In the main, this review has dealt only with the period covered by
_Mental Radio_, although it has exhibited some experiments not
illustrated or even mentioned therein. A few of the special tabulations
have also included a part or all of the later tests made by Mr. and Mrs.
Sinclair, to the number of more than a hundred, the materials of which
are in my hands. When the tabulations have reached so far, the fact has
been stated.
But it may be well to say something about tests made by Professor
William McDougall during a sojourn in California, July-August, 1930. He
examined the proofs of previous work and consented to write an
introduction to _Mental Radio_, saying: “A refusal would imply on my
part a lack either of courage or of due sense of scientific
responsibility. * * * It is the duty of men of science to give whatever
encouragement and sympathetic support may be possible to all amateurs
who find themselves in a position to observe and carefully and honestly
to study such phenomena. Mrs. Sinclair would seem to be one of the rare
persons who have telepathic power in a marked degree and perhaps other
supernormal powers. The experiments in telepathy, as reported in the
pages of this book, were so remarkably successful as to rank among the
very best hitherto reported. The degree of success and the conditions of
experiment were such that we can reject them as conclusive evidence of
some mode of communication not at present explicable in accepted
scientific terms only by assuming that Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair either are
grossly stupid, incompetent and careless persons, or have deliberately
entered upon a conspiracy to deceive the public in a most heartless and
reprehensible fashion.” As we have seen, the circle of conspirators
would have to be enlarged to admit Mr. and Mrs. Irwin, for they vouched
for an extraordinarily successful series of experiments at long
distance. And it would have to be enlarged to include Professor
McDougall himself, since he sent me the materials of his experiments,
whose results, though inferior to many of the series of 1928 and 1929,
yet show a ratio and quality of correspondence vastly beyond chance
expectation. Remember that the 260 Guessing tests resulted in not one
drawing which, being compared with the original, could possibly be
regarded as a Success, and this by the independent verdicts of two
judges. Of course, this does not mean that another set of 260 guesses
would not show one Success or more than one, but it does show the great
improbability that a particular drawing made by guess will correspond
with the particular original enough so that it is possible to call it a
Success. The 260 guess-drawings, according to one of the judges, showed
3 Partial Successes, 1 according to the other. Then say there was no
Success and but 3 Partial Successes, and it is still unlikely that a
particular drawing made in any short guess series will correspond with
the particular original to the extent of being worthy of the title
Success or Partial Success. On the basis of those 260 guesses we would
be warranted in assuming that there would be about one-third of a
likelihood of getting either a Success or a Partial Success in a series
of 25. But another series of 260 guesses might be more fortunate, so
call it an expectation of getting one. Professor McDougall had 25
experiments with Mrs. Sinclair.
On July 19th, “five cards drawn or chosen and sealed in envelope and
thick paper at Santa Monica and presented in turn sealed to Mrs. S. at
Long Beach.” Reproductions 1, 3 and 4 were failures. But agent’s No. 2
was a “prairie schooner” showing two wheels with spokes and a long black
line crossing the wheels at their hubs and standing for both the bottom
of the vehicle-body and the shafts in front, while the percipient drew
(1) a wheel with spokes and a long black line running from the hub, and
(2) a wheel-like shape without spokes, but the line extending far in one
direction and passing through the hub and beyond the wheel a short way
in the other direction, as in the original. Here we have a distinct
Partial Success. Agent’s No. 5 was a postal-card picture of a part of
Oxford, the most conspicuous feature in which is the tower of Magdalen
College with pinnacles and high, narrow windows. The percipient made a
drawing which anyone would recognize as a tower, with bristling short
lines projecting upward from the top suggesting pinnacles, and high,
narrow windows. The proportions of height and width are approximately
correct. Below the lower window level are two parallel horizontal lines,
which call attention to such lines in the original. This was drawn,
however, while the percipient was holding agent’s No. 4, his No. 5, the
tower, still being in his pocket. It looks like an anticipation. But
when she arrived at No. 5 she wrote “Turret of a castle and trees,” and
now she is right for the very original in hand, which does display,
besides a river, a bridge and buildings, the conspicuous tower, and
trees prominent in the picture. She added “Sword,” “Scissors,” and
“Key,” which may possibly be erroneous impressions from the pinnacles.
