THE SINCLAIR EXPERIMENTS FOR TELEPATHY

About eighteen months ago I first opened a new book by the novelist Upton Sinclair, entitledMental Radio, then newly issued. In 239 pages it outlined the story of the discovery and development of what purported to be a supernormal faculty possessed by his wife, and rehearsed a large number of experiments in which she seemed to have achieved a large and convincing percentage of successes as a telepathic “percipient,” the “agent” generally being Mr. Sinclair, but sometimes her brother-in-law or another person. I confess to misgivings as I began to read, first for the very reason that the writer is a novelist (unmindful of Wells and certain other writers of fiction who, nevertheless, have shown themselves capable of serious and even scientific thinking),[1]and secondly because I had suspected, rightly or wrongly, that once or twice in the past he had failed to discover the devices of certain clever professionals. To be sure, his wife was not a professional, and all the conditions could be under his own hand, but sometimes through sheer confidence people are deceived by their own relatives.

This, to be frank, was my initial attitude—one of cautious interrogation and alertness to find signs of credulity, failure to appreciate the possibilities of chance, or lack of data by which the calculus of chance coincidence could be determined. But as I read on and studied the reproductions of drawings it became more and more evident that something besides chance had operated, that the conditions of many of the experiments had been excellently devised, and that where the conditions were relaxed Mr. Sinclair had been quite aware of the fact and was candid enough to admit it. He stated that such relaxation did not increase the percentage of success, and it certainly so appeared from the examples given. He reported the total number of experiments, and estimated the percentages of successes, partial successes, and failures. In 290 experiments, he made these percentages: successes, approximately 23 per cent; partial successes, 53 per cent; failures, 24 per cent. He admitted that judges probably would not agree upon exactly the same ratios. In fact I personally think that certain examples which he did not publish are better than a few which he did, but have not yet found reason to quarrel with his general estimates.

After considerable study of the book, becoming interested beyond any expectation, I wrote to Mr. Sinclair, stating that I had become favorably impressed, and making the somewhat audacious proposal that he should send me all the original materials for a fresh study by the individual standards and through the particular methods of a professional investigator. One can think of several reasons which might make the most honest and confident man hesitant to assent to such a proposal, coming from one whom he had never seen, and who might for all he knew have a set of prejudices which after all would cause him to make a lawyer’s argument against the case. I was really surprised that the bundle of materials was sent as quickly as it could be gotten together.[2]

Among the objects in mind were: (1) To study the materials in their strict chronological order, day by day. The mode of presentation inMental Radiowas to give some of the most strikingresults first, then many more that were more or less classified according to subjects and aspects. This is effective for popular reading but not satisfactory to the serious student. (2) To see if there were signs, in any part of the results, of profiting from normal knowledge, whether consciously or subconsciously acquired, of what the “agent” had drawn. Mr. Sinclair took this theory into account and quite decidedly killed it, but it was my duty to try it out anew by my own processes, with the same rigor shown in relation to my own wife and my daughter inThe Psychic in the House. Later, in summary fashion, these tests will be set forth. (3) To try out other theories to account for the ratios and degrees of correspondence between “original drawings” and “reproductions” in the Sinclair experiments, such as involuntary whispering and chance coincidence. (4) To make a large number of guessing tests on the basis of the Sinclair originals, both as a means of deciding whether the “mere coincidence” theory is tenable (as aforesaid) and, if it should prove otherwise, in order to make a rough measurement of the disparity between telepathic results and those of guessing. (5) In the event that there appeared to be no reasonable escape from conclusion that telepathy is displayed by the material, to ascertain (a) whether the telepathic faculty with Mrs. Sinclair was constant, vacillating, progressively constant, or what; (b) whether the telepathic impressions came to her in the form of ideas, images, names or in more than one fashion; (c) whether any further hints as to the mental processes involved could be discerned or any particular pieces of information isolated which might be helpful in this field of study. (6) Finally, to urge readers to institute experiments of their own, and to give amateurs some directions as to procedure. If many could be persuaded to start “games” of this character with their friends, doubtless favorable subjects could be discovered or developed. Attention being called to these persons, series of tests could be made with them under conditions against which none of the old objections could be offered.[3]

The Sinclair experiments are treated first in this Bulletin,since they are its chief subject. The drier Historical Notes, presenting a sketch of the first steps in methodical research relating to alleged Thought-Transference, with summaries of some of the classic series of tests, particularly such as are based upon drawings, are relegated to Part Two. The more earnest and methodical students of such matters will prefer to read that first.

Mr. Upton Sinclair, about fifty-two years old when his bookMental Radiowas issued, is, as everyone is supposed to know, one of the leading novelists of the United States. His stories are all, or nearly all, characterized by an intense purpose. To those who claim that art should be exercised only for art’s sake this may be obnoxious. But from the point of view of this examination of his book purporting to prove telepathy, the fact that his novels also attempt to prove something, on the basis of studies made by him, is quite in his favor.[4]Whether he has in fact proved the thesis of his respective tales is not within our province to determine; we do propose rigidly to analyze and review his claims to have proved telepathy.

