Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/526

508 ascertained fact. Still, the relation between these phenomena and those of automatism in particular is so close that no student of the one group can ignore the other.

Alleged supernormal phenomena may be regarded as belonging to two classes—psychical and physical. The latter class embraces all alleged interferences with the known laws of the physical world. They may be dismissed from consideration here, not merely because they are not relevant, but because nearly every case so far reported has dissolved into fraud or malobservation upon closer examination, and the few which remain intact can not, in consequence, be regarded as proving anything.

By psychical phenomena I mean mental occurrences which either give true indications of events unknown to the percipient, or seem in some way to coincide with and suggest such events, or, in the case of impulses, seem to betray a knowledge of fact which was not possessed by the subject of the experience. These, again, may be subdivided into several groups. In the telepathic group the circumstances are such as to suggest a species of mental induction, one mind reflecting the thoughts of another. Thus a friend of mine was walking down a country road near Germantown, Pa., on a hot summer's day. Suddenly he found himself thinking, "Where can I find a doctor, where can I find a doctor?" He laughed at the absurdity—as if he wanted one—but, to be sure, if he did, where could one be found? Dr. Ywas dead, and the only other he knew of was Dr. Z, at Jenkintown. A few moments later he reached a crossroad, along which a man and boy were driving rapidly. As they met my friend, the man reined in the horse, leaned out, and said, "Can you tell me, sir, where I can find the nearest doctor?"

Nine times in the course of my own life I have had what is called a "presentiment." Eight times I wrote it down at once before learning whether it was true or false, and the ninth time I spoke of it. Three of these were false, one was partly true and partly false, one was not verified, but probably false. All these related to subjects much in my thoughts, and were probably suggested by circumstances. Four were true, of which one might have been suggested by circumstances. The other three were not only true and not apparently suggested by circumstances, but were among the most agitating experiences of my life. One drove me, in spite of the resistance of my reason, to take a journey which seemed the act of a lunatic, and proved the wisest thing I could do. Another impelled me to write a letter to a person three hundred and fifty miles away, to whom I had written a few hours before, but who happened to be in great trouble at the moment I felt the impulse. The third gave me absolute assurance that the very thing was about to happen which I believed