were such a simple process, perhaps unusual, but not surprising,
something like a slightly abnormal state? If we look at it from the
standpoint of the scientist, we should say, on the contrary, that
there is a very sharp boundary line which separates mind-reading from
all the experiences which the scientific psychologist knows. The
psychologist has no difficulty in understanding mental diseases like
hysteria or abnormal states like hypnotism, or any other unusual
variation of mental life. The same principles by which he explains the
ordinary life of the mind are sufficient to give account of all the
strange and rare occurrences. But when he comes to mind-reading, an
entirely new point of view is chosen. It would mean a complete break
with everything which science has found in the mental world. The
psychologist has never discovered a mental content which was not the
effect or the after-effect of the stimulation of the senses. No man
born blind has ever by his own powers brought the colour sensations to
his mind, and no communication from without was ever traced which was
not carried over the path of the senses. The world which is in the
mind of my friend, in order to reach my mind, must stimulate his
brain, and that brain excitement must lead to the contraction of his
mouth muscles, and that must stir the air waves which reach my ear
drum, and the excitement must be carried from my ear to the brain,
where the mental ideas arise. No abnormal states like hypnotism change
in the least this procedure. But if we fancy that the mere mental idea
in one man can start the same idea in another, we lack every possible
means to connect such a wonder with anything which the scientist so
far acknowledges.
To be sure, every sincere scholar devoted to truth has to yield to the
actual facts. We cannot stubbornly say that the facts do not exist
because they do not harmonize with what is known so far. The
psychologist would not necessarily be at the end of his wit if the
developments of to-morrow proved that mind-reading in Beulah Miller's
case, or in any other case, is a fact beyond doubt. He might argue
that all previous knowledge was based on a wrong idea and that, for
instance, other processes go on in the brain, which can be transmitted
from organism to organism like wireless telegraphic waves without the
perception of the senses. If these other processes were conceived as
the foundation of mental images, the scientific psychological scholar
of the future might possibly work out a consistent theory and all the
previously known facts might then be translated into the language of
the new science. Whether in this or a similar way we should ever come
to really satisfactory results, no one can foresee, but at least it is
certain that this would involve a complete giving up of everything
which scientists have so far held to be right. Certainly in the
history of civilization great revolutions in science have happened.
The astronomers had to begin almost anew; why cannot the psychologists
turn around and acknowledge that they have been entirely wrong so far
and that they must begin once more at the beginning and rewrite all
which they have so far taken to be truth?
Certainly the psychologists are no cowards. They would not hesitate to
declare their mental bankruptcy if the progress of truth demanded it.
But at least we must be entirely clear that this is indeed the
situation and that no step on the track of mind-reading can be taken
without giving up everything which we have so far held to be true. And
it is evident that such a radical break with the whole past of human
science can be considered only if every other effort for explanation
fails, and if it seems really impossible to understand the facts in
the light of all which science has already accomplished. If Beulah
Miller's little hands are to set the torch to the whole pile of our
knowledge, we ought first to be perfectly sure that there is really
nothing worth saving. We cannot accept the theory of the apostles of
mind-reading until we know surely that Beulah Miller can receive
communications which cannot possibly be explained with the means of
science.
Now we all know one kind of mind-reading which looks very astounding
and yet which there is no difficulty at all in explaining. It is a
favourite performance on the stage, and not seldom tried as a parlour
game. I refer to the kind of mind-reading in which one person thinks
of a hidden coin, and the other holds his wrist and is then able to
find the secreted object. There is no mystery in such apparent
transmission of the idea, because it is the result of small
unintentional movements of the arm. The one who thinks hard of the
corner of the room in which the coin is placed cannot help giving
small impulses in that direction. He himself is not aware of these
faint movements, but the man who has a fine sense of touch becomes
conscious of these motions in the wrist which his fingers grasp, and
under the guidance of these slight movements he is led to the
particular place. Some persons express their thought of places more
easily than others and are therefore better fitted for the game, and
we find still greater differences in the sensitiveness of different
persons. Not every one can play the game as well as a trained stage
performer, who may have an extreme refinement of touch and may notice
even the least movements in the wrist which others would not feel at
all. Such an explanation is not an arbitrary theory. We can easily
show with delicate instruments in the psychological laboratory that
every one in thinking of a special direction soon begins to move his
hand toward it without knowing anything of these slight movements. The
instruments allow the reading of such impulses where the mere feeling
of the hand would hardly show any signs. A very neat form of the same
type is often seen on the stage when the performer is to read a series
of numbers in the mind of some one who thinks intensely of the
figures. Some one in the audience thinks of the number fifty-seven.