So we have here a striking result, worthy to be called a Success. I have
again taken pains to go through all the originals and all the
reproductions, 413 of each, and find that but once besides did an
original represent a tower. It was the Eiffel Tower, and all will
remember its tall, slender and tapering shape. The percipient’s drawing
represented a long, slender and tapering cone—a Partial Success. And but
once besides, among all 413 drawings, did the percipient present a
tower. This was on the following August 16th, when, apparently as an
experiment, the drawings were “done in a hurry” and no record made of
the order. If compared with a particular one of the originals, the
“tower top” is a Partial Success, but it probably was a Failure. So here
we have the factors: out of 418 agent drawings two represent towers, and
one results in a percipient Success, the other in a Partial Success; out
of 418 percipient drawings two represent towers, and one is a Success,
the other a Failure.
On July 20th Professor McDougall made 5 drawings “at one end of a long
room, while Mrs. Sinclair tried to reproduce them at the other end.” The
agent made what is supposed to be a stork, each foot furnished with
three toes. The percipient made two long legs with three-toed feet, the
legs extending from a curved line like the under side of a bird. Above
and isolated is what looks like a crest, which the stork does not have.
Partial Success. The 4th agent drawing is of a ringed target and a
feathered arrow sticking in it, the barb not visible. The percipient
drawing is practically the feathered part of the shaft. Partial Success.
The 5th agent drawing shows a drum-like object with elliptical top, from
the center of which a tube or spout projects vertically, with water
rising from the spout, parting and falling to right and to left so that
it looks something like a tree. The percipient drew (1) an ellipse, (2)
an ellipse, (3) something like a very round teapot, with elliptic top
and spout at an angle of 45 degrees, (4) something like the vertical
trunk of a tree surmounted by a ball of foliage. Success; there are too
many suggestive partial parallels to allow this to be doubted.
July 26th there were 5 experiments, all drawn by Professor McDougall
except one, that being a postal-card picture of trees, bushes and the
yucca in bloom. Agent’s No. 2 was a wheel with spokes and tire nicely
drawn. Percipient made three circles in a row with something like the
connecting rod of a locomotive across them. This is at least Suggestive.
Directly before the yucca picture, the percipient described plants with
flowers, but the description did not fit the original next to come, nor
did the impression of flowers persist when the yucca was at hand, so I
do not allow this to count at all. There were no other successes in any
degree.
Then followed experiments, one a day, with Professor McDougall drawing
at Santa Monica, Mrs. Sinclair drawing at the same time at Pasadena,
thirty miles distant.
July 30th. A failure.
August 2nd. Original drawing: a coffee-pot, its spout at the right of
peculiar shape, somewhat like the profile of a boat’s stern. The
percipient’s drawing was principally made up of a vertical line like the
edge of the coffee-pot, and turned to the right from its upper extremity
a projection curiously like the coffee-pot’s spout. To the left of the
vertical line seven dots. It may be a mere coincidence that in the
original there are several, but not seven, dark spots in the drawing,
placed relatively about as far from the right edge of the coffee-pot as
the dots are from the vertical line in the percipient drawing. The
drawing is Suggestive, at least.
August 10th. Original drawing a teapot, and percipient’s drawing, a palm
frond, was relatively to it, a failure.
August 11th. Agent drew a faucet. Percipient wrote “Teapot,” which is a
failure. But agent had drawn a teapot the previous day—did percipient
get a deferred telepathic impression?
August 13th. Agent drew a palm tree and percipient’s result was a
failure. But, records agent, “Had it in mind to draw the palm in patio
several days before. Mrs. S. seemed to get it August 10th.” No agent
should have in mind to draw one thing when he actually draws another. If
the result is from telepathy, not clairvoyance, a percipient is at least
as likely to get that on which the agent’s mind has dwelt. On the whole
it would perhaps be fair to count this as a Success.