Mr. Sinclair is a Socialist, and a very active and prominent one; he has been Socialist candidate for Congress in New Jersey and later in California, besides having been Socialist candidate for the United States Senate and for Governor in the latter-named State. Political prejudices or predilections should be strictly excluded from the minds of readers of the book or this review of it.[5]It is another gratifying indication that Mr. Sinclair was not deterred from publishingMental Radioby the solicitations or irony of influential friends in his political group, for the scientific spirit is in part compounded of courage, honesty and candor.

Mrs. Sinclair, née Mary Craig Kimbrough, somewhere about forty-five years old when the experiments afterwards published took place, is the daughter of a retired judge, bank president, and planter of Mississippi.

The reader may judge of the quality of her mentality by reading Appendix 1. That is, in part, the reason that it is printed. It is a piece of writing by Mrs. Sinclair shortened according topermission given. Almost immediately after my suggestion that the experimental materials should be sent for examination, they were bundled up and sent, together with some stray scraps, among which was this unfinished piece of manuscript which, as it proved, the Sinclairs did not know had been included. In spots the composition may be a bit diffuse and repetitious, but the woman really thinks and reasons, which is more than many do.

There is in it a sincerity, earnestness and intensity of desire to know, which can hardly be counterfeited. Its writer fairly rivals Descartes in her determination to find some salient and secure spot from which to start in her quest. But in a manner she goes back farther than Descartes, at least she splits his ultimate in two. She is satisfied with “I am,” not because “I think,” but because “I am conscious of thinking”; but she does not so readily grant the “Ithink.” She wants to know, “AmIdoing all the thinking I am conscious of?”

In fact, the document is so intense in its eagerness to penetrate the secret of personality in relation to its cosmic environment that it is almost febrile. At least in its first pages there is something pathological. To paint life with such dark colors and to dwell so upon its “discouragements” is not an indication of perfect health.

And yet it is certain that the writer is not self-absorbed. The painful reactions of the kind which she has experienced, the torture produced in her by the existence of so much in life that seems unmeaning and disappointing, she supposes to be quite general with her fellow-men and so feels a great pity for them. Whereas, in my belief, while more are complaining than are happy or contented, it is common to fret because of income taxes, and inability to wear such fine clothes as those of Mrs. Jones, and cold weather and squalling cats, and such sordid matters, but uncommon to be agonized by the desire to fathom the mysteries of the human spirit.

The main points of what Mr. Sinclair tells us of the characteristics of his wife are to be discerned in this revealing manuscript. He says “She has nothing of the qualities of naïveté and credulity. She was raised in a family of lawyers and was given the training and sceptical point of view of a woman of the world. ‘Trust people, but watch them,’ was old Judge Kimbrough’s maxim, and followingit too closely has almost made a pessimist of his daughter. In the course of the last five or six years Craig has acquired a fair-sized library of books on the mind, both orthodox, scientific, and ‘crank.’ She has sat up half the night studying, marking passages and making notes, seeking to reconcile various doctrines, to know what the mind is, and how it works, and what can be done with it.” This began with a breakdown of health when she was about forty years old. “A story of suffering needless to go into; suffice it that she had many ills to experiment upon, and mental control became suddenly a matter of life and death.” This breakdown, it is said, resulted directly from “her custom of carrying the troubles of all who were near her.” She is intensely sympathetic, we are told. “The griefs of other people overwhelm Craig like a suffocation.”[6]

The book relates several spontaneous experiences of Mrs. Sinclair when she was young and which, taken together, strongly indicate telepathy. Her husband rightly remarks that it is the number of such incidents which is impressive; one or two might well be coincidence. Still the coincidence of being suddenly impressed that Mr. B, whose home was three hundred miles away, was at her home where he had never been, and turning back from a drive and finding him there, even taken by itself, is a very striking one. Mr. Sinclair himself is witness to the fact that she suddenly, for no known reason became very much worried about Jack London, insisting that he was in mental distress, whereas it proved that London committed suicide at about that time.

Such incidents indicate that her experimental successes were not solely the result of the method which she explains at length, but that she had an inborn gift from early childhood. Her interest in that gift seems to have been much stimulated by her acquaintance with “Jan,” the “young hypnotist” of Appendix I, whose advent is probably not in that narrative placed in chronological order. She became convinced that he showed evidence of telepathy, and tried in turn to ascertain what he was thinking or what he was doing when absent, and became convinced that many times she had been successful. Also, “Craig has been able to establish exactly the samerapportwith her husband,” who relates instances. These were “written down at the time.” So few even intelligent people do make immediate record of such things that we would have suspected, even if he had not informed us on another page,that he has made a considerable study of the literature of psychic research.

One of these incidents we shall particularly notice here, and that because Mr. Sinclair himself has either not noticed all of its evidential value, or has not fully called attention to it. * * * [Refer to Figs. 14a and 14b and experiment.]

