Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 12.djvu/423

 410 E. GUENEY I if not actually initiated, by a psychical transference. And that is all, I think, that can at present be said. But as regards the second and the third hypothesis, the issue can be made more definite ; and it is really possible, I think, to fight it out to a conclusion. In any particular case, there either is or is not some specific physical influence at work, beyond the merely mechanical effect of the muscular processes involved. Now, obviously the question of the possibility of a specific physical influence of one organism on another is not necessarily confined to cases of hypnotism ; but if in any shape whatever the reality of such an influence were made apparent, the difficulty of supposing it to be operative in hypnotism would practically vanish just as the difficulty of conceiving hypnotisation at a distance vanishes when the reality of telepathy is recognised in other ranges of phenomena. I have a purpose in this remark ; for, as it happens, some of the cases which to my mind have seemed the most suggestive of a specific physical influence of one human organism on another have not been connected with attempts to hypnotise, though the results have to a- certain extent resembled those of hypnotism ; and I am glad to have an opportunity of directing attention to these facts. They have all occurred in the course of what is known as the ' willing-game ' i.e., under conditions which involved not only contact but concentrated desire on the ' wilier 's * part. The following are specimens of what the accounts that have reached me lead me to conclude has happened, in s a more or less marked form, on many occasions when this game has been played. The Lancet for Oct. 11, 1884, thus reports a case related by Mr. Wherry, F.K.C.S., to the Cambridge Medical Society : " Mr. Wherry was sent for one evening to see an undergraduate who had become suddenly ill during the willing-game. It appeared that his friends had blindfolded him in the usual manner and were willing him to do some simple action, when suddenly he became weak in the knees and had to be helped to a seat. The handkerchief was removed at once, but the patient did not seem at all himself. He found him leaning against the mantelshelf, looking fixedly downwards in a dogged and morose attitude ; he answered questions in monosyllables in a hesitating way, not stammer- ing, but with a jerk and without expression. Usually, his friends said, his- manners were natural and polite. The pupils were dilated, with no action to light, and his memory was a blank as to the details of the game. He was sent to bed, and when seen the next morning he was better ; his pupils were normal and active to light, but his manner was still odd and his speech remarkable. When advised to leave Cambridge for a few days' change, he refused rudely, but was afterwards persuaded by his friends, and returned quite well." On the same evening another medical witness, Mr. Deighton, reported that "in November, 1 883, he was summoned in urgent haste to see an under-