Frank Podmore

“ No such connection between thinking brains has been proved of course; but we have here a mechanism apparently sufficient for the purpose: sufficient at any rate to meet the objection urged by some that the establishment of telepathy would dislocate our entire conception of the physical universe. ”

“ And that inability the progress of scientific research may at any time remove, as has happened again and again in the past in the case of similar problems which at one time seemed equally secure against explanation in physical terms. The phenomena of animal life were not so very long ago held to stand outside the physical world: the very substances of which our tissues are composed were supposed to owe some of their physical properties to a principle of vitality. ”

“ But in 1882 no English doctor who cared for his reputation had a good word to say for hypnotism; and on the continent its chief, almost its only exponent was Liébeault, an obscure practitioner in a small provincial town. The attitude of the scientific world to the subject may be inferred from the fact that in drafting the Society's prospectus it was thought necessary to class hypnotism amongst "debatable phenomena," and to write, a generation after Esdaile and Braid, of the "alleged insensibility to pain" in the "mesmeric" trance. ”

“ It is known that the action of thought is accompanied by certain molecular movements in the brain, and here we have physical vibrations capable from their extreme minuteness of acting direct on individual molecules, while their rapidity approaches that of the internal and external movements of the atoms themselves. ”

“ From these nightly vigils came the fruitful conception of an invisible influence radiating from the heavenly bodies—an influence potent for good and evil, yet transcending the limitations of mortal senses. ”

“ So far as the experiments at close quarters are concerned, when the two parties are separated by a few feet or yards only, there is no difficulty in conceiving that the entire process may be susceptible of expression in physical terms. We have at either end of the chain a physical event—the changes in the cerebral tissues which are presumed to correspond to every act of thought or sensation. ”

“ Wherever this divergence exists, I shall endeavour to sum up the evidence as fairly as I can: but it must be remembered that the conclusions set down are my own, for which my colleagues are in no way responsible.
Another misconception of the nature of our work should perhaps be referred to. It is objected, of recent years, by some scientific critics that the Society for Psychical Research has no justification for its existence. Some of the phenomena which it investigates, say these critics, are subject-matter for the psychologist or the physicist ”

“ For the brain of both agent and percipient may conceivably, on the analogy of wireless telegraphy, be set to transmit and receive only vibrations of a certain amplitude. A more formidable objection is found in the action of the force at a distance. ”

“ Paracelsus writes, "a person on this side of the ocean may make a person on the other side hear what is said on this side. . . the ethereal body of a man may know what another man thinks at a distance of 100 miles and more." A later mystic, the Scottish physician Maxwell asserts that physician who has learnt to influence his patient's vital spirits can cure that patient's disease at any distance by invoking the aid of the universal spirit. ”

“ The difficulty is indeed so great as to induce some thinkers to suggest that the psychical process may be without a physical parallel—that the connection between the two psychical states may conceivably be found in the psychical world alone. ”

“ They have not yet, it is true, built up the cathedral of life, even in the humblest protozoön; but all architects must have time to learn their trade. Again, the activities of man, especially those activities which are accompanied by consciousness and will, were also for long thought to be outside the physical world. ”

“ I have seen a youth in this condition who suffered gladly the most injurious attacks upon his own person—who would allow his hair to be pulled, his ears pinched, his fingers even to be scorched by lighted matches. ”

“ From the recorded testimony of many competent witnesses, past and present, including observations recently made by scientific men of eminence in various countries, there appears to be, amid much delusion and deception, an important body of remarkable phenomena, which are prima facie inexplicable on any generally recognised hypothesis, and which, if incontestably established, would be of the highest possible value. ”

“ It is comparatively easy to exclude deliberate fraud: the real difficulty lies in the fact that the hypnotic subject—and experiments of this kind are found to succeed best with hypnotised persons—is extremely susceptible to suggestion of any kind. And his susceptibility is frequently increased by hyperaesthesia of the special senses, especially the sense of hearing. The strictest precautions are necessary, therefore, in all experiments conducted at close quarters, to ensure that no information shall reach him through the look, the gesture, or even the breathing of the bystander. ”

“ To ascertain the facts of the case, at whatever cost to established opinions and prejudices, has been the consistent aim of the Society and its workers. If some of our investigations have resulted in the detection of imposture, the discovery of unsuspected fallacies of sense and memory, and the general disintegration of some imposing structures built upon too narrow foundations ”