Probably Mr. Sinclair thought it would be sufficiently obvious to the reader that the first drawing is as similar in shape to a clover blossom as a person having no gift for drawing would be likely to make it, in addition to the correspondence of color. But it should also be remarked that the second drawing is like the flower-head of the American aloe, as one may see by comparing it with the cut shown in the article entitled “Agave,” in theEncyclopedia Britannica. The article provokingly fails to tell us what are the colors of the flower, but the cut shows that it is at least much lighter above than below.

Another incident is remarkable for its apparent revelation of subconscious mechanisms. Seemingly here Mrs. Sinclair not only got an impression of what her husband had drawn, but it was modified by something he was then reading, and that by the aid of memories from childhood. His drawing represented a football, “neatly laced up” (Fig.15). Hers (Fig.15a) shows a band of exactly the same shape on a figure not so very far from that of a football, but with an extension suggesting the head of an animal, and a line suggesting a leg. And she wrote “Belly-band on calf.” * * *!

“Wishing to solve the mystery!” But why should the lady have felt that there was any mystery in her drawing and script, any more than in the generality of her results? But she evidently did, or she would not have asked the question. It is one of the most interesting features of this experiment that she seemed to feel that something else than the original drawing or her husband’s thoughts about it was influencing her impression, and suspected that this something was his contemporaneous reading.

Sometimes the apparent telepathy was exercised in a dream, especially during its latter stage, while the lady was gradually emerging into full consciousness.[7]

The Sinclair-Irwin Long-distance Group of Experiments

On July 8, 1928, the first formal set of experiments with drawings began, by arrangement between Mrs. Sinclair and the husband of her younger sister; Robert L. Irwin, “a young American business man, priding himself on having no ‘crank’ ideas.” The arrangement was that at a stated hour Mr. Irwin should seat himself in his home in Pasadena, make a drawing, and then fix his mind upon the drawing from fifteen to twenty minutes. At the same hour in her home at Long Beach, twenty-five or thirty miles distant as the crow flies, Mrs. Sinclair proposed to lie on a couch, in semi-darkness and with closed eyes, compose her mind according to the rules she had by this time evolved, and after coming to a decision, make a drawing corresponding with her mental impression. It appears that there was one such experiment on July 8, two on the 9th, two on the 10th and one each on the 11th and 13th.

We have here, then, a set of seven experiments under ideal conditions. Since something like thirty miles separated the parties, there could be no contact, no “involuntary whispering” that would carry that far and no conceivable other source of information or material for surmise.

1. On July 8, Irwin drew a chair with horizontal bars at the back (Fig.16). Mrs. Sinclair drew first a chair with horizontal bars (Fig.16a), then a chair with vertical ones. And she distinctly set down on the same paper her sense of greater satisfaction with her first drawing, her feeling that the second was not as “Bob” had drawn it, and her feeling that the second may really express the foot of his bed. She also set down that his drawing was on “green paper.” Here is a remarkable combination of impressions: (a) his drawing ongreen paper, (b) seen as achair“on his paper,” (c) his chair withhorizontal bars, (d) her chair with vertical barsperhaps derived from “his bed-foot.”Even had there been, as there was not, a pre-understanding that some object familiar in daily life was to be drawn, to hit exactly the same one would be very unlikely. To do this and also to get the unusual color of the paper he drew on isremarkable. To get all the enumerated particulars exactly correct is incalculably beyond chance expectation. For he drew a chair, on green paper, with horizontal bars, then gazed at the chair through the vertical bars of his bed! * * * [Refer to Figs. 16 and 16a and experiment.]

She added that she sees a star and straight lines, and draws the star and the lines, horizontal like those of the chair.

There are several partial correspondences besides those we have enumerated. Bob did sit at the northeast corner of the dining-room table. He faced a sideboard (but apparently did not take anything out of it) where were silver (not glass) candlesticks; there is a star on the back of the chair; whether any white object was in front of him as he sat at the table, before lying down on the bed, is not reported. But it is to be presumed that Mrs. Sinclair was familiar with his room and furniture, and these particulars add comparatively little. Once she got the chair, subconscious memory might supply the star; but it would not give any clue to the green paper or to his looking through vertical bars.

2. On July 9, at the stated hour, Bob drew a watch (Fig.17).[8]First Mrs. Sinclair drew a chair, but cancelled it with the words then written down, “but do not feel it is correct.” Then she drew Figure 17a. * * *

This is not a success, but the flower which is not a flower, the petals, which are not petals and should be more uniform, the “metal,” the “wire” (adumbration of the hands?), the “glass circle,” the bridging across the extremities of the “petals” as if from an urge toward making a circle, the black center corresponding with the center post of a watch, taken together are very suggestive. Other impressions resulted in the addition of an ellipse, a drinking-glass and a glass pitcher, and Bob did have in front of him a glass bowl of goldfish, which may have furnished a telepathic hint, but this is doubtfully evidential.

