We are in two passages told precisely the conditions of this group of
experiments. Since her brother-in-law felt obliged to withdraw from
participation, Mrs. Sinclair asked her husband to make some
drawings. * * *
1. July 14. Mr. Sinclair made the above drawing (Fig. 2), a very
imperfectly constructed six-pointed star. Mrs. Sinclair, reclining 30
feet away, with a closed door between, produced five drawings (Fig.
2a).[11] Immediately after the agent’s and percipient’s drawings had
been compared, the lady stated that just before starting to concentrate
she had been looking at her drawing of many concentric circles made on
the previous day in the concluding test of the Sinclair-Irwin group.
This was bad method, but we can hardly regret it, as the sequel is
illuminating. At first she got a tangle of circles: “This turned
sideways [thus assuming the shape of one of the star-points], then took
the shape of an arrowhead [confused notion of the stair-point, one would
conjecture], and then of a letter A [another attempt to interpret the
dawning impression], and finally evolved into a complete star.” The star
so nearly reproduces the oddities of the original star, its peculiar
shape and the direction which its greatest length takes, that had it
been produced in one of the unguarded series, one would have been
tempted to think that the percipient “peeked.” But the original was
actually _made_, as well as gazed at, behind a closed door, so that
there is no possible basis for imagining any such accident or any
inadvertence on the part of either experimenter.
2. July 14. In his room Mr. Sinclair drew the grinning face of Figure
21, and then Mrs. Sinclair drew in hers Figure 21a. Two eyes in his, one
“eye” in hers. Look at the agent’s drawing upside down (how can we or he
be sure that he did not momentarily chance to look at it reversed and
retain the impression?), and note the parallels. At the top of his two
eyes—at the top of hers one “eye”; midway in his two small angles
indicating the nose—somewhat above midway in hers, three similarly small
angles unclosed at the apexes; at the bottom of his a crescent-shaped
figure to indicate a mouth, with lines to denote teeth—at the bottom of
hers a like crescent, minus any interior lines. Had the percipient drawn
what would be instantly recognizable as a face, though a face of very
different lines, it would be pronounced a success. But such a fact would
be very much more likely as a guess than a misinterpreted, almost
identical crescent (she thought it probably a “moon”), so similar little
marks, angularly related (she “supposed it must be a star”), and an
“eye,” all placed as in the original.
3. July 17. Mr. Sinclair, lying on a couch in one room, drew and then
gazed at a drawing which can easily be described; it is a broad ellipse
with its major axis horizontal, like an egg lying on its side, and a
smaller and similar one in contact over it. Mrs. Sinclair, lying on a
couch in another room, first drew a broad ellipse (not quite closed at
one end), with major axis horizontal, and beside it and not quite
touching, a somewhat smaller circle not quite closed at one end. Then
she got an impression represented in a second drawing, four ellipses of
equal size, _two of them in contact with each other_.
4. July 20. Under the same conditions Mr. Sinclair drew two heavy lines
like a capital T. Mrs. Sinclair drew what is like an interrogation point
with misplaced dot, then a reversed S with two dots enclosed, then an
upright cross composed of lines of equal length, and finally such a
cross circumscribed by a tangential square. Though, as Mr. Sinclair
remarks, the cross is the T of the original with its vertical line
prolonged, I should call this experiment barely suggestive.
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.