[Four experiments with tastes are here omitted.]
28. Mr. Smith's right calf pinched. Wells was very sulky, and for a long time refused to speak. At last he violently drew up his right leg, and began rubbing the calf.
After this Wells became still more sulky, and refused in the next experiment to give any indication whatever. With considerable acuteness he explained the reasons for his contumacy. "I ain't going to tell you, for if I don't tell you, you won't go on pinching me. You only do it to make me tell." Then he added, in reply to a remonstrance from Mr. Smith, "What do you want me to tell for? they ain't hurting you, and I can stand their pinching." All this time Mr. Smith's left calf was being very severely pinched.
To the onlooker the situation was rendered additionally piquant by the fact that the boy, at the very time when he was apparently acutely sensitive to pain inflicted upon Mr. Smith, showed no sign of susceptibility when any part of his own person was pretty severely maltreated. The only point in the trials which seems to call for special notice is the failure on two occasions to indicate the seat of pain when the agent's hair was pulled (7 and 21). Numerous trials with the same and other percipients have shown that this particular experiment rarely succeeds, possibly because the pain so caused is with many people not of an acute kind.[29]
Transference of Visual Images.
But when we leave these experiments in the transfer of the less specialised forms of sensation we find that but few observers have paid attention to the phenomena of telepathy in the hypnotic state. Probably this is in some measure due to one or two initial difficulties in conducting experiments on such subjects. Opening the eyes to permit the subject to reproduce a diagram will in many cases have the effect of wakening him. Again, with some persons it is a matter of difficulty to maintain the exact stage of the hypnotic trance when they are quiescent enough for the alien impression to meet with little risk of disturbance from the subject's own mental activities, and yet sufficiently alert to prevent them from relapsing, as was frequently the case with Wells, the percipient just referred to, into a torpid sleep from which no further response could be elicited. But, after all, these difficulties when they occur can readily be overcome by the exercise of a little patience. If the study of thought-transference in the hypnotic state has been comparatively neglected, it is mainly because, as already suggested, with most persons the more salient phenomena of the trance—hallucination, anæsthesia, rigidity, etc.—have distracted attention from what may ultimately prove to be a more fruitful line of inquiry.
For the following record we are indebted to Dr. Liébeault, of Nancy, who sent us the account in 1886.
No. 12.—By DR. LIÉBEAULT.
[The first series of experiments were made on the afternoon of the 10th December 1885, in Dr. Liébeault's house at Nancy. There were present, in addition, Madame S., Dr. Brullard, and Professor Liégeois, who acted as agent, and Mademoiselle M., the subject. The subject was hypnotised by Professor Liégeois, and experiments were made with diagrams, and in two cases the design—a water-bottle (carafe) and a table with a drawer and drawer-knob—was reproduced with exactness. Precautions had, of course, been taken to conceal the original design from the percipient. The account of the seventh and last experiment is quoted in full.]
"7. M. Liégeois wrote the word mariage, Mdlle. M. then wrote 'Monsieur.' Then she said 'Decanter,—no—picture—no.' [What is the letter?] 'It is an l—no, it is an m.' Then after thinking for some minutes, 'There is an i in the word, an a after the m—a g—another a—an e—there are six letters—no—seven.' When she had found all the letters and their places, ma iage, she could not find the letter r. After a few minutes it was suggested to her that she should try combinations with the different consonants, and finally she wrote mariage."
[Further experiments were made by Dr. Liébeault, in conjunction with M. Stanislas de Guaita, on the 9th January 1886. The subject in this case was Mademoiselle Louise L., who was hypnotised by Dr. Liébeault. The first two experiments, which are not quoted here, suggest lip-reading or unconscious audition as a possible explanation; but the third experiment of this series and the two subsequent trials with Mdlle. Camille Simon present interesting illustrations of a telepathic hallucination superimposed upon a basis of reality.]
"3. Dr. Liébeault, in order that no hint should be given even in a whisper, wrote on a piece of paper, 'Mademoiselle, on waking, will see her black hat transformed into a red one.' The paper was first passed round to all the witnesses, then MM. Liébeault and De Guaita placed their hands silently on the subject's forehead, mentally formulating the sentence agreed upon. After being told she would see something unusual in the room, the young woman was awakened. Without a moment's hesitation she fixed her eyes upon the hat, and with a burst of laughter exclaimed that it was not her hat, she would have none of it. It was the same shape certainly, but this farce had lasted long enough—we must really give her back her own. ['Come now, what difference do you see?'] 'You know quite well. You have eyes like me.' ['Well what?'] We had to press her for some time before she would say what change had come over her hat; surely we were making fun of her. At last she said, 'You can see for yourselves that it is red.' As she refused to take it we were forced to put an end to her hallucination by telling her that her hat would presently resume its usual colour. The doctor breathed on it, and when it became, in her eyes, her own again, she consented to take it back. Directly afterwards she remembered nothing of her hallucination....
"Nancy, 9th January 1886.
"Signed, A. A. LIÉBEAULT.
STANISLAS DE GUAITA."[30]