3. Another experiment was scheduled for the same day. Bob made an elaborate drawing of a telephone receiver, transmitter, dial, cord and all. The top part, the transmitter, as drawn, isstrikingly like a round, black, glass ink-bottle, seen with mouth facing the spectator. Mrs. Sinclair made four drawings. The first looks like such an ink-bottle seen from the side, and she writes, “Ink bottle?” The second drawing shows a twisted line attached to a triangle, reminding one of the twisted telephone cord attached to a sharp angle of the base, and the third repeats the twisting line. The fourth inverted is considerably like the base of the telephone. The correspondences are very suggestive.

4. On the 10th, Bob drew, on the back of the paper having the telephone drawing (he should not have done this), which he of course saw anew, what is probably intended to represent a square frame containing a picture, both very black. The percipient first drew two lines forming an angle and placed in relation to it about as the dial of the telephone is placed in relation to the angle of the telephone base, a black disc. Her next and last drawing was a circle containing about a dozen round spots, as the circular dial of the telephone contains eight spots.

5. On the 10th, also, Bob drew a pair of scissors (Fig.18), and the percipient made two attempts which, taken together, certainly do sense its parts (Figs. 18a and 18b).

6. On the 11th, Bob, whose health had been in bad shape for several years, made a circle with a compass, of course producing a hole in the center of it. And this is what Mrs. Sinclair got (Fig. 19a). There is a circle—in fact, a number of them concentrically arranged—and there is a central dot corresponding to the mark made by the compass leg. But other impressions came to Mrs. Sinclair, accompanied by poignant emotions, and she seemed to see and tried to draw a spreading stain of blood. She wrote her feeling and her conviction: “All this dark like a stain,—feel it is blood; that Bob is ill, more than usual.” She did not draw, but directly told her husband, “I wanted to draw a little hill.” And why all this? It transpired that while Bob was making the circle he was in a state of distress, for, he afterwards testified, “I discovered that I had a hemorrhoid, and couldn’t put my mind on anything but the thought, ‘My God, my lungs—my kidneys—and now this!’” It is hardly necessary, perhaps, to point out that a hemorrhoid is likea little hill and that one is very likely to bring on hemorrhage,[9]so that this possibility was probably in Bob’s mind.

Had Mrs. Sinclair been in a laboratory with one professor of psychology or of physics, and her brother-in-law in another laboratory with another, not all the apparatus of both laboratories nor all the ingenuity of both professors could have made the conditions more rigid, or tested the essence of the matter farther. There would simply have been the testimony of four persons, two at each end, and that is exactly what there is. Bob’s affliction was of sudden occurrence, and the particular terms of Mrs. Sinclair’s impressions could not have been produced by any hint of knowledge. His willingness in the interest of psychic research, in order that this remarkable demonstration of telepathy should not be lost, to put aside squeamishness, is a rebuke to the human violets who shrink, for no intelligible reason from allowing evidence to be used which relates to them.

7. On the 13th, Bob drew a table fork (Fig.1), and Mrs. Sinclair, at the same hour, many miles away, drew nothing but wrote, “See a table fork. Nothing else.” (Fig.1a.)

These seven experiments[10]are all that were undertaken between Mrs. Sinclair and her brother-in-law. This is unfortunate, for it certainly appears from this short but remarkable series as though they were remarkably suited to each other, for reasons we cannot yet fathom, for long-distance experiments. But “he found them a strain,” and since his health was so poor and strains were most undesirable, we cannot blame him for discontinuing them.

One pauses to consider the words “he found them a strain.” May it be that when experiments reveal thought-transference the agent generally does feel a strain beyond that involved in merely gazing at an object and wishing (or willing, or what you please) that the percipient may get the idea of it. If so, it would seem to imply, not necessarily some energy proceeding outwardly, but at any rate some process going on within which causes the special exhaustion. But no statistics bearing on this question have beengathered from successful agents. It is one of the many sorts of data which must be accumulated in the future.

Mr. Irwin and his wife made corroborating affidavits, as follows:

To whom it may concern:

Robert L. Irwin, having been duly sworn, declares that he has read the portion of manuscript by Upton Sinclair dealing with his experiments in telepathy with Mary Craig Sinclair, and that the statements made therein having to do with himself are true according to his clear recollection. The drawings attributed to him were produced by him in the manner described, and are recognized by him in their photographic reproductions. The experiments were conducted in good faith, and the results may be accepted as valid.

[Signed]Robert L. Irwin.

To whom it may concern:

Dollie Kimbrough Irwin, having been duly sworn, declares that she has read the portion of manuscript by Upton Sinclair dealing with experiments in telepathy by her sister, Mary Craig Sinclair, and having to do with her husband, Robert L. Irwin; that she was present when the drawings were made and the tests conducted, and also when the completed drawings were produced and compared. The statements made in the manuscript are true according to her clear recollection, and the experiments were made in good faith and with manifest seriousness.

