We human beings are "infinitely repellent particles," to use the phrase, of Matthew Arnold. We never get close enough to one another to have a real glimpse into the depths of other minds. The information that is supposed to pass by telepathy from one person to another is so often just the kind that we would most sedulously conceal. There is extreme unlikelihood then that any such passage of information takes place. The cases cited, as proof of this transference of thought, are much more likely to be coincidences than any evidence of true telepathy.
Supposed Examples of Telepathy.—In the first place, though there are opportunities for the exhibition of the phenomena of telepathy every day and every hour of existence, the cases in which it is supposed to occur are extremely rare and are distant from one another, both in time and place. Even the people who claim to have had the phenomena of telepathy happen to them once or twice, do not pretend that it is at all a common occurrence with them, and as for the supposed exhibitions of telepathy upon the stage, these have been exposed over and over again as the simplest fakes.
As to the cases of telepathy that have been reported, with careful collection of evidence, to the psychic research societies, and which are few in number, though some of them are very difficult to explain, there is no reason why they should not be striking coincidences rather than startling examples of telepathy. An example will illustrate what I mean:
A few years ago what seemed to be a complete case of telepathy was reported in connection with a railroad accident. A Western man about to take an express train for the East was the object of a good deal of solicitude. There had previously been a series of accidents to this very fast train which he was to take. This fact had been discussed in the family, and did not tend to allay the fears of those who remained at home. During the night the train actually left the track, and the car in which the subject of the story was asleep rolled down the bank.
At the moment his train went down the bank the thought of his wife and daughter came very vividly to his mind. For a moment the awful position in which they would be placed if anything serious happened to him occupied his mind to the exclusion of all other thoughts. As soon as he could, he telegraphed home that he was unhurt, with the understanding that the telegram should not be delivered before the following morning.
During the night mother and daughter sleeping in adjoining rooms were wakened at the same moment, and very seriously disturbed, by something, they knew not quite what. They rose at once to go to each other and met at the door. They felt vaguely that father was in some way connected with their awakening and disturbance of mind. After they received his telegram they were sure that what disturbed them during the night was the telepathic communication of father's danger. Each had, however, deliberately kept from speaking of her impression. When they found that he had passed through the danger unhurt, they were sure that it was a call from him that each had heard.
This bears most of the ear-marks of a genuine case of telepathy. Here are minds whose cells by custom and inheritance are finely attuned to those of a distant mind that is suddenly very much disturbed. If the perturbations of that first mind were carried through the ether by a sort of wireless telegraphy, it would apparently not be very surprising. So carried, they woke the receptive cells of similar minds at a long distance, and mother and daughter felt the thrill at the same instant. Vague though it was, there was a telepathic message.
But there were other passengers in this train who had near and dear relatives, yet none of them received communications. There have been literally hundreds of thousands of other accidents in the past fifty years of railroading in which passengers who have been put in very serious danger, have thought intensely of their loved ones, and yet, there has been at most only a dozen or so examples of vague telepathy of this class. Similar cases to this are extremely rare, though accidents in America are very frequent. At most, then, we are in the presence of a very exceptional case. Such cases would mean nothing as evidence for a scientific law, since they occur so rarely as to aptly exemplify the old adage that the exception proves the rule. The rule evidently is that there is no communication at a distance, hence the surprise when there seems to be some reason for thinking that a communication has actually taken place. Instead of proving that telepathy occurs, such cases make it clear, to the limit of demonstration, that telepathy does not occur unless some extremely special conditions intervene to make it possible.
How much more easy it is to explain such a case on the score of coincidence! Of course, mother and daughter, with father absent, and absent in the midst of what they thought was danger, would go to bed anxiously thinking of him. They would sleep lightly because of the worry. Any slight unusual noise would wake them, and at once the thought of father and his danger would occur to them. If the noise was sudden, and not repeated, and therefore inexplicable to one awakened out of sleep, they would probably be so disturbed that it is easy to understand that they would arise at once and seek each other's company. Their meeting, therefore, in the doorway between their rooms would be readily explicable. Neither would say much about the subject uppermost in her thoughts in order to shield the other. The telegram in the morning would throw a glow of retrospective light on the events and seem to give an entirely new significance to their thoughts. The whole affair, though only a coincidence, would seem to be a demonstration of telepathy.
Even more marvelous instances of coincidence, in which there was no question of anything more than coincidence, have been related. The English Psychical Research Society reported the case of a young man sent to find some trace of his brother who had disappeared mysteriously from a steamer sailing from Plymouth to Lisbon. On board the steamer late at night he stood by the rail thinking of his lost brother and wondering what could possibly have become of him. Suddenly as he looked down into the ocean a body came bobbing up out of the waves almost directly under his gaze. He reported it to the officers of the vessel and it was grappled for and lifted aboard. It proved to be the body of his brother. Is this an example of telepathy, that is, of the mental influence of the perturbed spirit of the live brother upon the dead brother's body floating below the surface? No one would stretch supposed telepathy to that extent. The steamer disturbed the body which had been floating below the surface, as bodies do, gradually developing within themselves the gases of decomposition. After a time any slight disturbance, as, for instance, the booming of a cannon or the passage of even a small boat, will bring a body up. It so happened that the brother was on the spot, and actually thinking of the body, but that was the merest coincidence. There was no connection of cause and effect.
Most of the cases of so-called telepathy can be explained in this way. As we have said, no source of error is so copious as that of concluding that because one thing happens after another therefore the second is caused by the first. People who are so inclined will still continue to accept such a notion of connection of cause and effect, however, and we shall have many cases of supposed telepathy exploited for us on no better grounds than this.
Twins and Telepathy.—There is a definite popular impression that twins are gifted with the power of telepathic communication much more than others. Accepting Sir Wm. Crookes' theory, the possibility of mental reciprocal influence, even at a distance, is greater for them, since their brain cells must be considered as having corresponding moments of vibration. Twins of the same sex, especially those who resemble one another closely, are usually born from a single ovum. The intimate relations of two such beings to each other can be readily understood, so that we have many stories of mental communication at long distances and curious warnings, forebodings and communications of danger, and especially of sickness and death.
Especially does one find stories of wraith-like appearances of one to the other of such persons at the moment of death. A series of these stories, apparently well authenticated, is published by the Psychic Research Society. There are also a number of tales, seemingly well attested, of cloud-like shapes of other persons at the moment of death. As a consequence, there has been developed an idea that there is some evidence of the distinct possibility of such appearances when the soul leaves the body. It, however, seems very doubtful whether these are anything more than a very striking coincidence. Twins