In oral or voice sittings the function of the note-taker is more laborious and more responsible than in writing sittings; for these latter to a great extent supply their own notes. Only as the trance-writing is blindfold, i.e. done with shut eyes and head averted, it is rather illegible without practice; and so the experimenter in charge frequently finds it necessary to assist the sitter, to whom it is addressed, by deciphering it and reading it aloud as it comes—rather a tiring process; at the same time jotting down, usually on the same paper, the remarks which the sitter makes in reply, or the questions from time to time asked. Unless this is done the subsequent automatic record lacks a good deal of clearness, and sometimes lacks intelligibility.
For a voice-sitting the note-taker must be a rapid writer, and if able to employ shorthand has an advantage. Sometimes a stenographer is introduced; but the presence of a stranger, or of any person not intimately concerned, is liable to hamper the distinctness and fulness of a message; and may prevent or retard the occurrence of such emotional episodes as are from time to time almost inevitable in the cases—alas too numerous at present—where the sitter has been recently and violently bereaved.
It is perhaps noteworthy—though it may not be interesting or intelligible to a novice—that communicators wishing to give private communications seldom or never object to the presence of the actual 'medium'—i.e. the one on our side. That person seems to be regarded as absent, or practically non-existent for a time; the person whose presence they sometimes resent at first is the 'control,' i.e. the intelligence on their side who is ready to receive and transmit their message, somewhat perhaps as an Eastern scribe is ready to write the love-letters of illiterate persons.
As to the presence of a note-taker or third person on our side, such person is taken note of by the control, and when anything private or possibly private is mentioned—details of illnesses or such like—that third person is often ordered out of the room. Sometimes the experimenter in charge is likewise politely dispensed with, and under these circumstances the sitting occasionally takes on a poignant character in which note-taking by the deeply affected sitter becomes a practical impossibility. But this experience is comparatively rare; it must not be expected, and cannot wisely be forced.
Another circumstance which makes me think that the more responsible kind of control is a real person, is that sometimes, after gained experience, the Communicator himself takes control, and speaks or writes in the first person, not only as a matter of first-person-reporting, which frequently occurs, but really in his own proper person and with many of his old characteristics. So if one control is a real person I see no reason against the probability of others being real likewise. I cannot say that the tone of voice or the handwriting is often thus reproduced—though it is, for a few moments, by special effort sometimes; but the unusual physiological mechanism accounts for outstanding or residual differences. Apart from that, the peculiarities, the attitudes, the little touches of manner, are often more or less faithfully reproduced, although the medium may have known nothing of the person concerned. And the characteristic quality of the message, and the kind of subjects dealt with, become still more marked in such cases of actual control, than when everything has to be transmitted through a kindly stranger control, to whom things of a recondite or technical character may appear rather as a meaningless collocation of words, very difficult to remember and reproduce.
NOTE ON DIFFICULTY OF REMEMBERING NAMES
When operating indirectly in the ordinary way through a control and a medium, it usually appears to be remarkably difficult to get names transmitted. Most mediums are able to convey a name only with difficulty. Now plainly a name, especially the proper name of a person, is a very conventional and meaningless thing: it has very few links to connect it with other items in memory; and hence arises the normally well-known difficulty of recalling one. Conscious effort made to recover a name seems to inhibit the power of doing so: the best plan is to leave it, and let subconsciousness work. An example occurred to me the other day, when I tried to remember the name of a prominent statesman or ex-Prime Minister whom I had met in Australia. What I seemed to recollect was that the name began with "D," and I made several shots at it, which I recorded. The effort went on at intervals for days, since I thought it would be an instructive experiment. I know now, a month or two later, without any effort and without looking it up, that the name was Deakin; but what my shots at it were I do not remember. I will have the page in the note-book looked up and reproduced here, as an example of memory-groping, at intervals, during more than one day. Here they are:—D. Dering, Denman, Deeming, Derriman, Derring, Deeley, Dempster, Denting, Desman, Deering.
Now I knew the name quite well, and have known it for long, and have taken some interest in the gentleman who owns it; and I am known by some members of my family to have done so. Hence if I had been on 'the other side' and could only get as far as D, it would have seemed rather absurd to anyone whose memory for names is good. But indeed I have had times when names very much more familiar to me than that could not on the spur of the moment be recalled—not always even the initial letter; though, for some reason or other, the initial letter is certainly easier than the word.
The kind of shots which I made at the name before recalling it—which it may seem frivolous to have actually recorded—are reminiscent of the kind of shots which are made by mediums under control when they too are striving after a name; and it was a perception of this analogy which caused me to jot down my own guesses, or what, in the case of a medium, we should impolitely call 'fishing.' I think that the name was certainly in my memory though it would not come through my brain. The effort is like the effort to use a muscle not often or ever used—say the outer ear—one does not know which string to pull, so to speak, or, more accurately, which nerve to stimulate, and the result is a peculiarly helpless feeling, akin to stammering. In the case of a medium, I suppose the name is often in the mind of the communicator, but it will not come through the control. The control sometimes describes it as being spoken or shown but not clearly caught. The communicator often does not know whether a medium has successfully conveyed it or not.