I at once left for Elberfeld, which, as everybody knows, is an
important manufacturing-town in Rhenish Prussia and is, in fact,
more quaint, pleasing and picturesque than one might expect. I
had long since read everything that had been published on the
question; and I was wholly persuaded of the genuineness of the
incidents. Indeed it would be difficult to have any doubts after
the repeated and unremitting supervision and verification to
which the experiments are subjected, a supervision which is of
the most rigorous type, often hostile and almost ill-mannered. As
for their interpretation, I was convinced that telepathy, that is
to say, the transmission of thought from one subconsciousness to
another, remained, however strange it might be in this new
region, the only acceptable theory; and this in spite of certain
circumstances that seemed plainly to exclude it. In default of
telepathy proper, I inclined toward the mediumistic or subliminal
theory, which was very ably outlined by M. de Vesmes in a
remarkable lecture delivered, on the 22nd of December, 1912,
before the Societe Universelle d'Etudes Psychiques. It is true
that telepathy, especially when carried to its extreme limits,
appeals above all to the subliminal forces, so that the two
theories overlap at more than one point and it is often difficult
to make out where the first ends and the second begins.
Pages:
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152