Now this inner body may be the vehicle of thought. It may possess "centres" whose normal office is to send and receive telepathic messages. One "etheric centre" may thus act upon another "etheric centre" directly—only indirectly upon the physical brain cells. The action would thus be dynamic, yet psychical; physical in a sense, yet not physical as we conceive it. Philosophy tells us that the table we see (the phenomenon) is not the "real" table (the noumenon)—the reality behind; but, if we knock the two tables together, the noumena touch, just as the phenomenal tables do; only we have no means of knowing or directly seeing it. Thus there is a sort of physical communication of a spiritual thing. Those who have entered rooms of a certain character have often sensed their "psychic atmosphere." This is a sort of duplicate or replica of the physical atmosphere, yet it is different from it. The whole subject is so subtle that one cannot follow it unless he has had some experience or some knowledge of these things. The process cannot be explained in clear-cut fashion—any more than mediums can tell the source of their thoughts and impressions. A little intuition is needed in order to grasp the problem and comprehend its difficulties.
Were I to try and state my theory briefly, then it would be somewhat as follows: Every thought necessitates a three-fold phenomenon—(1) the purely psychic activity; (2) the physiological correlate; and (3) the "dynamic correlate," which is as yet unrecognized by science. This "dynamic correlate" is the manifestation of the activity of the etheric double; which sets into motion certain vibratory activities which, though they are not physical vibrations, are their counterpart or equivalent on the plane above matter—the "astral" plane, if the term be allowable; which is parallel to, but not identical with, the material plane. Thus by a sort of "doctrine of correspondences" we arrive at the conclusion that telepathic action is physical, in a sense, yet is not sufficiently physical to be measured by our instruments in the laboratory. The activity is, as it were, the noumenon, of which the physical vibration would be the phenomenon; but no phenomenal aspect of this activity may ever be manifested to us; and hence never be capable of being registered by science, as it exists today.
I do not know whether or not I have made this theory very comprehensible, but it seems to me some such theory might explain the facts and at the same time do away with the difficulties. At all events no theory of telepathy which has been advanced to date can be said to be explanatory, when all the facts are taken into consideration; and if this first tentative groping serves to stimulate others to speculate, and above all to experiment, in this obscure field, I shall feel that a first onward step has been taken toward a correct understanding of the "Marvels of Telepathy."
FOOTNOTES:
[40] See Dr. G. B. Ermacora's paper in Proceedings, S.P.R., vol. xi. pp. 235-308.
[41] Professor Henry Sidgwick, as we know, was Professor of Moral Philosophy in Cambridge, and his works on Ethics and Political Economy are considered standard in all countries.
[42] This is the argument put forward by, e.g., Carl Snyder, in his New Conceptions in Science, pp. 306-7.
[43] See my article in The Monist (July-September 1913, pp. 445-58), "Earlier Theories of Gravity."—H. C.
[44] Especially Dr. Ochorowicz, in his excellent work, Mental Suggestion, to which I am indebted for several of the ideas which follow.