[Signed]Dollie Kimbrough Irwin.

These statements were severally.

“Subscribed and sworn to before me this 26th day of July, 1929, [Signed]Laura Unangst, Notary Public in and for the County of Denver, Colorado.”

We are in two passages told precisely the conditions of this group of experiments. Since her brother-in-law felt obliged to withdraw from participation, Mrs. Sinclair asked her husband to make some drawings. * * *

1. July 14. Mr. Sinclair made the above drawing (Fig.2), a very imperfectly constructed six-pointed star. Mrs. Sinclair, reclining30 feet away, with a closed door between, produced five drawings (Fig.2a).[11]Immediately after the agent’s and percipient’s drawings had been compared, the lady stated that just before starting to concentrate she had been looking at her drawing of many concentric circles made on the previous day in the concluding test of the Sinclair-Irwin group. This was bad method, but we can hardly regret it, as the sequel is illuminating. At first she got a tangle of circles: “This turned sideways [thus assuming the shape of one of the star-points], then took the shape of an arrowhead [confused notion of the stair-point, one would conjecture], and then of a letter A [another attempt to interpret the dawning impression], and finally evolved into a complete star.” The star so nearly reproduces the oddities of the original star, its peculiar shape and the direction which its greatest length takes, that had it been produced in one of the unguarded series, one would have been tempted to think that the percipient “peeked.” But the original was actuallymade, as well as gazed at, behind a closed door, so that there is no possible basis for imagining any such accident or any inadvertence on the part of either experimenter.

2. July 14. In his room Mr. Sinclair drew the grinning face of Figure 21, and then Mrs. Sinclair drew in hers Figure 21a. Two eyes in his, one “eye” in hers. Look at the agent’s drawing upside down (how can we or he be sure that he did not momentarily chance to look at it reversed and retain the impression?), and note the parallels. At the top of his two eyes—at the top of hers one “eye”; midway in his two small angles indicating the nose—somewhat above midway in hers, three similarly small angles unclosed at the apexes; at the bottom of his a crescent-shaped figure to indicate a mouth, with lines to denote teeth—at the bottom of hers a like crescent, minus any interior lines. Had the percipient drawn what would be instantly recognizable as a face, though a face of very different lines, it would be pronounced a success. But sucha fact would be very much more likely as a guess than a misinterpreted, almost identical crescent (she thought it probably a “moon”), so similar little marks, angularly related (she “supposed it must be a star”), and an “eye,” all placed as in the original.

3. July 17. Mr. Sinclair, lying on a couch in one room, drew and then gazed at a drawing which can easily be described; it is a broad ellipse with its major axis horizontal, like an egg lying on its side, and a smaller and similar one in contact over it. Mrs. Sinclair, lying on a couch in another room, first drew a broad ellipse (not quite closed at one end), with major axis horizontal, and beside it and not quite touching, a somewhat smaller circle not quite closed at one end. Then she got an impression represented in a second drawing, four ellipses of equal size,two of them in contact with each other.

4. July 20. Under the same conditions Mr. Sinclair drew two heavy lines like a capital T. Mrs. Sinclair drew what is like an interrogation point with misplaced dot, then a reversed S with two dots enclosed, then an upright cross composed of lines of equal length, and finally such a cross circumscribed by a tangential square. Though, as Mr. Sinclair remarks, the cross is the T of the original with its vertical line prolonged, I should call this experiment barely suggestive.

5. July 20. Under the same conditions Mr. Sinclair drew a long-handled fork with three short tines. Mrs. Sinclair, to use the language of her own record, “kept seeing horns,” and she attempted to draw them. She also “thought once it was an animal’s head with horns, and the head was on a long stick—a trophy mounted like this....” But her drawing was like a long-handled fork with two short tines combining to make a curve very close to that of the two outer tines of the original.

6. July 20. Under the same conditions Mr. Sinclair drew a cup with a handle. Mrs. Sinclair twice drew a figure resembling the handle of the original, then the same with an enclosed dot, then lines parallel and at an angle. She felt confused and dissatisfied. It is possible that her first impression was derived from the cup, but we can hardly urge this evidentially.

7. July 21. Under the same conditions Mr. Sinclair drew a man’s face in profile (Fig.20). Mrs. Sinclair wrote: “Saw Upton’sface—saw two half-circles. Then they came together, making full circle. But I felt uncertain as to whether they belonged together or not. Then suddenly saw Upton’s profile float across vision.” Well, Mr. Sinclair is a man, hence his face is a man’s face, and it was seen in profile like the original drawing.

Thus far there is no gap in the record of this group. There were experiments on July 27 and 29, but apparently two or more papers are missing. It is certain that on the 29th, under the same conditions, Mr. Sinclair drew a smoking cigarette and wrote beneath it, “My thought, ‘cigarette with curls for smoke,’” and that Mrs. Sinclair drew a variety of curving lines and wrote, “I can’t draw it, but curls of some sort.” So it appears that on this date there was a suggestive result, but as there is doubt whether one or two other experiments may not have been tried, the papers of which were not all preserved, we had better regard the group as closed with No. 7.

