Mr. Kirk has conducted several other series of experiments in the transfer of diagrams and ideas and in the induction of hypnotic sleep at a distance, with Miss G., Miss Porter, of 16 Russell Square, Mr. F. W. Hayes, and others. In one case the percipient was at Cambridge, a distance of more than fifty miles from Plumstead. The results in nearly all these cases raise a certain presumption of thought-transference, though the presumption is in most cases—owing partly to the conditions of the experiments—not so strong as in the two series last quoted. It is to be remarked that the series of experiments between Plumstead and Cambridge were perhaps the least successful of any, a result which may perhaps be attributed partly to the distance, partly to the fact that the agent and percipient were not personally acquainted.
It should be recorded that Mr. Kirk is strongly of opinion, as the result of a careful analysis of the experiments conducted by him, that telepathy, in these cases at any rate, operates as a rule subconsciously, and that we ought to be prepared to find the most striking proofs of its action in such undesigned coincidences as are quoted in Nos. 4 and 5 of the second series with Miss G.
No. 40.—From DR. GIBOTTEAU.
Dr. Gibotteau, in the year 1888, made the acquaintance, at a crèche in connection with a Paris hospital, of a peasant woman named Bertha J. Bertha was a good hypnotic, and Dr. Gibotteau succeeded on many occasions in inducing sleep at a distance. But Bertha claimed also to have the power of influencing others telepathically—a power which in her case seems to have been hereditary, as her mother had a reputation for sorcery. Bertha professed to be able, by the exercise of her will, to cause persons to stumble, or to lose their way, or to prevent them from proceeding in any given direction. She gave Dr. Gibotteau several illustrations of these powers, and he believes her pretensions to be well founded (Annales des Sciences Psychiques, vol. ii. pp. 253-267, and pp. 317-337). The following instances of hallucinatory effects of a more ordinary kind are taken from the same paper. In the last case, it will be observed, the experience was collective. In none of the three cases were the percipients aware of Bertha's intention to experiment. It will be seen that in the second case she succeeded in producing the emotional effect desired, though the imaginary object by which she intended to inspire terror was hardly of a kind calculated to frighten a hospital surgeon. Dr. Gibotteau writes:—
"I am a good sleeper, and I do not remember ever waking of my own accord in the middle of my sleep. One night, about 2 or 3 o'clock, I was abruptly awoke. With my eyes still shut I thought, 'This is one of B.'s tricks. What is she going to make me see?' I then looked at the opposite wall; I saw a circular luminous spot, and in the centre a brilliant object, about the size of a melon, that I stared at for several seconds, being wide awake, before it disappeared. I could not distinguish any form clearly, nor any detail, but the object was round, and parts of it appeared to be less luminous. I imagined that she had wished to show me a skull, but I could not recognise it; the wall was lighted up in that place as if by a strong lamp; the room was not completely dark, because the window had outside blinds, and the curtains were drawn back; but this brilliant object did not seem to give out any light beyond the area of which it occupied the centre on the wall. That was all. I waited a moment without seeing anything else, then I went fast asleep again. The next day I found Bertha, who had come to visit the hospital, and I questioned her cautiously. She had tried to show me first of all some dogs round my bed, then some men quarrelling, and finally a lantern. That was all. It will be seen that though the first two attempts failed, the third succeeded perfectly.
"After that, Bertha very often tried to hallucinate me; but I have never either seen or heard anything.
"I was more sensible to transmissions of a vague and general character. I have written elsewhere of illusions of the sense of space: I had a complete illusion of this kind, and P. a very curious commencement of an hallucination. I have also described the causeless terror that Bertha could inspire.
"Here is another account of a fright. One evening I was entering my house, at midnight. On the landing, as I was putting my hand on the door-handle, I said to myself, 'What a nuisance! here is another of B.'s tricks! She is going to make me see something terrifying in the passage; it is very disagreeable.' I was really a bit nervous. I opened the door suddenly, with my eyes shut, and seized a match; in a few minutes I was in bed, and, blowing out my candle, I put my head under the bed-clothes, like a child. The next day Bertha asked me if I had not seen a skeleton in the passage or in my room, and been very much frightened. It need hardly be said that a skeleton was the last thing in the world that could frighten me; and frankly, I think that I am not more of a coward than the common run of men."
On another occasion Dr. Gibotteau was in the company of a friend, M. P. They had just parted from Bertha.
"After having deposited B. near her home, we went back to the Latin Quarter with the carriage. On reaching the Rue de Vaugirard, before the gate of the Luxembourg, I felt myself seized by a terror intense as it was absurd. The street was admirably lighted, there was not a single passer-by, and the Quarter at that hour (just about midnight) is perfectly safe. Moreover, this fright did not seem to depend on any cause. It was fear just for fear. 'It is absurd,' said I, 'I am frightened, very much frightened; it is certainly a trick of B.'s.' My friend laughed at me, and almost immediately, 'Why, it is taking hold of me also. I am trembling with fear. It is very disagreeable.' The impression lasted until we were in front of the gate of the Luxembourg Palace; we got out of the carriage at the corner of the Rue Soufflot and the Boulevard Saint-Michel. As soon as we set foot on the ground: 'Look,' said P., 'don't you see something white floating in the air, there, just in front of our eyes; it has gone.' I saw nothing, but I felt very strongly the influence of B.
"The next day I met her at the hospital. 'Well! you saw nothing?' I begged her to tell me what we ought to have seen. This was her answer: 'First, your driver lost his way—oh! not you, you felt nothing; he took you by all sorts of queer ways.' It is a fact that our carriage, from the Rue de Babylone, had gone by a very complicated way, and one which, at the time, did not seem to me the right one, but I should not like to say anything definite about it. 'After that you were frightened.' (Which of us?) 'You at first, M. P. afterwards. Oh, yes! afraid of nothing at all, without any reason, but you were very frightened. Then you saw some white pigeons flying round you, quite near.' I had never heard her speak of this hallucination. As to the fright, that subject was familiar to her, and she has frightened me several times, deliberately, as I have related."