The performer asks him to think of the first figure, then he grasps
his hand and counts slowly from zero to nine. After that he asks him
to think of the second figure, and counts once more. Immediately after
he will announce rightly the two digits. Again there is no mystery in
it. He knows that the man who thinks of the figure five will make a
slight involuntary movement when the five is reached in counting, and
the same movement will occur at the seven in the second counting. If
he is very well trained, he will not need the touching of the hand;
he will perform the same experiment with figures without any actual
contact whatever. It will be sufficient to see the man who is thinking
of a figure while he himself is counting. As soon as the dangerous
digit is reached, the man will give some unintentional sign. Perhaps
his breathing will become a degree deeper, or stop for a moment, his
eyelids may make a reflex movement, his fingers may contract a bit.
This remains entirely unnoticed by any one in the audience, but the
professional mind-reader has heightened his sensibility so much that
none of these involuntary signs escapes him. Yet from the standpoint
of science his seeing these subtle signs is on principle no different
from our ordinary seeing when a man points his finger in some
direction.
But the experience of the scientist goes still farther. In the cases
of this parlour trick and the stage performance the one who claims to
read the mind of the other is more or less clearly aware of those
unintended signs. He feels those slight movement impulses, which he
follows. But we know from experiences of very different kind that such
signs may make an impression on the senses and influence the man, and
yet may not really come to consciousness. Even those who play the game
of mind-reading in the parlour and who are led by the arm movements
to find the hidden coin will often say with perfect sincerity that
they do not feel any movements in the wrist which they touch. This is
indeed quite possible. Those slight shocks which come to their finger
tips reach their brains and control their movements without producing
a conscious impression. They are led in the right direction without
knowing what is leading them. The physician finds the most extreme
cases of such happenings with some types of his hysteric patients.
They may not hear what is said to them or see what is shown to them,
and yet it makes an impression on them and works on their minds, and
they may be able later to bring it to their memory and it may guide
their actions, but on account of their disease those impressions do
not really reach their conscious minds.
We find the same lack of seeing or hearing or feeling in many cases of
hypnotism. But it is not necessary to go to such extreme happenings.
All of us can remember experiences when impressions reached our eyes
or ears and yet were not noticed at the time, although they guided our
actions. We may have been on the street in deep thought or in an
interesting conversation so that we were not giving any attention
whatever to the way, and yet every step was taken correctly under the
guidance of our eyes. We saw the street, although we were not
conscious of seeing it. We do not hear a clock ticking in our room
when we are working, and yet if the clock suddenly stops we notice it.
This indicates that the ticking of the clock reached us somehow and
had an effect on us in spite of our not being conscious of it. The
scientists are still debating whether it is best to say that these not
conscious processes are going on in our subconscious mind or whether
they are simply brain processes. For all practical purposes, this
makes no difference. We may say that our brain gets an impression
through our eyes when we see the street, or through our ears when we
hear the clock, or we may say that our subconscious mind receives
these messages of eye and ear. In neither case does the scientist find
anything mysterious or supernatural.
I am convinced that all the experiences with Beulah Miller may
ultimately be understood through those two principles. She has unusual
gifts and her performances are extremely interesting, but I think
everything can be explained through her subconscious noticing of
unintended signs. Where no signs are given which reach her senses, she
cannot read any one's mind. But the signs which she receives are not
noticed by her consciously. She is not really aware of them; they go
to her brain or to her subconscious mind and work from there on her
conscious mind.
What speaks in favour of such a skeptical view? I mention at first one
fact which was absolutely proved by my experiments--namely, that
Beulah Miller's successes turn into complete failures as soon as
neither the mother nor the sister is present in the room. All the
experiments which I have conducted in which I alone, or I together
with the minister and the judge, thought of words or cards or letters
or numbers did not yield better results than any one would get by mere
guessing. In one series, for instance, in which we all three made the
greatest effort to concentrate our minds on written figures, she knew
the first number correctly only in two out of fourteen cases. In
another series of twelve letters she did not know a single one at the
first trial. Sometimes when she showed splendid results with her
sister Gladys present, everything stopped the very moment the sister
left the room. Sometimes Beulah knew the first half of a word while
Gladys stood still in the same room, and could not get the second half
of the word when Gladys in the meantime had stepped from the little
parlour to the kitchen. Beulah was helpless even when a wooden door
was between her and the member of her family. She herself did not
know that it made such a difference, but the records leave no doubt. I
may at once add here another argument. The good results stop entirely
when Beulah is blindfolded. Even when both her mother and sister were
sitting quite near her, her mind-reading became pure guesswork when
her eyes were covered with a scarf. Again, she liked to make the
experiment under this condition and was not aware that her knowledge
failed her when she did not see her mother or sister. Her delight in
being blindfolded spoke very clearly for her naïve sincerity, but her
failure indicated no less clearly that she must be dependent upon
unintentional signs for her success.
