These three terms denote the super-sensory communications between two or more individuals - that is, the ability which one mind is supposed to possess to receive thoughts from another, without the communication passing, in the usual way, through the channels of the senses.

The word "telepathy" itself was invented or brought into use by the British Society for Psychical Research. The word by its derivation suggests that the influence in question operates across a considerable distance of space, and this is ordinarily the case in the instances of spontaneous telepathic phenomena so ably reported by the British Society for Psychical Research.

Doubtless many of my readers will, on seeing the heading of this chapter, he sceptical of such a thing as thought-transference being a possibility.

If this scepticism is intelligent, I, and, for that matter, the whole thinking world, will welcome it. If it is born of ignorance plus conceit, it will only harm him who is in need of enlightenment.

The British Society for Psychical Research has collected a vast deal of evidence bearing on this subject. It is tabulated and classified and intelligently commented upon by the authors in "Phantasms of the Living," to which I gladly refer the reader for more extended information than I have space for, far more than I possess as the result of my own experience. The work consists of two volumes, and in every respect is scientific and scholarly.

In this chapter I (A Definition Of Hypnotism And Allied Terms, Together With Considerations Of What The Hypnotic Condition Is) shall give a very brief outline of the subject, relate some of my own experiences, and quote a few cases from the work just mentioned.

The subject of telepathy is broadly divided into two classes, experimental and spontaneous.

Experimental telepathy is that form of telepathy which occurs as a result of the concerted endeavor of two or more individuals, one endeavoring to receive, and the other attempting to project, a mental image. The one receiving the thought from the mind of the other is called the percipient; the one whose thoughts are read is termed the agent.

Mr. Hudson claims that experimental telepathy is much more easily produced when hypnotism is practised after the method of Mesmer, than after the method of Liebault and Braid.

The history of the subject is summarized in Hudson's "Law of Psychic Phenomena," to which the reader is referred.

Fiction is filled with accounts of both experimental and spontaneous telepathy, a notable instance of which is found in Charlotte Bronte's book, "Jane Eyre." As the reader is doubtless aware, in Bronte's book, Jane Eyre hears Mr. Rochester call her when he is miles away, and afterwards is made to attest to the truth of the experience. Many other instances could he given.

I shall first consider spontaneous telepathy.

Spontaneous telepathic experiences may be received either as simple ideas, or as hallucinations of sight, hearing, touch, or as all three combined.

The evidence of the existence of this kind of telepathy is well-nigh universal.

Personally, I have scarcely talked with a family in ray very large acquaintance, in which some member of it has not had some such experience as will be related.

These telepathic impressions or hallucinations may occur in the waking state at all times of day. They may occur as dreams in sleep. They frequently occur just as, or after, one has retired, before falling asleep.

A great deal of evidence has been adduced by the British Society for Psychical Research, which goes to prove that it is a fairly frequent occurrence for persons to see images of friends who are very ill, who are dying, or who are just dead.

The Society has carefully eliminated, as far as possible, all errors in the cases cited, and from their report little or no doubt is left that such phenomena are of frequent occurrence.

I shall cite one case which came under my own immediate observation, and which has nowhere been published.

It occurred in the winter of 1877, in the home of my uncle. Mrs. E., a Protestant Irish lady, widowed, sixty years of age, was employed to read to me, and had lived in our house some months. Her reputation was good, and she was known by our family to be a truthful woman. She was well educated and intelligent.

One morning on coming down to breakfast, she told us that her aunt, a Mrs. B., had died the night before in the city of Cork, Ireland. She stated that she saw her aunt, described her death-scene, and heard her call her, Mrs. E., by name.

She saw an old-fashioned clock in her aunt's room, and the hands pointed to 1:15 a.m. At three o'clock that afternoon the lady received a cablegram informing her of the death of her aunt, confirming the hour of death as seen by Mrs. E.

Subsequently a letter received by Mrs. E. stated that the dying words of the aunt were repeated calls for her niece.

This same lady, so she told me, had on previous occasions experienced similar telepathic phenomena.

The following cases are reported from "Phantasms of the Living," Vol. I. The first case is reported by Capt. G. F. Russell Colt, of Gart-sherrie, Coatbridge, Scotland.

"I was at home for my holidays and residing with my father and mother, not here but at another old family place in Mid-Lothian, built by an ancestor in Mary Queen of Scots' time, Inveresk House.

"My bedroom was a curious old room, long and narrow, with a window at one end of the room and a door at the other. My bed was on the left of the window, looking towards the door. I had a very dear brother (my eldest brother), Oliver, lieutenant in the 7th Royal Fusiliers. He was about nineteen years of age, and had at that time been for some months before Se-bastopol. I corresponded frequently with him, and once when he wrote while in low spirits, not being well, I said in answer that he was to cheer up, but that if anything happened to him, he must let me know by appearing to me in my room, where we had often as boys together sat at night and indulged in a surreptitious pipe and chat. This letter (I found subsequently) he received as he was about to receive the Sacrament from a clergyman who has since related the fact to me. Having done this he went to the entrenchments and never returned, as in a few hours afterwards the storming of the Redan took place. He, on the captain of his company falling, took the vacant place, and led his men bravely on.