So far as concerns the question solely whether Mrs. Sinclair has shown telepathic powers, I would be willing to rest the case right here, after but fourteen experiments under the conditions which have been stated.[12]Every intelligent reader who really applies his mind to them must see the extreme unlikelihood that the results of those fourteen experiments, taking them as they stand, successes, partial successes, suggestive and failures, are the products of chance. And any one who has had hundreds of experiments in guessing, as I have done, will know that there is no likelihood of getting out of many thousands of guesses anything like the number and grades of excellence in correspondence found in these fourteen consecutive tests for telepathy.

We cannot take space to comment on all the tests made, the papers of which were sent us, and we here pass over three on as many dates, one a success though not a perfect one, two failures.

Mr. Sinclair asked his secretary “to make simple geometrical designs, letters and figures, thinking that these would be easierto recognize and reproduce.” It seems a little strange that when things were going on so well, he should have wanted a change, though any experiment is interesting. It is by no means certain, and I very much doubt from these and earlier printed experiments, that the assumption is a correct one. It may well be that geometrical diagrams, letters of the alphabet and such like fail to interest the agent and afford him a lively mental representation, as do pictures of miscellaneous objects. And if I understand rightly, another change of method was also initiated, and that was for Mrs. Sinclair to try to get the drawings not while the maker of them was gazing intently at them, but after they had left his hands. This certainly was often the case later on.

I wrote and asked Mr. Sinclair if Mrs. Sinclair was told the fact that this and several other series of original drawings consisted of geometrical drawings, letters and figures, and he said that she was not so told, that he would have regarded this as a vitiation of the experiments. It would certainly increase the chance of getting drawings right by guess, but it would hardly have ruined the experiments. In fact, some people think that the most scientific experiments are those in which the range of chance guess is limited to an extent known to the percipient, as when the problem is to determine which of the 52 cards of a pack is being looked at, or which of only ten known diagrams. This opinion is probably based on the fact that then the ratio of success to chance expectation can be exactly calculated, though why it should be more satisfactory to know that the chance of a correct guess is exactly 1 in 10 than it is not to be able to tell exactly what the chance is but to be sure at least that it cannot be 1 in 100, I do not know.

Unless I had carefully recorded at the time that there was no chance of the percipient having a hint that the drawings were now for a time to consist of geometrical designs, letters and figures, I would not dare to be certain of it after several years have passed. If Mrs. Sinclair had no inkling, the change in the general character of her drawings is a fact of great interest. But we will take cognizance only of whatever resemblance may or may not be found between the several reproductions and their originals.

The first series of drawings by the secretary were seven in number, and, says Mr. Sinclair, “They brought only partial successes;Craig would get elements of the drawing, but would not know how to put them together.... There is some element right in every one.” Let us see.

1.Agent’sdrawing, a script B;Percipient’sdrawing, a figure very like a script 3, practically the B without its vertical line.

2.Agt., a script S;Per., a script J. As made, each has two balloon-like parts joined at the small ends, certain details of course different.

3.Agt., a hexagon;Per., two lines forming an acute angle, like two sides of the hexagon, also a capital E with a line drawn down at an acute angle to the left from the upper extremity of the vertical line.

4.Agt., script M made with a peculiar twist in its first line;Per., almost precisely that first line with its twist.

5.Agt., a thin, long, quadrilateral, like a shingle;Per., (1st drawing) what would be almost exactly the same quadrilateral, narrow and long, but its shorter sides are wanting, and (2nd drawing) a closely similar quadrilateral, with another and longer one attached to its side at a sharp angle.

6.Agt., an interrogation point;Per., a figure hard to describe, a round dot with curves springing from it like concentric 3’s, and two parallel lines shooting to the left. The points which attract notice are the dot, like that of the original, and the curves similar to that of the interrogation point.

7.Agt., script E;Per., same minus the “curls.”

Several of the above are not impressive taken alone; taken together, the greater or less approaches to the several originals defeat chance, though how much no man can measure. Counter-tests by guessing will come the nearest to measuring.

This series also has to do with drawings made by Mr. Sinclair’s secretary.

1.Agent’sdrawing, a diamond or rhombus (Fig.32);Percipient’sdrawing, the two halves of a rhombus, “wandering about,” as Mr. Sinclair says (Fig.32a); if connected they would make a rhombus closely similar to the original.

2.Agt., a script capital Y;Per., a print capital Y. (Figs. 33 and 33a.)

3. TheAgent’sdrawing, a bottle of milk with “certified” written on it, was suggested by his knowledge that Mrs. Sinclair to a considerable extent lives on milk and is particular about its quality;Per., an ellipse much like the top of the bottle, a straight line depending therefrom, and the script “Round white foamy stuff on top like soapsuds or froth.” And foam is characteristic of her milk, as she drinks it sour and whipped (Figs. 34 and 34a). Here the percipient failed to get much as to shape, but got considerable in the way of associated ideas.

