Produced by Clare Boothby, Mary Meehan and the PG Online Distributed
Proofreading Team.
1901
Inferences from Haunted Houses and Haunted Men
The lack of interest in so-called psychical matters is somewhatsurprising.
There is, however, more hope of the clearing up of the scientific aspectsof these phenomena than ever before.
Sir William Crookes, late President of the British Association, has nodoubt that thoughts and images may be transferred from one mind toanother without the agency of the recognised organs of sense, and thatknowledge may enter the human mind without being communicated in anyhitherto known or recognised ways! The word recognised is important;perhaps "not by the recognised action of the organs of sense," would be abetter expression.
In the "Alleged Haunting of B—— House," p. 33, Miss Freer says:"Apparitions are really hallucinations or false impressions upon thesenses, created so far as originated by any external cause, byother minds either in the body or out of the body, which are themselvesinvisible in the ordinary and physical sense of the term, and reallyacting through some means at present very imperfectly known." This wouldinclude hypnotism at a distance, but also perhaps spirits.
Dr. Gowers has recently (reported in the Lancet), in a speech atUniversity College, pointed out the close connection of the optic andauditory nerves with regard to cases of deafness.
The young lady who, when an attempt at transferring the sight of a candleto her was made, heard the word candle or something like it, the firstletter doubtful, shows that thought transfer is to the ear as well as tothe eye, or at least goes over from one to the other; she says, "You knowI as often hear the name of the object as see the thing itself." This mayhave been from a mental effort to receive distinctly an inefficientlyacute impression of her friend's. She saw a jug seen by her friend, andheard the train she heard. The colour of the jug differed a little. Thedistance fourteen miles. Audible speech might thus be helped bydespatching a picture of the idea from a distance. Other people mustbe like Miss Campbell.[1] There must be material force in this, since athought heightens the temperature of the brain. But this force has itslimits of distance, &c.
[Footnote 1: Podmores "Studies," p. 228.]
To connect apparitions with hypnotism.
In their case, and in so-called spiritual experiences (spiritistic is thebetter word), there is generally a preceding feeling like entering anicehouse.[2] This is described as occurring to the butler of the HauntedHouse at B——, Harold Sanders, in 1896; to Mr. "Endell," and to others.This chill is surely identical with, or very closely related to, thechill of hypnotism mentioned by Binet and Féré.[3] The balance of thecirculation has been interfered with. They state that this is the onlysymptom by which any one can tell he has been hypnotised, and that thisis not always present.
[Footnote 2: "Alleged Haunting," &c., pp. 50, 139.]
[Footnote 3: "Animal Magnetism," chap. xiv.]
In continuous slight hypnotism, chills on part of the scalp, part of theshoulder, part of the face, or the ribs, etc., may be experienced; theyare possibly signs of slackening hypnotic power.