Only a few years ago the general public was in almost total ignorance of
the great truth of Thought Transference, Thought Projection, Telepathy,
or Mind Reading. It is true that here and there were to be found a few
scientists earnestly investigating and eagerly uncovering the hidden
truths concerning the subjects. But the mass of the people were either
entirely ignorant of the subject, or else were intensely skeptical of
any thing concerning the matter, laughing to scorn the daring thinker
who ventured to express his interest or belief in this great scientific
phenomena.
But how different to-day. On all hands we hear of the wonders of Thought
Transference, or Telepathy, as it is called. Scientific men write and
teach of its fascinating manifestations, and even the general public has
heard much of the new science and believes more or less in it, according
to the degree of intelligence and knowledge concerning the subject
possessed by the individual. Listen to these words from the lips of some
of the greatest scientists of the day.
Prof. William James, the eminent instructor at Harvard University, says:
"When from our present advanced standpoint we look back upon the past
stages of human thought, whether it be scientific thought or theological
thought, we are amazed that a universe which appears to us of so vast
and mysterious a complication should ever have seemed to anyone so
little and plain a thing. Whether it be Descartes' world or Newton's;
whether it be that of the Materialists of the last century, or that of
the Bridgewater treatises of our own, it is always the same to
us--incredibly perspectiveless and short. Even Lyell's, Faraday's,
Mill's and Darwin's consciousness of their respective subjects are
already beginning to put on an infantile and innocent look." These
remarks are doubly significant by reason of their having been made by
Prof. James as the president of the "Society for Psychical Research."
The eminent English scientist, Sir William Crookes, in his address as
president of the Royal Society, at Bristol, England, a few years ago,
said: "Were I now introducing for the first time these inquiries to the
world of science, I should choose a starting point different from that
of old, where we formerly began. It would be well to begin with
telepathy; with the fundamental law, as I believe it to be, that
_thoughts and images may be transferred from one mind to another without
the agency of the recognized organs of sense_--that knowledge may enter
the human mind without being communicated in any hitherto known or
recognized ways. Although the inquiry has elicited important facts with
reference to the mind, it has not yet reached the scientific stage of
certainty which would enable it to be usefully brought before one of our
sections. I will therefore confine myself to pointing out the direction
in which scientific investigation can legitimately advance. If telepathy
take place, we have two physical facts--the physical change in the brain
of A. the suggestor, and the analogous physical change in the brain of
B. the recipient of the suggestion. Between these two physical events
there must exist a train of physical causes. Whenever the connecting
sequence of intermediate causes begins to be revealed, the inquiry will
then come within the range of one of the sections of the British
Association. Such a sequence can only occur through an intervening
medium. All the phenomena of the Universe are presumably in some way
continuous, and it is unscientific to call in the aid of mysterious
agencies when with every fresh advance in knowledge, it is shown that
ether vibrations have powers and attributes abundantly equal to any
demand--even the transmission of thought."
Prof. Crookes then went on to say: "It is supposed by some physiologists
that the essential cells of nerves do not actually touch, but are
separated by a narrow gap which widens in sleep while it narrows almost
to extinction during mental activity. This condition is so singularly
like that of a Branly or Lodge coherer (a device which has led Marconi
to the discovery of wireless telegraphy) as to suggest a further
analogy. The structure of brain and nerve being similar, it is
conceivable that there may be present masses of such nerve coherers in
the brain whose special function it may be to receive impulses brought
from without through the connecting sequence of ether waves of
appropriate order of magnitude. Roentgen has familiarized us with an
order of vibrations of extreme minuteness compared with the smallest
waves of which we have hitherto been acquainted, and of dimensions
comparable with the distances between the centers of the atoms of which
the material universe is built up; and there is no reason for believing
that we have here reached the limit of frequency. 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 upon individual molecules, while their
rapidity approaches that of the internal and external movements of the
atoms themselves."