August 16th. Agent drew a flower-pot and in it a plant with sword-shaped
leaves, somewhat like a century plant. Percipient first drew what one
might take to be a stalk with five straight, short leafless branches,
but with the script “Velvet bow with band.” She added, “Then saw” and
drew a plant—no pot—with leaves exactly of the form of the leaves in the
original, and added, “I have too many leaves in the above.” Right: she
had 11 leaves, the original had 7. This certainly is at least a Partial
Success.
August 17th, August 18th and August 19th each yielded a Failure.
Now let us take account of stock. On the basis of our 260 experiments in
guessing we would have about one-third of an expectation of finding in
the McDougall experiments one Partial Success, but as another series of
260 guesses might be more fortunate we proposed to reckon a full
likelihood of getting one Success or Partial Success, on the theory that
Mrs. Sinclair was guessing also. But we have found 3 Successes and 4
Partial Successes (not counting a possible “anticipation,” and 2
instances of Suggestive). It is not mathematics, it is not logic, it is
not common-sense to conclude that we have not, even in this series of
Professor McDougall, although it does not equal some which have been
exhibited, something for which chance is wholly unable to account.
It is not at all difficult to account for the fact that Professor
McDougall’s results were not quite up to the average of Mrs. Sinclair’s
work during the period covered by _Mental Radio_, both quantity and
quality taken into consideration. In the first place, it has for many
years been evident that something depends upon the degree of _rapport_
between agent and percipient; in other words, that some persons are
better suited than others to act as agents in relation to a particular
percipient. Thus, we are told in the book (pages 33–34) that among the
friends of Mrs. Sinclair there was one peculiarly adapted in this
respect—Mrs. Kate Crane-Gartz. I venture to relate my own very limited
experience, as fact, not scientifically guaranteed. I have had reason to
suppose that I was getting telepathic messages only with two persons.
One was with my wife the first time I ever experimented with her, and
then I got most of the objects she was thinking of, more or less
satisfactorily, in about eight trials. But I never again had _any_
measurable success with her, though I tried repeatedly. The other person
I was for a time in sympathetic relations with, and there occurred a
number of incidents which convinced me that I was acting as a
spontaneous percipient. The most striking category of these is the same
which Mr. Sinclair describes when he says: “My wife will say to me,
‘Mrs. Gartz is going to phone,’ and in a minute or two the phone will
ring.” Repeatedly, when I had no particular reason to think that the
lady to whom I refer would ‘phone me, and when I was occupied with work,
I would suddenly, as by a jerk, look at the ‘phone, expecting it to
ring, and in a few moments it would do so. I have even gone to the
‘phone, almost without thinking, and stood there for half a minute or so
before it did so. This period lasted for perhaps three or four months
only, then faded out. Never at any other time, nor with any other
person, not even with my daughter between whom and me there is the most
cordial sympathy, has there been evidence of this kind sufficiently
striking and repetitious to arrest serious attention. So it may well be
that Professor McDougall, however amiable and fairminded he is, not
having been long known to the percipient and being invested with the awe
of a psychologist of extended reputation, was not so well adapted to be
an agent in relation to her as her husband or her brother-in-law.
But again, while at times Mrs. Sinclair to the last of her
experimentation analyzed by me got excellent results, I find that,
whether because she was wearied, or too much occupied by other things,
or more anxious and less spontaneous, or for whatever reason, did not in
the later months do so well on the average as during the earlier months.
The poorest stretch of the period after the material covered by the book
was that from August 1 to August 28, 1929, inclusive. There were 27
experiments, of which, according to my reckoning, 2 were Successes, 1 a
Partial Success, 3 Suggestive, 2 Slightly Suggestive and 19 Failures in
a series of 27 experiments. The poorest stretch of experiments during
the book period was that ending with the series of February 17, 1929,
nevertheless shown on account of its significance. Here there were 4
Successes, 8 Partial Successes, 4 Suggestive, 1 Slightly Suggestive and
10 Failures out of the same total number of 27. So, after all, while the
McDougall results did not reach the highest level of the later period,
they did not by any means mark the lowest level. They greatly transcend
the expectation of chance, and, with the exception of five experiments
only, were achieved when agent and percipient were either thirty miles
apart or at the two ends of a long room.