4.Agt., an oil derrick (Fig.35);Per., got what will be seen in Figure 35a. There are long lines diverging like the long lines of the oil derrick, but at a slant, and with a 5 or perhaps a 9 at the top which has no counterpart in the original. This is not a very satisfactory reproduction, but the general shape and long downward lines are suggestive.

5.Agt., something like a poplar leaf;Per., three scrawls like letters or parts of letters. A failure.

6.Agt., three small ellipses attached to a stem;Per., script “See what looks like spider’s web,” but drawing shows a bunch of elliptic figures.

7.Agt., apparently an apple with stem;Per., (1) what looks like a tall script V, (2) the same less tall, (3) one so low and broad that it is nearly equivalent to the top of the apple minus the stem.

8.Agt., a house from whose chimney proceeds smoke represented by a spiral line (Fig.36).Per., (1) a double spiral cut by a straight line, same slant as in the original, (2) single spiral of nearly the same slant, (3) what looks like a battlement, the crenels or openings of which are like the windows of the house minus the upper sides (Fig.36a). The rectangular openings are three in number, the rectangular openings in the house (two windows and a door) are also there.

9.Agt., an open fan (Fig.102);Per., a drawing represented by Figure 102a, accompanied by the script, “Inside seems irregular, as if cloth draped or crumpled.” Two words, “cloth,” and “draped,” suggest what takes place as one begins to shut a fan, though the drawing is an incorrect representation.

10.Agt., the figures 13 (Fig.103);Per., (1) what would be a 3 but for a supernumerary curve, (2) a 3 (Fig.103a).

11.Agt., a conventional heart (Fig.105);Per., practically the upper part of such a heart, with three spots which may or may not represent blood-drops, according to Mr. Sinclair’s conjecture (Fig.105a). We can hardly contend, as an evidential point, that this is the meaning of the round spots. Some obscure subconscious recollection of expressions like “My heart bleeds,” expressing suffering, may have come out in the drawing, though in that case one wonders why the whole heart was not drawn. But it may be that the three marks proceeding in the direction of the right side of the original came from a feeling thatsomethingshould line in that direction.

12.Agt., a broom (Fig.104);Per., several attempts all more or less resembling the original (Figs.104a,104b), and a valuable script: “All I’m sure of is a straight line with something curved at the end of it [and this description,all that she was sure of, is so far correct]; once it came [here see the drawing at the left]—then it doubled, or reappeared, I don’t know which [referring to the upper right drawing] (am not sure of the curly edges) [and she was justified in her doubt. Probably the curly edges resulted from the intermingling of her surmise that the curved something at the end of a line might be a flower]. Then it was upside down.”

Tests with drawings in carefully sealed envelopes.

1.Agt., a coiled snake (Fig.45);Per., no drawing, but this script: “See something like kitten with tail and saucer of milk. Now it leaps into action and runs away to outdoors. Turns to fleeing animal outdoors. Great activity among outdoor creatures. Know it’s some outdoor thing, not indoor object—see trees, and a frightened bird on the wing (turned sidewise). It’s outdoor thing, but none of above seems to beit.”

This is much more interesting than if there had been the perfect success of writing the word “snake,” because we seem to get inklings of the internal process. “Saucer of milk”—observe that the serpent’s coil plus the unattached ellipse in the center (due to Mr. Sinclair’s confessed bad drawing) really does look like a saucer.“Something like a kitten with a tail”—why mention tail? Most kittens have tails. But a tail sticks up back of the saucer. Later neither kitten, trees nor frightened bird isit, yet something is causing great commotion among outdoor creatures. It is an outdoor thing, therefore not a kitten, but evidently something alive. The scene is very appropriate to the appearance of a snake. Mr. Sinclair tells us that his wife’s childhood was in part spent where there were many poisonous snakes, and that fear of them was bred in her. As he conjectures, it is very likely that dawning in the subconsciousness, not fully emerging in the conscious, the subject of the drawing stirred up imagery from childhood. I surmise that, if the truth, which she may not consciously remember, could be known, she saw while a child a kitten fleeing from a snake.

2.Agt., a daisy (Fig.59);Per.got what is very like the petals around the disk of the daisy, also two stems, also various curving lines more or less like the daisy leaves or vegetation at least (Fig. 59a).

3.Agt., an axe, seemingly a battle-axe, with AX printed (Fig. 145);Per., as in Figure 145a. Note the parallels: (a) “letter A [right as far as it goes], (b) with something long (c) above it”; (d) “there seems to be no end to the handle”; (e) the drawing much resembles the original, in fact one type of ancient battle-axe was very much of the same shape. Although she finally guessed that it was a key, yet a suspicion of military use enters in the conjecture “a sword,” which is perhaps all the more striking since the drawing bears little resemblance to a sword.

