2. Jan. 28. O: House with smoking chimney—R: Curls as of smoke. (See Figs. 36, 36a.)
3. Feb. ?. O: Lighted lamp—R: Pipe, and “Pipe with fire in it.”
4. Feb. 8. O: Pipe with smoke—R: Drawing similar to a pipe, with smoke. (See Figs. 37, 37a.)
5. Feb. 8. O: House with smoking chimney—R: Failure.
6. Feb. ?. O: Pipe with smoke—R: Written, “Smoke stack.”
7. Feb. 10. O: Smoking mountain—R: (No thought of smoke but) Drawing very like O. (See Figs. 25, 25a.)
8. Feb. 15. O: Smoking match—R: Smoking match. (See Figs. 91, 91a.)
9. Feb. 23. O: Steamboat with smoking stack—R: Draws smoke, “Smoke again,” and draws figure like stack with smoke. (See Figs. 77, 77a, 77b, 77c.)
10. Mar. 16. O: Lighted lamp—R: Drawing somewhat like the part of a lamp within the chimney, and “Flame and sparks.” (See Figs. 40, 40a.)
Original Drawings Not Indicating But Significant of Fire or Smoke
1929
11. Feb. ?. O: Pipe—R: Failure (But a smoking pipe in same series of 8).
12. Feb. 2. O: Candelabrum—R: Base of candelabrum correctly drawn.
13. Feb. 10. O: Fire-rocket (felt unable to draw it bursting)—R: Six drawings labelled “light,” several like swirling rocket, and words “whirling light lines.”
14. Feb. 11. O: Muzzle of end of cannon, mouth indicated by double circle—R: Drawing of “half circle double lines—light inside—light is fire busy whirling or flaming.”
15. Feb. 16. O: Gable and chimney—R: Chimney with smoke.
16. Mar. 7. O: Cannon—R: “Black Napoleon hat and red military coats.”[[21]]
17. Mar. 16. O: Trench mortar, with wheels and axle—R: Drawing similar to mortar and axle, plus smoke. (See Figs. 42, 42a.)
Original Drawings Significant of Light
1929
18. Feb. ?. O: Electric light bulb—R: Drawing and script very suggestive; but nothing about light.
19. Feb. 10. O: Electric light bulb—R: Two drawings somewhat like O in shape; nothing about light.
20. Feb. 11. O: Sun—R: “Setting sun and bird in sky.”
21. Feb. 15. O: Sun over hills—R: Sun over a “body.” (See Figs. 93, 93a.)
This is a very noteworthy exhibit. In idea, shape or both, all the 21 reproductions show marked correspondences, with 3 exceptions only, one of which is doubtfully an anticipation of an original in the same group, and another very possibly connected by an interior association of ideas.
Originals Representing Forms of Animal Life
In some cases, after the agent had drawn an animal, a bird, or some other creature possessing animal life, the percipient’s drawing was successful, partly successful or at least suggestive in shape; in many instances it was a flat failure. But as examination proceeded it began to appear that a number of the failures represented some other form of the animal kingdom, however diverse. A careful canvass was made, including the material in hand produced subsequent to that in the Sinclair book, embracing in all 388 experiments; drawings of human beings, animals, birds, fishes, insects, and parts of bodies, as a hand or a leg, were included.
The Agent drew 103 such out of 388.
The Percipient drew 98 such out of 388.
There were found to be 39 correspondences;[[22]] that is, in 39 cases, where the agent drew some animal form or part thereof, the percipient also drew some animal form or part thereof. If out of a total of 388, the agent makes 103 drawings of this character, chance would give about 26 correspondences, so defined, among the 98 reproductions. In fact, there are 39, another proof, by a peculiar test, that something more than chance is in operation.
Now let us make another test, this time including the material only up to the close of the period covered by the book, and not insisting, as we have done above, on strict recognition of reproductions, but stating precisely how they compare with the originals in form.
Where the Original Drawings Represent Vegetable Forms
1929
Feb. 2. O: Plant with 18 spots for flowers (?)—R: 9 similar spots and writing “Many dots.”
Feb. 6. O: Daisy—R: 8 small assembled figures shaped like petals of daisy, and other figures indicating vegetation.
Feb. 11. O: Cat-tail—R: Three angular protrusions somewhat like cat-tail leaves, and “Dog’s head?”
Feb. 12. O: Flower with stalk—R: Flower resembling O; no stalk.
Feb. 15. O: Stalk of celery—R: Flower and stalk somewhat resembling O.
