5. July 20. Under the same conditions Mr. Sinclair drew a long-handled fork with three short tines. Mrs. Sinclair, to use the language of her own record, “kept seeing horns,” and she attempted to draw them. She also “thought once it was an animal’s head with horns, and the head was on a long stick—a trophy mounted like this....” But her drawing was like a long-handled fork with two short tines combining to make a curve very close to that of the two outer tines of the original.
6. July 20. Under the same conditions Mr. Sinclair drew a cup with a handle. Mrs. Sinclair twice drew a figure resembling the handle of the original, then the same with an enclosed dot, then lines parallel and at an angle. She felt confused and dissatisfied. It is possible that her first impression was derived from the cup, but we can hardly urge this evidentially.
7. July 21. Under the same conditions Mr. Sinclair drew a man’s face in profile (Fig. [20]). Mrs. Sinclair wrote: “Saw Upton’s face—saw two half-circles. Then they came together, making full circle. But I felt uncertain as to whether they belonged together or not. Then suddenly saw Upton’s profile float across vision.” Well, Mr. Sinclair is a man, hence his face is a man’s face, and it was seen in profile like the original drawing.
Thus far there is no gap in the record of this group. There were experiments on July 27 and 29, but apparently two or more papers are missing. It is certain that on the 29th, under the same conditions, Mr. Sinclair drew a smoking cigarette and wrote beneath it, “My thought, ‘cigarette with curls for smoke,’” and that Mrs. Sinclair drew a variety of curving lines and wrote, “I can’t draw it, but curls of some sort.” So it appears that on this date there was a suggestive result, but as there is doubt whether one or two other experiments may not have been tried, the papers of which were not all preserved, we had better regard the group as closed with No. 7.
So far as concerns the question solely whether Mrs. Sinclair has shown telepathic powers, I would be willing to rest the case right here, after but fourteen experiments under the conditions which have been stated.[[12]] Every intelligent reader who really applies his mind to them must see the extreme unlikelihood that the results of those fourteen experiments, taking them as they stand, successes, partial successes, suggestive and failures, are the products of chance. And any one who has had hundreds of experiments in guessing, as I have done, will know that there is no likelihood of getting out of many thousands of guesses anything like the number and grades of excellence in correspondence found in these fourteen consecutive tests for telepathy.
We cannot take space to comment on all the tests made, the papers of which were sent us, and we here pass over three on as many dates, one a success though not a perfect one, two failures.
The Series of January 28, 1929
Mr. Sinclair asked his secretary “to make simple geometrical designs, letters and figures, thinking that these would be easier to recognize and reproduce.” It seems a little strange that when things were going on so well, he should have wanted a change, though any experiment is interesting. It is by no means certain, and I very much doubt from these and earlier printed experiments, that the assumption is a correct one. It may well be that geometrical diagrams, letters of the alphabet and such like fail to interest the agent and afford him a lively mental representation, as do pictures of miscellaneous objects. And if I understand rightly, another change of method was also initiated, and that was for Mrs. Sinclair to try to get the drawings not while the maker of them was gazing intently at them, but after they had left his hands. This certainly was often the case later on.
I wrote and asked Mr. Sinclair if Mrs. Sinclair was told the fact that this and several other series of original drawings consisted of geometrical drawings, letters and figures, and he said that she was not so told, that he would have regarded this as a vitiation of the experiments. It would certainly increase the chance of getting drawings right by guess, but it would hardly have ruined the experiments. In fact, some people think that the most scientific experiments are those in which the range of chance guess is limited to an extent known to the percipient, as when the problem is to determine which of the 52 cards of a pack is being looked at, or which of only ten known diagrams. This opinion is probably based on the fact that then the ratio of success to chance expectation can be exactly calculated, though why it should be more satisfactory to know that the chance of a correct guess is exactly 1 in 10 than it is not to be able to tell exactly what the chance is but to be sure at least that it cannot be 1 in 100, I do not know.
Unless I had carefully recorded at the time that there was no chance of the percipient having a hint that the drawings were now for a time to consist of geometrical designs, letters and figures, I would not dare to be certain of it after several years have passed. If Mrs. Sinclair had no inkling, the change in the general character of her drawings is a fact of great interest. But we will take cognizance only of whatever resemblance may or may not be found between the several reproductions and their originals.