Let me say at once that some of the observers would probably object to
my statement that the presence of the family was needed and that she
had to be in such direct connection with them. The newspapers told
wonderful stories of her success with strangers, and even the judge
and the minister felt certain that they had seen splendid results
under most difficult conditions. Yet I have to stick to what I
observed myself. It may be objected--and it is well known that this is
the pet objection of the spiritualists against the criticism of
scholars--that the results come well only when the child is in full
sympathy with those present and that I may have disturbed her. But
this was not the case. I evidently did not disturb her, inasmuch as we
saw that the experiments which I made with her when the sister or the
mother was present were most satisfactory. Moreover, she was evidently
very much at ease with me when we had become more acquainted, and just
those entirely negative results were mostly received on a morning when
I had fulfilled the dearest wishes of the two children, a watch for
the one and a ring for the other, besides all the candy with which my
pockets were regularly stuffed. She was in the happiest frame of mind
and most willing to do her best. But if I rely exclusively on my own
observation, it is not only because I suppose that the experiments
yielded just as good results as those of other observers. It is rather
because I know how difficult it is to give reliable accounts from mere
memory and to make experiments without long training in experimental
methods. All those publicly reported experiments had been made without
any actual exact records, and, moreover, by persons who overlooked the
most evident sources of error. As a matter of course, I took notes of
everything which happened, and treated the case with the same
carefulness with which I am accustomed to carry on the experiments in
the Harvard Psychological Laboratory.
To give some illustrations of sources of error, I may mention that the
earlier observers were convinced that Beulah could not see slight
movements of the persons in the room when she was looking fixedly at
the ceiling, or that she could not notice the movements of the sister
or the mother when she was staring straight into the eyes of the
experimenter. Any psychologist, on the contrary, would say that that
would be a most favourable condition for watching small signs. He
knows that while we fixate a point with the centre of our eye we are
most sensitive to slight movement impressions on the side parts of our
eye, and that this sensitiveness is often abnormally heightened. Just
when the child is looking steadily into our face or to the ceiling,
the outside parts of her sensitive retina may bring to her the visible
unintentional signs from her sister or mother. The untrained observer
is also usually unaware how easily he helps by suggestive movements or
utterances to the other observers. When Beulah gave a six instead of a
nine, one of our friends whispered that she may have seen it upside
down in her mind, or when she gave a zero instead of a six that it
looked similar. In short, they keep helping without knowing it. Very
characteristic is the habit of unintentionally using phrases which
begin with the letters of which they are thinking. The letter in their
minds forces them to speak words which begin with it. If they start at
a C, we hear "Come, Beulah," if at a T, "Try, Beulah," if at an S,
"See, Beulah." It is very hard to protect ourselves against such
unintended and unnoticed helps. It is still more difficult to keep the
failures in mind. The eager expectancy of hearing the right letter or
number from the lips of the child gives such a strong emphasis to the
right results that the wrong ones slip from the mind of the hearer.
The right figure may be only the third or the fourth guess of the
child, but if then the whole admiring chorus around say emphatically
at this fourth trial that this is quite right, those three wrong
efforts which preceded fade away from the memory. I may acknowledge
for myself that I was mostly inclined to believe that the number of
the correct answers had been greater than they actually were according
to my exact records. For all these reasons I had the very best right
to disregard the reports of all those who relied on their amateur art
of experimenting and on their mere memory account.
