I shall cite a few of the conditions under which such experiments may be made.

Let three persons agree upon one article, say a playing card, while the fourth is absent from the room. When number four comes in let all keep perfectly quiet, and concentrate their minds on the article agreed upon. In an astonishing number of instances the experiment will prove a success - the fourth person will name the correct card.

The following conditions should be observed.

Do not indicate by look or gesture the object agreed upon.

Do not come in contact with the percipient.

Do not laugh at or make fun of the experiment, but simply keep the mind passive. All parties should be in good temper at the time such experiments are made.

There is no objection to any amount of merriment before and after the experiment, and great care should be taken not to ridicule the failure of the percipient.

I have tried many such experiments. My success averages about 55 per cent.

I quote the following from "Phantasms of the Living," by Edmund Gurney, M.A., Frederic W. H. Myers, M. A., and Frank Podmore, M. A., in VoL I.

The experiments of these gentlemen were in every way conducted scientifically and can be relied upon for accuracy of statement, and freedom from previously conceived prejudice or bias.

"Easter, 1881. Present, Mr. and Mrs. Creery and family, and W. F. Barret, the narrator. One of the children was sent into an adjoining room, the door of which was closed. On returning to the sitting-room, and closing its door also, I thought of some object in the house, fixed upon at random. Writing the name down I showed it to the family present, the strictest silence being preserved throughout.

"We then thought silently of the thing selected. In a few seconds the door of the adjoining room was heard to open, and, after a very short interval of time, the child would enter the sitting-room, generally with the object selected.

"No one was allowed to leave the sitting-room after the object had been fixed upon; no communication with the child was conceivable as her place was often changed. Further, the only instructions given the child were to fetch some object in the house that I would fix upon, and together with the family keep in mind this idea, to the exclusion as far as possible of all others.

"In this way I wrote down among other things, a hair-brush, it was brought; an orange, it was brought; a toasting-fork, failed on the- first attempt, a pair of tongs being brought, but on second trial it was brought. With another child (among other trials not here mentioned) a cup was written down by me; it was brought; a saucer; this was a failure, a plate being brought; no second trial allowed. The child being told it was a saucer replied, 16

'That came into my head, but I hesitated as I thought it unlikely you would name saucer after cup, as being too easy.'

"But of course the most satisfactory condition was that only the members of the investigating committee should act as agents, so that signals could not possibly be given unless by one of them. This condition clearly makes it idle to represent the means by which the transferences took place as simply a trick which the members of the investigating committee failed to detect. The trick, if trick there was, must have been one in which they, or one of them, actively shared; the only alternative to collusion on their part being some piece of carelessness amounting to almost idiocy - such as uttering aloud the word required or leaving the selected card exposed on the table. The following series of experiments were made April 13th, 1S82. The agents were Mr. Myers and the present writer, and two ladies of their acquaintance, the Misses Mason, of Morton Hall, Retford, who had become interested in the subject by the remarkable successes which one of them had obtained in experimenting among friends.

"As neither of the ladies had ever seen any of the Creery family till just before the experiments began, they had no opportunity for arranging a code of signals with the children; so that any hypothesis of collusion must in this case be confined to Mr. Myers or the present writer. As regards the hypothesis for want of intelligence, the degree of intellectual behavior required of each of the four agents was simply this. (1) To keep silence on a particular subject; and (2) to avoid the unconsciously displaying a particular card or piece of paper to a person situated at some yards' distance. The first condition was realized by keeping silence altogether; the second by remaining quite still. The four observers were perfectly satisfied that the children had no means at any moment of seeing, either directly or by reflection, the selected card or the name of the selected object. The following is the list of trials, -

Objects To Be Named

(These objects had been brought and still remained in the pocket of one of the visitors. The name of the object selected for trial was secretly written down, not spoken.)

A white penknife. - Correctly named with color the first trial.

Box of almonds. - Correctly named.

Threepenny piece. - Failed.

Bos of chocolate. - Button bos said; no second trial given. (A penknife was hidden, but the place was not discovered.)

Fictitious Names To Be Guessed

Martha Billings. - "Biggis" was said.

Catherine Sniith. - Catherine Shaw was said.

Henry Cowper. - Failed.

Cards To Be Named

Two of clubs. - Right first time.

Queen of diamonds. - Right first time.

Four of spades. - Failed.

Four of hearts. - Right first time.

King of hearts. - Right first time.

Two of diamonds. - Right first time.

Ace of hearts. - Right first time.

Nine of spades. - Right first time.

Five of diamonds. - Right third time.

Two of spades. - Right first time.

Eight of diamonds. - Failed.

Three of hearts. - Right first time.

Five of clubs. - Failed.

Ace of spades. - Failed.