A formidable range of phenomena must be scientifically sifted before we
effectually grasp a faculty so strange, so bewildering, and for ages so
inscrutable, as the direct action of mind on mind. It has been said
that nothing worth the proving can be proved, nor yet disproved. True
this may have been in the past, it is true no longer. The science of our
century has forged weapons of observation and analysis by which the
veriest tyro may profit. Science has trained and fashioned the average
mind into habits of exactitude and disciplined perception, and in so
doing has fortified itself for tasks higher, wider and incomparably more
wonderful than even the wisest among our ancestors imagined. Like the
souls in Plato's myth that follow the chariot of Zeus, it has ascended
to a point of vision far above the earth. It is henceforth open to
science to transcend all we now think we know of matter, and to gain new
glimpses of a profounder scheme of Cosmic Law. In old Egyptian days a
well-known inscription was carved over the portal of the Temple of Isis:
'I am whatever has been, is, or ever will be; and my veil no man hath
yet lifted.' Not thus do modern seekers after truth confront Nature--the
word that stands for the baffling mysteries of the Universe. Steadily,
unflinchingly, we strive to pierce the inmost heart of Nature, from what
she is, to reconstruct what she has been, and to prophesy what she yet
shall be. Veil after veil we have lifted, and her face grows more
beautiful, august and wonderful with every barrier that is withdrawn.
Camille Flamarrion, the eminent French astronomer, is a believer in
Thought Transference and Mind Reading, and has written the following
expression of his convictions on this subject: "We sum up, therefore,
our preceding observations by the conclusion that _one mind can act at a
distance upon another, without the habitual medium of words, or any
other visible means of communication_. It appears to us altogether
unreasonable to reject this conclusion if we accept the facts. There is
nothing unscientific, nothing romantic, in admitting that an idea can
influence the brain from a distance. The action of one human being upon
another, from a distance is a scientific fact; it is as certain as the
existence of Paris, of Napoleon, of Oxygen, or of Sirius." The same
authority has also said "There can be no doubt that our psychical force
creates a movement of the ether, _which transmits itself afar like all
movements of ether and becomes perceptible to brains in harmony with our
own_. The transformation of a psychic action into an ethereal movement,
and the reverse, may be analogous to what takes place on a telephone,
where the receptive plate, which is identical with the plate at the
other end, reconstructs the sonorous movement transmitted, not by means
of sound, but by electricity."
We have quoted at length from this eminent authority to show once and
for all that this great science of MIND-READING is recognized, and
approved of by the highest authorities on Modern Science, and also to
give our students the benefit of the current scientific theories upon
the subject. In this work we have but very little to say about theory,
but shall confine ourselves to facts, and actual instruction.
Science knows and has proven that thoughts may be and have been
transmitted from one mind to another, in some cases over thousands of
miles of space, but it has not as yet solved the mystery of the "Why" of
the subject, and contents itself with explaining the "How." The nearest
approach to a correct theory seems to be the one which compares the mind
with the "wireless telegraph," and which supposes that the vibrations of
thought travel through the ether, just as do the waves of this high
order of electricity. The mind of one person acts like a "transmitter"
of the wireless telegraph, while the mind of the other acts as a
"receiver" of the same set of instruments.
There are undoubtedly vibrations set up in the brain when one thinks,
and there are undoubtedly waves of thought just as there are waves of
electricity. Science informs us that there is an increase of temperature
in the human brain during periods of thought-activity, and also that
there are constant chemical changes in the structure going on when the
brain cells are active. This is akin to the generation of electricity
in a battery, and undoubtedly acts in the same way in producing
vibrations, and transmitting them to the brain of another. Sir William
Crookes, in the address just quoted, points out the direction of the
scientific theories concerning the matter. But, this is all that we
shall have to say about the theory of Mind Reading. We shall now pass on
to the actual practical instruction. The student is asked, however, to
always carry in his mind the fact that Mind travels in waves from one
brain to another just as electricity travels from the Transmitter to the
Receiver. By holding this picture in your mind, you will have the whole
practical theory, in condensed form, right before you, so that you may
be able to act accordingly.