Page:EB1922 - Volume 32.djvu/218

200 less have gratified the readers of his Dissociation of a Personal- ity (1906) to learn that " Miss Beauchamp " was afterwards hap- pily and healthily married though her husband did Multiple not know what a heroine of psychological romance he aiay a ' had espoused. The most striking and substantial con- tribution to the subject is, however, contained in the admirably recorded and narrated story of the strange case of " Doris Fischer," for which science is indebted to the Rev. Dr. Walter F. Prince, who in consequence became interested in psychical research, and subsequently (1920) succeeded the late Prof. J. H. Hyslop as secretary of the American S.P.R. The record extends over three large volumes (1915, 1916, 1917) of the Proceedings of the American S.P.R., contains almost 2,500 pages of print, and is fully worthy of such elaborate treatment. It narrates how, as a little girl of three, " Doris Fischer " was thrown down violently by her drunken father, and so sustained a psychic fracture, which " dissociated " her into " Margaret " and " Real Doris," 'the former being a personage very similar to " Sally " in the " Beauchamp " case. But for 19 years no one discovered the dissociation, and even her mother only thought Doris a little odd and forgetful, when as " Real Doris " she displayed ignorance of what " Margaret " had just said or done. At the age of 16 another painful scene, at her mother's death-be 1, led to a further dissociation and the mergence of a new person- ality. " Sick Doris " was born mature, grave, hardworking and conscientious, but totally ignorant of everything that had happened before her birth. Again the dissociation escaped detection, because " Margaret," whose " mental age " never rose above 10, undertook to instruct her uneducated partner, and succeeded, at the cost of all-night sittings and violent quarrels. Between these two the " Real Doris " was for six years almost completely crowded out. How she was restored by the skill and tact of Dr. Prince, after he had taken charge of the girl and discovered her condition and how first " Sick Doris " and then " Margaret " were weakened by being put to sleep whenever they cropped up, and grew younger and younger under this treatment, and in the case of " Sick Doris " actually infantile, until they finally evaporated, may be read in Dr. Prince's fascinating record.

Theoretically the case (which was fully reviewed by the present writer in Proceedings S.P.R., pt. 74: cf. also the article by Dr. T. W. Mitchell in pt. 79) is important also for two reasons. In the first place it brings out that the dissociations were plainly protective, and relieved the strain of an otherwise intolerable life. Secondly, they were attended by a considerable number of supernormal incidents which, though not unprecedented in other' cases of dissociation (e.g. the "Watseka Wonder"), had not formerly been recorded properly. Indeed, if one can accept the record in vol. iii. of the sittings " Doris Fischer " had with Dr. Hyslop'S medium " Mrs. Chenoweth," these incidents were the clew to the whole affair, and the dissociations were caused by, or complicated with, spirit -possession. But this interpretation is not apparently accepted by Dr. Prince, and is something of an ex- crescence on the main story.

Telepathy. 'Little progress has been made in establishing telepathy as a process in nature. It remains a sort of half-way house for those who do not feeF able to deny the supernormal altogether and yet shrink from the spiritist interpretation. It fulfils this function best if its nature and operation are left vague, so that anything and everything may be set down to telepathy of some sort. Hence beLevers in " telepathy " have not any strong motive for coming to close quarters with their theory, while the more intelligent spiritists dislike it as rendering any conclusive proof of spirit-identity practically impossible. The opponents of the supernormal first use it freely to disparage the evidences of spiritism, and thereupon frequently proceed, somewhat illogically, to cast doubts upon its own reality. Telep- athy, however, has one great advantage, that of being suscep- tible of experiment. Unfortunately such experiments as are under- taken not only do not succeed in increasing our knowledge of its conditions, but hardly even confirm the earlier experiments on which the existence of telepathy is based. The most noteworthy of the experiments that have yielded positive results were those

undertaken by Miss Miles and Miss Ramsden, published in the S.P.R. Proceedings, pt. 69 (1914). On the principle that any- thing supernormal may be attributed to some sort of " telepathy," one might perhaps chronicle here the very anomalous Adventure, experienced by two well-known academic ladies of Oxford in the gardens of Versailles, but not published until six years after the event, in 1911 (cf. the review in S.P.R. Proceedings, pt. 64).

On the other hand, elaborate attempts made by two psy- chologists in America to verify the existence of telepathy have led to results which at first sight appear to be wholly negative. Dr. J. E. Coover, of Leland Stanford Junior University, was specially endowed as a psychical researcher by the brother of its founder, and in due course produced in 1917 a book of 640 pages. Among its rather miscellaneous contents (it contains inter alia a pleasing account of the outwitting of a fraudulent " trumpet- medium " by hidden machinery) he describes too series of 100 experiments with cards (court cards omitted) made by too pairs of Californian students, for the purpose of testing the existence of telepathy as a faculty widely dilTused in some slight degree among human minds. The " agent " was instructed to draw a card and to determine by casting dice whether to look at it or not, and in the former case to try to impress his knowledge (without contact) on the percipient; while the latter had to answer in both cases, but for about half the time would thus be really guessing at random. The results, when tabulated and added up, yielded in the first series of 5,135 genuine " experi- ments " 153 complete successes (most probable number, 128), in the second series of 4,865 control experiments or " guesses " 141 complete successes (most probable number, 122).

There was therefore a slight excess of successes, but Dr. Coover rightly argues that it was too small to be significant of anything beyond chance. He claims therefore to have disposed of the idea that telepathy may exist in minimal intensity in all minds, and evidently thinks that this disposed of the whole case. This, however, would seem to be going too far, on his own show- ing. For his figures do not dispose of the possibility that telep- athy may exist in a faint degree in some minds. Indeed they rather suggest this possibility. For if we examine them with a view to testing this hypothesis, we may select, as possibly slightly telepathic, the series in which the " percipients " got 3 or more complete successes in their " experiments." There were 14 of these, in which 54 complete successes were scored in 711 experi- ments. The most probable number being 18, the excess is now large enough to be significant of something beyond " chance." But not, apparently, of telepathy, so much as of a sort of " lucid- ity " or " clairvoyance." For if we treat the (supposedly fortui- tous) series of " guesses " similarly, we get still more remarkable results. The series with 3 or more complete successes once more turns out to be 14, and yields 49 complete successes out of 690 experiments (most probable number, 17). But curiously enough 5 of the 14 best " guesses " are identical with 5 of the 14 best " experiments. " As the most probable number for such a coincidence is only 2, it can hardly be fortuitous. Moreover, if we add together the " experiments " and " guesses " of these 5 series, we get 41 complete successes out of 500 experiments, as against a most probable number of 12. Again something- beyond " chance " is indicated. As, however, this something operates about equally well whether the percipient is trying to determine a card which was actually being thought or is only guessing, it can not be set down to conscious telepathy. This again accords with the other evidence that goes to show that telepathy, if it exists, is not greatly dependent on the conscious efforts of the mind; or otherwise, that if minds communicate telcpathically, it is by way of the subliminal. For the rest, of course, the moral is that further experiments should have been conducted with the 5 successful pairs, in order to determine whether they would continue to produce a surplus of successes; but unfortunately this idea did not occur to Dr. Coover.

Dr. L. T. Troland also experimented in telepathy, with very elaborate apparatus, in the Psychological Laboratories of Har- vard University (1917), in order to utilize an endowment given in memory of Richard Hodgson (cf. Review in S.P.R. Proceedings,