What kind of signs could be in question? It may seem to outsiders that
the most wonderful system of signs would be needed for every content
of one mind to be communicated to another. But here again we must
first reduce the exaggerated claims to the simpler reality. When
Beulah makes card experiments, the whole words jack, queen, king,
spade, club, heart, diamond, come to her mind, but when she makes word
experiments, never under any circumstances does a real word come to
her consciousness, but only single letters. Why is this? If king and
queen can be transmitted from mind to mind, why not dog and cat? Yet
when the mother thinks of dog, it is always only first D, and after a
while O, and finally G which creeps into her mind. This difference
seems to me most characteristic, because it indicates very clearly
that the whole performance is possible only when the communicated
content belongs to a small list which can be easily counted. There are
only three face cards, only four suites, only ten numbers, and only
twenty-six letters, but there are ten thousand words and more. It is
easy to connect every one of the ten numbers or every one of the
twenty-six letters with a particular sign, but it would be impossible
to have a sign for every one of the ten thousand words. Yet if we had
to do with real mind-reading, it ought to make no difference whether
we transmit the letter D or the word dog. This fact that she can
recognize words only by slow spelling, while the faces and the suites
of the cards and the names of the numbers come as full words, seems to
me to point most clearly to the whole key of the situation. Anything
which cannot be brought into such a simple number series, for
instance, a colour impression, can never be transmitted. If the mother
looks at the ace of diamonds, Beulah says that she sees the red of the
diamond before her in her mind, but if the mother looks at the picture
of a blue lake, this blue impression can never arise in Beulah's mind,
but only the letters B-L-U-E.
Moreover, I observed that for Beulah the letters of the alphabet were
indeed connected with numbers, as in seeking a letter she has a habit
of going through the alphabet and at the same time moving one finger
after another. Thus she feels each letter as having a definite place
in her series of finger movements, and the finger movements themselves
are often counted by her, so that each letter is finally connected
with a special number. This, indeed, reduces the situation to rather a
simple scheme. She succeeds only if her mother or sister is present
and if her eyes are open, and she succeeds only with material which
can be easily counted. A very short system of simple signs would thus
be entirely sufficient to communicate everything which her
mind-reading brings to her. As to the particular signs, I do not yet
feel sure. It would probably take months of careful examination before
I should find them out, just as in Germany it has taken months for
scholars to discover the unintentional signs which the owner of a
trick horse made, from which the horse was apparently able to
calculate. I have no time to carry on such an investigation in this
case, the more as I do not see that any new insight could be gained by
it.
Once I noticed distinctly how in the card experiments the mother
without her own knowledge made seven movements with her foot when she
thought of the figure seven. That gave me the idea that the signs
might be given by very slight knocking on the floor which Beulah's
oversensitive skin might notice. What speaks against such a view is
that the results stop when she is blindfolded. Yet in this connection
I may mention another aspect. It is quite possible that the covering
of her eyes may destroy her power, and that nevertheless she may
receive her signs chiefly not through the eyes, but through touch and
ear. It may be that she needs her eyes open because the seeing of the
members of the family may heighten by a kind of autosuggestion her
sensitiveness for the perception of the slight signs. I have no doubt
that this kind of autosuggestion plays a large rôle in her mind. She
can read a card much better when she is allowed to touch with her
fingers the rear of the card. She herself believes that she receives
the knowledge through her finger tips. In reality it is, of course, a
stimulus by which she becomes more suggestible and by which
accordingly her sensitiveness to the slight signs which her mother and
sister give her becomes increased. We must, however, never forget that
these signs, whatever they may be, are not only unintentional on the
part of her family, but also not consciously perceived by Beulah. If
she stares at the ceiling, and her mother, without knowing it, makes
seven slight foot movements, Beulah gets through the side parts of her
eye a nerve impression, but she does not think of the foot. This nerve
impression, as we saw, works on the subconscious mind, or on the
brain, and the idea of seven then arises in her conscious mind like a
picture which she can see.
Such a system of signs, completely unknown to those who give them and
to her who receives them, cannot have been built up in a short while.
But we heard how it originated. At first Beulah recognized the queen
in the hands of her sister and mother, when they were playing "Old
Maid." There are many who have so much power to recognize the small
signs. But when they began to make experiments with cards, probably
definite family habits developed; there was much occasion to treat
each card individually, to link some involuntary movement with the
face cards and some with each suite, and slowly to carry this system
over to letters. They all agree that Beulah recognizes some frequent
letters much more easily than the rare letters. What the observers
have now found was the result of two years' training with mother and
sister. Yet all this became possible only because Beulah evidently has
this unusual, supernormal sensitiveness together with this abnormal
power to receive the signs without their coming at once to
consciousness. Her mental makeup in this respect constantly reminds
the psychologist of the traits of a hysteric woman.