The Sinclair-Sinclair Group of July 14–29, 1928
We are in two passages told precisely the conditions of this group of experiments. Since her brother-in-law felt obliged to withdraw from participation, Mrs. Sinclair asked her husband to make some drawings. * * *
1. July 14. Mr. Sinclair made the above drawing (Fig. [2]), a very imperfectly constructed six-pointed star. Mrs. Sinclair, reclining 30 feet away, with a closed door between, produced five drawings (Fig. [2a]).[[11]] Immediately after the agent’s and percipient’s drawings had been compared, the lady stated that just before starting to concentrate she had been looking at her drawing of many concentric circles made on the previous day in the concluding test of the Sinclair-Irwin group. This was bad method, but we can hardly regret it, as the sequel is illuminating. At first she got a tangle of circles: “This turned sideways [thus assuming the shape of one of the star-points], then took the shape of an arrowhead [confused notion of the stair-point, one would conjecture], and then of a letter A [another attempt to interpret the dawning impression], and finally evolved into a complete star.” The star so nearly reproduces the oddities of the original star, its peculiar shape and the direction which its greatest length takes, that had it been produced in one of the unguarded series, one would have been tempted to think that the percipient “peeked.” But the original was actually made, as well as gazed at, behind a closed door, so that there is no possible basis for imagining any such accident or any inadvertence on the part of either experimenter.
2. July 14. In his room Mr. Sinclair drew the grinning face of Figure 21, and then Mrs. Sinclair drew in hers Figure 21a. Two eyes in his, one “eye” in hers. Look at the agent’s drawing upside down (how can we or he be sure that he did not momentarily chance to look at it reversed and retain the impression?), and note the parallels. At the top of his two eyes—at the top of hers one “eye”; midway in his two small angles indicating the nose—somewhat above midway in hers, three similarly small angles unclosed at the apexes; at the bottom of his a crescent-shaped figure to indicate a mouth, with lines to denote teeth—at the bottom of hers a like crescent, minus any interior lines. Had the percipient drawn what would be instantly recognizable as a face, though a face of very different lines, it would be pronounced a success. But such a fact would be very much more likely as a guess than a misinterpreted, almost identical crescent (she thought it probably a “moon”), so similar little marks, angularly related (she “supposed it must be a star”), and an “eye,” all placed as in the original.
3. July 17. Mr. Sinclair, lying on a couch in one room, drew and then gazed at a drawing which can easily be described; it is a broad ellipse with its major axis horizontal, like an egg lying on its side, and a smaller and similar one in contact over it. Mrs. Sinclair, lying on a couch in another room, first drew a broad ellipse (not quite closed at one end), with major axis horizontal, and beside it and not quite touching, a somewhat smaller circle not quite closed at one end. Then she got an impression represented in a second drawing, four ellipses of equal size, two of them in contact with each other.
4. July 20. Under the same conditions Mr. Sinclair drew two heavy lines like a capital T. Mrs. Sinclair drew what is like an interrogation point with misplaced dot, then a reversed S with two dots enclosed, then an upright cross composed of lines of equal length, and finally such a cross circumscribed by a tangential square. Though, as Mr. Sinclair remarks, the cross is the T of the original with its vertical line prolonged, I should call this experiment barely suggestive.
5. July 20. Under the same conditions Mr. Sinclair drew a long-handled fork with three short tines. Mrs. Sinclair, to use the language of her own record, “kept seeing horns,” and she attempted to draw them. She also “thought once it was an animal’s head with horns, and the head was on a long stick—a trophy mounted like this....” But her drawing was like a long-handled fork with two short tines combining to make a curve very close to that of the two outer tines of the original.
6. July 20. Under the same conditions Mr. Sinclair drew a cup with a handle. Mrs. Sinclair twice drew a figure resembling the handle of the original, then the same with an enclosed dot, then lines parallel and at an angle. She felt confused and dissatisfied. It is possible that her first impression was derived from the cup, but we can hardly urge this evidentially.
7. July 21. Under the same conditions Mr. Sinclair drew a man’s face in profile (Fig. [20]). Mrs. Sinclair wrote: “Saw Upton’s face—saw two half-circles. Then they came together, making full circle. But I felt uncertain as to whether they belonged together or not. Then suddenly saw Upton’s profile float across vision.” Well, Mr. Sinclair is a man, hence his face is a man’s face, and it was seen in profile like the original drawing.
Thus far there is no gap in the record of this group. There were experiments on July 27 and 29, but apparently two or more papers are missing. It is certain that on the 29th, under the same conditions, Mr. Sinclair drew a smoking cigarette and wrote beneath it, “My thought, ‘cigarette with curls for smoke,’” and that Mrs. Sinclair drew a variety of curving lines and wrote, “I can’t draw it, but curls of some sort.” So it appears that on this date there was a suggestive result, but as there is doubt whether one or two other experiments may not have been tried, the papers of which were not all preserved, we had better regard the group as closed with No. 7.
So far as concerns the question solely whether Mrs. Sinclair has shown telepathic powers, I would be willing to rest the case right here, after but fourteen experiments under the conditions which have been stated.[[12]] Every intelligent reader who really applies his mind to them must see the extreme unlikelihood that the results of those fourteen experiments, taking them as they stand, successes, partial successes, suggestive and failures, are the products of chance. And any one who has had hundreds of experiments in guessing, as I have done, will know that there is no likelihood of getting out of many thousands of guesses anything like the number and grades of excellence in correspondence found in these fourteen consecutive tests for telepathy.
We cannot take space to comment on all the tests made, the papers of which were sent us, and we here pass over three on as many dates, one a success though not a perfect one, two failures.