"The chances against accidental success in the case of any one card are, of course, 51 to 1, yet out of the fourteen successive trials, nine were successful at the first trial, and only four trials were complete failures. The odds against the occurrence of the five successive running, in the card series, are considerably over 1,000,000 to 1. On none of these occasions was it even remotely possible for the child to obtain by ordinary means a knowledge of the object named. Our own facial expression was the only index open to her; and even if we had not purposely looked as neutral as possible, it is difficult to imagine how we could have unconsciously carried, say, the two of diamonds, written upon our foreheads.

"During the ensuing year, the committee, consisting of Prof. Barrett, Mr. Myers, and the present writer,* made a number of experiments under similar conditions, which excluded contact and movement, and which confined the knowledge of the selected object - and therefore the chance of collusion with the percipient - to their own group. In some of these trials conducted at Cambridge, Mrs. F. W. H. Myers and Miss Mason also took part. In a long series conducted at Dublin, Professor Barrett was alone with the percipient. Altogether these scrupulously guarded trials amounted to 497, and of this number 98 were completely successful at the first guess, and 45 at the second.

"A large number of trials was also made in which the group of agents included one or more of the Creery family; and as bearing on the hypothesis of an ingenious family trick, it is worth noting that - except when Mr. Creery himself was thus included - the percentage of successes was, as a rule, not appreciably higher under these conditions than when the committee alone were in the secret."

*Note: By "the present writer" is meant one of the authors of "Phantasms of the Living."

Mr. Esdaile, for many years Presidency Surgeon in Calcutta, whose observations on hypnotic phenomena now form an accepted part of physiological science, gives the following case of transference of taste between himself and a patient whom he had mesmerized. The subject was a young Hindoo, Baboo Mohun Mittre, who had been operated upon painlessly whilst in the mesmeric trance.

"One day that the Baboo came to the hospital to pay his respects, after getting well, I took him into a side room, and mesmerizing him until he could not open his eyes, I went out and desired my assistant surgeon to procure me some salt, a slice of lime, a piece of gentian, and some brandy, and to give them to me in any order he chose, when I opened my mouth. We returned, and, blindfolding Lallee Mohun, I took hold of both his hands, and opening my mouth, had a slice of half-rotten lime put into it by my assistant. Having chewed I asked, 'Do you taste anything?' 'Yes. I taste a nasty old lime' and he made a very wry face in consequence. He was equally correct with all the other substances, calling the gentian by its native name, cheretta; and when I tasted the brandy, he said it was shrab (the general name for wine and spirits).

Being asked of what kind, he said, 'What I used to drink - brandy.' For I am happy to say he was cured of his drunken habits (formerly drinking two bottles of brandy a day) as well as of his disease."

The following extract entitled, "Production of local anaesthesia," is taken from "Apparitions and Thought-Transference," by Frank Podmore, M.A., London.

"In experiments carried on with various subjects at intervals through the years 1883-87, at some of which the present writer assisted, Mr. Edward Gurney had shown that it was possible by means of the unexpressed will of the agent to produce local anaesthesia in certain persons. (S. P. R. vol. i. pp. 257-260; ii. 201-205; iii. 453-459; v. 14-17.) In these experiments the subject was placed at a table, and his hands were passed through holes in a large brown-paper screen, so that they were completely concealed from his view. Mr. G. A. Smith then held up his hands at a distance of two or three inches from the finger indicated by Mr. Gurney, at the same time willing that it should become rigid and insensible. On subsequently applying appropriate tests it was found, as a rule, that the finger selected had actually become rigid and was insensible to pain. In the last series of 1G0 experiments Mr. Gurney, as well as Mr. Smith, held bis hand over a particular finger. In 124 cases only the finger over which Mr. Smith's band hud been held was affected; in 16 cases Mr. Gurney and Mr. Smith were both successful; in 13 Mr. Gurney was successful and Mr. Smith failed. In the remaining 7 cases no effect was produced.

It is noteworthy that in a series of 41 similar trials, in. which Mr.

Smith, while holding his hand in the same position, willed that no effect should be produced, there was actually no effect in 36 cases; in 4 cases the finger over which the band was held, was affected, The rigidity was tested by asking the subject at the end of the experiment, to close his bands. When he complied with the request the finger operated rail the experiment bad succeeded - would remain rigid. The insensibility was proved by pricking, burning, or by a current from an induction coil. In the majority of the successful trials the insensibility was shown to be proof against all assaults, however severe.

"In these earlier experiments it seemed essential to success that Mr. Smith's hand should be in close proximity to that of the subject, without any intervening barrier. These conditions made it difficult to exclude the possibility of the subject learning, by variations in temperature, or by air currents, which finger was actually being operated on; though it was hard to conceive that the percipient could by any such means have discriminated between Mr. Gumey's hand and Mr. Smith's.*