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 CHAPTER II

EXPERIMENTAL THOUGHT TRANSFERENCE

UMEROUS experiments in the transmission of ideas and sensations have been carried on during the twenty-five years which have elapsed from the foundation of the Society for Psychical Research, by committees of the Society, by individual members or groups of members, and by various Continental students of the subject. Records of many of them will be found scattered through the Society's Proceedings and Journals. By far the most important of these investigations, however are those conducted at Brighton by the late Professor and Mrs. Sidgwick, and later by Mrs. Sidgwick and Miss Alice Johnson, assisted by Mr. G. A. Smith, in the years 1889–1891. The percipients were several youths, aged about twenty to twenty-five, and later a young woman employed in a shop.

The experiments were carried on whilst the percipients were in the hypnotic sleep, the hypnotiser and agent being Mr. G. A. Smith. For a full record of the experiments, details of the precautions taken, and an analysis of the answers given, the reader is referred to the articles in Proceedings, vols. vi. and viii. It is impossible here to do 16