"From MDLLE. R. to M. TOLOSA-LATOUR.
"March 23rd, 1891.
"MY EXCELLENT FRIEND AND DEAR DOCTOR,—I wanted to write to you yesterday to give you the particulars of the attack I had about the middle of last October, but I was not able to do so till to-day.
"As I told you, it was about the middle of October; I do not remember the date, but I recollect very well that it was a festival day, and at half-past six in the evening.
"We had just been to see my sister and brother; we had had luncheon with them. I was perfectly well, without any excitement; it was five o'clock, and I reached home all right, but when I was sitting down, in the act of eating, I found myself unable to speak or open my eyes, and, at the same moment, I had a very severe, long, and violent attack, such as I do not remember to have had for a long time.
"I was so ill that I thought of sending for Raphael,[64] and my sister proposed it, but I thought that I ought not to disturb him, for, knowing that you were away, nobody could stop the convulsions and the excitement.
"I suffered horribly, for it was an attack in which I experienced, so to say, all my previous sufferings combined. I was completely broken down, but I have had no other attacks since, not even a spasm."
No. 32.—By J. H. P.[65]
The next case records the execution by the subject of a simple command to approach the operator, as in some of M. Gibert's experiments already described, and the partial execution of an order of a more complicated kind, given from a distance of more than twenty-five miles:—
It is possible to give M. a command in the waking state, but she must be quiet at the moment when she receives it.
We had never made experiments of this kind until R. one day proposed that we should try to make M. come to the room where we were. M. was in a neighbouring house, and could not know that we were actually in a kiosk at the end of the garden.
For three minutes I gave her the mental command to come. I began to think that I had failed, and continued energetically for three minutes more; she did not come, however.
We were just thinking that the experiment had failed when the door opened suddenly and M. appeared.
"Well, do you think I have nothing else to do! Why do you call me? I have had to leave everything."
"We wanted to say 'good morning' to you."
"Very well! I am going away now."
She shook hands with us and went away quickly; whereupon it occurred to me to make her stop just at the gate.
(Mental command)—"I forbid you to go out. You cannot open the gate; come back." And back she came, furious, asking if we were laughing at her.
Now, to send this last command I had not moved at all from my place, and M. was completely invisible behind the garden wall; moreover, I was a long way from the window. I told her that this time she could open it, and let her go.
I will finish with another experiment of the same kind, which only partly succeeded, but which will serve to show the intensity of the mental transmission between M. and me. I went away, one morning, without thinking of M. I had to be away all day, 38 kilomètres from her. At 2.30 it occurred to me to send her a mental command, and I repeated it for ten minutes.
"Go at once to the dining-room; you will take a book there that is on the mantelpiece; you will take it up to my study, and you will sit in my armchair before my writing-table." I reached home at night. The next day, as soon as I saw M., and even before saying good morning to me, she cried: "I did a clever thing yesterday. I must be losing my wits, I suppose! Just imagine! I came down without knowing why, opened the dining-room door, then went up to your study, and sat in your armchair. I moved your papers about, then I went back to my work."
The command had then been understood; but she did not go into the dining-room, and she did not take the book from there.
J. H. P.
(Annales des Sci. Psych., May-June 1893.)
Transference of Simple Sensations.