Feb. 15. O: Leaf—R: Indeterminate drawings, but with features like O.
Feb. 16. O: Acorn—R: Drawing looks like an acorn, whatever is meant by it.
Feb. 16. O: Flower and leaves—R: Absolute failure.
Feb. 17. O: Lima bean—R: Man’s head, but his large turban is curiously shaped like O.
Feb. 17. O: Leaves around nest of eggs—R: Same shape of leaves around what much resembles the nest of eggs.
Feb. ?. O: Fleur-de-lis—R: Failure.
Feb. 20. O: “Red” flower[[23]]—R: “Red” flower. (See Fig. [14a].)
Feb. 22. O: Odd tree—R: Similar odd tree.
Feb. 24. O: Branch of tree with thorns—R: Apparently branch of tree, not thorned.
Mar. 11. O: Melon, with stalk and leaf—R: Indeterminate vegetable or flower, with stalk, and what looks like two leaves similar to the leaf in O.
Mar. 11. O: Palm tree—R: 2 indeterminate figures, curiously like O.
Mar. ?. O: Dead tree with pointed limbs—R: 3 “horns,” somewhat suggestive.
Mar. ?. O: Bouquet of “pink” roses, and leaves—R: An odd half flower-like figure, marked “green” exteriorly and “pink” inside.
Mar. 16. O: Carnation—R: Similar exterior four sharp angles; no other resemblance.
All the Original Drawings Representing Crosses
1929
1. Feb. ?. O: Swastika cross (Fig. [101])—R: 3 drawings which together give 3 of the 4 rectangular quarters of the swastika cross, and the directions in which they open; 2 drawings, each of which practically represents a half of the cross, but one of these reversed (Fig. [101a]).
2. Feb. 6. O: Swastika cross—R: Failure.
3. Feb. ?. O: Pattée cross (Fig. [81])—R: A figure, four of which rightly placed make the cross; but by adding a bail (because of inference?) it is made a basket (Fig. [81a]).
4. Feb. 10. O: Eight-armed crosses (Fig. [64])—R: Script, “See spider, or some sort of legged pest.” (Note that the Arachnida are eight-legged.)
5. Feb. 15. O: Three four-armed crosses on a box—R: Three six-armed crosses. (See Figs. 98, 98a.)
6. Mar. ?. O: Eight-armed cross with notched ends (Fig. [7])—R: Seven-armed cross with notched ends (Fig. [7a]).
Originals Representing the Sun
In the course of 300 experiments, extending a little beyond the period reported by the book, there were but two of these.
The first was on February 11, 1929. The agent made a sun as children draw it, a circle with rays surrounding it. The percipient made no drawing but wrote “Setting sun and bird in the sky. Big bird on the wing—sea gull or wild goose.” Mr. Sinclair calls this a partial success, and surely it is.
The second was on February 15, more than fifty experiments having intervened. The agent drew a sun over hills, the percipient a circle with rays around it actually labelled “a sun,” over a “body.” (See Figs. 93, 93a.) This also was a partial success.
Thus both times out of 300 experiments when Mr. Sinclair made a sun, his wife “got it” and drew one also.
But twice, also, Mrs. Sinclair drew what was meant for the upper half of a sun at the horizon when there was no sun in the original. In one of these instances the original did have something, not a sun, considerably like the reproduction, and there was a certain degree of resemblance in the other. But let these count as failures. We will allow the reader to figure out the chances of two of Mrs. Sinclair’s four suns, in the course of 300 experiments, being drawn at the same time when Mr. Sinclair drew his two suns.
“Line-and-Circle-Men” Originals
On February 6, 1929, Mr. Sinclair made a line-and-circle man; that is, one drawn in schoolboy fashion (Fig. [106]). The percipient got the head circle, adding dots for features, and her crossing lines, properly placed below the circle, roughly represent the spread of arms and legs (Fig. [106a]).
On February 10th, thirty experiments having intervened, the agent made two such men, facing each other in boxing attitudes (Fig. [107]). It will be seen that just two vertical lines, longer than any of the others, enter into their composition. The longest lines in what the percipient drew are also two and vertical. And she got a confused notion of the legs and arms, each with its angle for knee or elbow. She failed to get any circles (Fig. [107a]).
All through the period covered by the book, and past it until the 300th experiment, there is no other line-and-circle man original. The percipient in the same number of experiments made one drawing in which head and body are represented by a circle and an ellipse, and the rest of the man by single lines. And she made one fairly well drawn head with hair, the rest of the figure represented by single lines.