[43] Cases are recorded in the Zoist and other publications of the period. See the instances, quoted in Phantasms of the Living, vol. i. pp. 89-91, of the Rev. J. Lawson Sisson, Mr. Barth, Mr. N. Dunscombe, and Mr. H. S. Thompson. Traditions of the marvels wrought by the last-named gentleman still linger in Yorkshire society, and will no doubt demand the serious attention of future students of folk-lore.
[44] Bulletin de la Soc. de Psychologie Physiologique, 1885.
[45] Annales des Sciences Psychiques, vol. iii. pp. 130-133.
[46] See the account of his experiments on "Peculiarities of certain Post-hypnotic States," Proc. S. P. R., vol. iv. pp. 268-323.
[47] "L'Automatisme Psychologique."
[48] Proc. Soc. Psych. Research, vol. iii. pp. 6-23.
[49] Mr. Newnham explains that "five or six questions were often asked consecutively without her being told of the subject that was being pursued."
[50] Previous questions had been asked on the same subject, and the first syllable had already been correctly written. On a subsequent occasion the same question was repeated and a wholly incorrect answer was given.
[51] There were nine sittings in all, but the records of one were imperfectly kept, and have not been preserved. In two cases the details given are insufficient; in the notes of the first evening it is stated that the person seated at the table "failed three or four times, succeeded once in giving word of (i.e., selected from) newspaper (which agent) held in his hand." These trials have been omitted altogether from the results given in the text. On the third evening there is a record, "gave S H but got wrong afterwards." The word thought of was Sherry. I have counted this trial as two successes and two failures, judging from the other experiments recorded that not more than four consecutive letters at most would have been attempted.
[52] In this case it will be observed the table tilted only once for each letter. The method adopted (after trial of the alternative) in my own experiments, though slower and more cumbrous, was apparently productive of more accurate results. It will be readily understood that it might be easier for the transmitted impulse to check a movement, at once uncertain and spasmodic, which had been already initiated, than to overcome, in a short space of time, the resistance of inertia and generate a new movement. The distinction may perhaps be illustrated by the difference between the amount of force required to start a railway truck at rest on the level, and that which would suffice to arrest one actually in gentle motion.