[179] When the automatic drawings have any telepathic or other supernormal content, they are usually associated with automatic writing. Compare the case of Mr. Cameron Grant (Phantasms of the Living, vol. ii. p. 690).
[180] See James's Psychology, vol. i. p. 394: "One curious thing about trance utterances is their generic similarity in different individuals.... It seems exactly as if one author composed more than half of the trance messages, no matter by whom they are uttered. Whether all sub-conscious selves are peculiarly susceptible to a certain stratum of the Zeitgeist, and get their inspiration from it, I know not." See the account of automatic and impressional script, by Mr. Sidney Dean, which Professor James goes on to quote, and which is closely parallel to (for instance) Miss A.'s case, to be referred to below, although the one series of messages comes from the hand of a late member of Congress, "all his life a robust and active journalist, author, and man of affairs," and the other from a young lady with so different a history and entourage.
[181] Some other cases of Mr. Smith's will be found in this volume. See also Proceedings S.P.R., vol. iii. p. 25 [§ 831] for a case of Prof. Sidgwick's, and Proceedings S.P.R., vol. ii. pp. 226-231 for the complex "Clelia" case. Other cases of imaginary personalities are to be found in the accounts of possession which have come down to us from the "Ages of Faith." See for example the autobiography of Sœur Jeanne des Anges (Bibliothèque Diabolique [collection Bourneville] Paris, 1886).
[182] For the description of a curious case combining various motor automatisms in a very unusual way, see Proceedings S.P.R., vol. ix. p. 182 [§ 833].
[183] For Mlle. Smith's later history, see Professor Flournoy's Nouvelles Observations sur un cas de Somnambulisme, Geneva, 1902.
[184] We have already printed several incidents of this type in our Proceedings and Journal. (See, for instance, Proceedings S.P.R., vol. viii. p. 344 [818 A].)
[185] A somewhat similar but less complex set of experiments by Mr. G. M. Smith is given in the Journal S.P.R., vol. v. pp. 318-320 [843 B].
[186] For further cases see Proceedings S.P.R., vol. iii. pp. 2 and 5 [§§ 845 and 847].
[187] See Proceedings S.P.R., vol. iii. pp. 8-23 [849 A]. For a series of experiments on a smaller scale but analogous to these see Proceedings S.P.R., vol. ix. (1893), pp. 61-64.
[188] Mr. Newnham procured for me two autograph letters from eye-witnesses of some of the experiments, who do not, however, wish their names to be published. One writer says: "You wrote the question on a slip of paper and put it under one of the ornaments of the chimney-piece—no one seeing what you had written. Mrs. Newnham sat apart at a small table. I recollect you kept a book of the questions asked and answers given, as you thought some new power might be discovered, and you read me from it some of the results. I remember particularly questions and answers relating to the selection of a curate for B. My wife and her sister saw experiments conducted in this manner. Mrs. Newnham and you were sitting at different tables." Another eye-witness writes: "I and my sister were staying at——, and were present at many of the Planchette experiments of Mr. and Mrs. Newnham. Mr. and Mrs. Newnham sat at different tables some distance apart, and in such a position that it was quite impossible Mrs. Newnham could see what question was written down. The subject of the questions was never mentioned even in a whisper. Mr. Newnham wrote them down in pencil and sometimes passed them to me and my sister to see, but not often. Mrs. Newnham immediately answered the questions. Though not always correct, they (the answers) always referred to the questions. Mr. Newnham copied out the pencil questions and answers verbatim each day into a diary."