Some years ago, I instituted a series of experiments with a number of celebrated spirit mediums in the line of thought transference, and was eminently successful in obtaining satisfactory results, especially with Miss Maggie Gaule, of Baltimore, one of the most famous of the latter day psychics.
Case A.
About three years prior to my sitting with Miss Gaule, a relative by marriage died of cancer of the throat at the Garfield Hospital, Washington, D. C. He was a retired army officer, with the brevet of General, and lived part of the time at Chambersburg, Penn., and the rest of the time at the National Capital. He led a very quiet and unassuming life, and outside of army circles knew but few people. He was a magnificent specimen of physical manhood, six feet tall, with splendid chest and arms. His hair and beard were of a reddish color. His usual street dress was a sort of compromise with an army undress uniform, military cut frock-coat, frogged and braided top-coat, and a Sherman hat. Without these accessories, anyone would have recognized the military man in his walk and bearing. He and his wife thought a great deal of my mother, and frequently stopped me on the street to inquire, “How is Mary?” I went to Miss Gaule’s house with the thought of General M— fixed in my mind and the circumstances surrounding his decease. The medium greeted me in a cordial manner. I sat at one end of the room in the shadow, and she near the window in a large armchair. “You wish for messages from the dead,” she remarked abruptly. “One moment, let me think.” She sank back in the chair, closed her eyes, and remained in deep thought for a minute or so, occasionally passing her hand across her forehead. “I see,” she said, “standing behind you, a tall, large man with reddish hair and beard. He is garbed in the uniform of an officer—I do not know whether of the army or navy. He points to his throat. Says he died of a throat trouble. He looks at you and calls “Mary,—how is Mary?” “What is his name?” I inquired, fixing my mind on the words David M—. “I will ask”, replied the medium. There was a long pause. “He speaks so faintly I can scarcely hear him. The first letter begins with D, and then comes a—I can’t get it. I can’t hear it.” With that she opened her eyes.
The surprising feature about the above case was the alleged spirit communication, “Mary—how is Mary?” I did not have this in my mind at the time; in fact I had completely forgotten this form of salutation on the part of Gen. M—, when we had met in the old days. It is just this sort of thing that makes spirit-converts.
However, the cases of unconscious telepathy cited in the “Reports of the Society for Psychical Research,” are sufficient, I think, to prove the existence of this phase of the phenomena.
T. J. Hudson, in his work entitled “A scientific demonstration of the future life”, says: * * “When a psychic transmits a message to his client containing information which is in his (the psychic’s) possession, it can not reasonably be attributed to the agency of disembodied spirits. * * When the message contains facts known to some one in his immediate presence and with whom he is en rapport, the agency of spirits of the dead cannot be presumed. Every investigator will doubtless admit that sub-conscious memory may enter as a factor in the case, and that the sub-conscious intelligence—or, to use the favorite terminology employed by Mr. Myers to designate the subjective mind, the ‘sublimal consciousness’—of the psychic or that of his client may retain and use facts which the conscious, or objective mind may have entirely forgotten.”
But suppose the medium relates facts that were never in the possession of the sitter, what are we to say then? Considerable controversy has been waged over this question, and the hypothesis of telepathy is scouted. Minot J. Savage has come to the conclusion that such cases stretch the telepathic theory too far; there can be but one plausible explanation—a communication from a disembodied spirit, operating through the mind of the medium. For the sake of lucidity, let us take an example: A has a relative B who dies in a foreign land under peculiar circumstances, unknown to A. A attends a séance of a psychic, C, and the latter relates the circumstances of B’s death. A afterwards investigates the statements of the medium, and finds them correct. Can telepathy account for C’s knowledge? I think it can. The telepathic communication was recorded in A’s sub-conscious mind, he being en rapport with B. A unconsciously yields the points recorded in his sub-conscious mind to the psychic, C, who by reason of his peculiar powers raises them to the level of conscious thought, and gives them back in the form of a message from the dead.
Case B.
On another occasion, I went with my friend Mr. S. C., of Virginia, to visit Miss Gaule. Mr. S. C. had a young son who had recently passed the examination for admission to the U. S. Naval Academy, and the boy had accompanied his father to Baltimore to interview the military tailors on the subject of uniforms, etc. Miss Gaule in her semi-trance state made the following statement: “I see a young man busy with books and papers. He has successfully passed an examination, and says something about a uniform. Perhaps he is going to a military college.”