4.Agt., a crab (Fig.48);Per.drew as in Figures 48a, 48b, and wrote “Wings, or fingers—wing effect, but no feathers, things like fingers, instead of feathers. Then many little dots which all disappear, and leave two of them, O O, as eyes of something.” And again, “streamers flying from something.” The reader will judge for himself whether the drawings do not suggest the crab’s nippers, and one of them the joint adjoining. “Wing effect but no feathers, things like fingers”—especially the lower pair in Mr. Sinclair’s remarkable crabdolook like fingers. “Many dots”; well the original has four. Then she sees but two of them and they are “O O, eyes of something.” True enough, two of the “dots” in the crab are O O, and they are eyes.

5.Agt., a man in a sledge driving a dog-team (Fig.60).Per.by accident opened this drawing, so of course could not experiment with it. But after she had made her drawings for No. 2 she wrote “Maybe snow scene on hill with a sled.” On the back of No. 3, which was so brilliant a success, she wrote “I get a feeling again of a snow scene to come in this series—a sled in the snow.” It is unfortunate that an accident prevented her trying No. 5 when she had actually reached it, but she certainly got it by anticipation.

6.Agt., a tobacco pipe with smoke issuing therefrom (Fig. 37); Per. first drew an ellipse and wrote “Now it begins to spin, round and round, and is attached to a stick”; (2) next she made the conventional “curl” which usually means smoke; (3) then she made another curl of smoke and pushed the open end of an ellipse into it,[13]joined a line to the ellipse just about where the stem of a pipe meets the bowl and at the end of the line made a small circle, which certainly is not found in the original but may express the feeling that there is a circular opening (Fig.37a).

7.Agt., a house with smoking chimney;Per., two figures, each very like the frame of a window lacking the upper side, or like the crenels or openings in the battlement of Figure 36a, but longer. In connection with that drawing (Experiment of January 28–29) we made the remark (which may have seemed fanciful) that the number of these openings or uncompleted rectangles was the same as that of the windows and door in the original drawing. Here the uncompleted 2 rectangles equal in number the one window plus the one door of the house. She also wrote “There is something above this—can’t see what it is part of.” True, the roof and chimney are above the window and door.

1.Agt., a bat (Fig.109);Per., as in Fig 109a. The drawing at the top is accompanied by the remark “Looks like ear shape something.” And certainly each of the bat’s wings does resemble an ear in shape. The middle left drawing gets the idea that there are two symmetrical and diverging curves, but fails to complete them; space is left between them which in the agent’s drawing is occupiedby the body. The middle right figure again has symmetrical diverging curves, with a further approach toward shaping the wings. This time they are incorrectly joined at the bottom, but the perpendicular line between betrays an inkling that something belongs there. Imperfect as all these attempts are, they contain hints which it is difficult to attribute to chance. The agent, looking at his drawing, would of necessity have his attention focus first on one part of it and then upon another, and the percipient’s drawings seem as though they caught his several moments of wandering attention.

2.Agt., a hand with pointing finger, and thumb held vertically (Fig.108);Per., (1) a drawing not reproduced here of a negro’s head with a finger-like projection drawn vertically from his skull, (2) then script “Turned into a pig’s head, (3) then a rabbit’s,” as in Figure 108a. In one sense thepercipient’sdrawings are all failures; that is, none of them would be recognized as a hand. But in all three a feeling seems to express itself that there issomethingsticking up. This is the more remarkable in Drawing 1, since such an excrescence does not belong on a head. Drawing 2 gets rid of the face, and the thumb of the original becomes a peculiarly thumb-like ear.

3. For this experiment see the “line-and-circle men” and their evidentially suggestive sequel (Figs.144,144a).

4.Agt., a rudely drawn caterpillar (Fig.118);Per., script: “Fork—then garden tool—lawn rake. Leaf,” and drawing representing a leaf which has a certain fantastic resemblance to the caterpillar (Fig.118a). Mr. Sinclair makes the illuminating remark that he owned “a lawn-rake made of bristly bamboo, which looks very much like my drawing.”

5.Agt., a smoking volcano (Fig.25);Per., what she called a “Big black beetle with horns” (Fig.25a). But the body of the beetle closely matches the smoke of the volcano, while the antennae or “horns” nearly correspond to the outline of the mountain.

Let us now inspect a complete and long series of February 15, 1929. It contains no such brilliant success as in Experiment 4 of February 20, but out of 13 experiments there is but one absolutefailure, the first. In this the agent drew a rat, the percipient two crossed objects like keys.

2. In Figure 147, the agent’s drawing represents a door with lattice on the upper half; it is made up of perpendicular and horizontal lines only. The percipient’s drawing (Fig.147a) consists of four perpendicular lines finishing at the top in curves like fish-hooks, and these lines are crossed by three horizontal lines. There is in the crossed lines a suggestion of the agent’s drawing, a resemblance greater than to any other of the thirteen.

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