By many persons the visions seen in crystals or the products of automatic writing are looked upon as of a telepathic or clairvoyant nature. Crystal gazing, in which a person, while keeping as passive mentally as possible, fixes his gaze in a glass crystal, has been practised from earliest times. Its origin has been ascribed to Promethus, and the early Assyrians. In place of a glass crystal, a diamond, glass of water, wells, and springs have been used. At one time crystal gazing was employed for all sorts of purposes, as the detection of criminals, solving mathematical problems, prophecy. Though condemned by St. Thomas Aquinas and other Fathers as devilish, it flourished for a spell and then fell into more or less general disuse. It is true that some persons may see in the crystal various images and dramatic incidents which may or may not be recognized; sometimes one may be able to see the location of lost articles, etc. However, psychologists do not consider such facts as mysterious. The crystal gazing merely produces a state of mental dissociation, in which unconscious memories are tapped and projected to the surface of the crystal. The fact that the images are not recognized is no good argument in support of the super-normality of the phenomena, no more than is the potential ability one has in dreams to recall forgotten incidents of the past.

The same holds true of automatic writing, namely, that what is written is founded on the individual's past experiences. Automatic writing, it might be explained, is writing performed involuntarily, and without the person's being aware of the sense of what is written. While some normal persons are able to develop the power to write automatically, it seems to occur more often in those who are of a neurotic strain. Some automatic writers have described accurately events that happened hundreds of years ago, and many other things that apparently defy explanation. Careful inquiry usually shows, however, that the writer described only such things as came within the range of his or her experience; for instance, descriptions of bygone days were founded on books read in childhood and forgotten.

Even a person who believes in the reality of telepathy and kindred doctrines must admit that many of the examples offered in support of them are erroneous. That fraud has been practised is admitted; sometimes, as in the case of Eusapia Palladino, fraud escapes detection for a long time, during which period many may be converted to false beliefs. Even when fraud is discovered many excuse its perpetrator, claiming that, after all, the detected one possessed an indefinable something that was really supernormal. It is quite possible that many frauds escape detection entirely. Sometimes many claimants of superior psychic abilities are victims of self-deception; their powers are explainable on psychological grounds, but they prefer to believe and do believe that they possess an extraordinary gift.

That lovers of notoriety have added to the literature on the supernormal cannot be gainsaid. It can be shown, too, that many experiments popularly regarded as evidence in favour of the telepathic hypothesis are of no value. For example, the old game of hiding an article, the "telepath" discovering its location by "reading" the mind of the secreter as he holds the latter's hand. This is merely a matter of muscle reading. Every thought is accompanied by a corresponding muscle movement, probably slight but which can be of great service to a skilful muscle reader; thus, in the example given the "telepath" is able to find the hidden article because every movement in the right or wrong direction is made evident to him by the muscles of the hand which he holds. Further, there are persons very skilful in noting physical signs which are not apparent to others. There are, for instance, physicians who are very keen diagnosticians and who are often unable to explain very well how they arrive at some of their diagnoses; detectives like the fictionary Sherlock Holmes who can find clues where others see nothing of a tell-tale nature. Frequently, too, the perceptions of these persons are unconscious, and if these are bases for dreams which prove true it is not above understanding. Thus, one may unconsciously note that a relative is unwell and a dream result in which the notation becomes an actuality, and which, in real life, may later prove true.

Hyperesthesia of the senses must be considered in studying telepathic evidence. One whose sense of hearing, taste, smell, feeling, etc., is very keen may become aware of many things and yet have no true knowledge of the source of his gifts. Fine acuteness of hearing may allow one to hear a message which may have been accompanied by slight, involuntary whispering not appreciable to others. One who has this trait, as an engineer, may have a "premonition" that a wreck has happened ahead, and such prove true. Keenness of perception is likely to be more pronounced in sleep than when awake, hearing particularly. Lyman states that at one time he was awakened nights several minutes before his bell rang; on awakening he heard nothing though he felt sure that the bell would ring.

Again, many incidents commonly ascribed to telepathy or clairvoyance do not deserve this classification. In another place reference has been made to the fact that many things may pass so rapidly through consciousness as to be quickly appropriated by the unconscious and forgotten. If I lose a stick-pin and in a dream see the exact location in which I later find it, such is because I unconsciously noted the incident at the time the pin was lost; in a dream this knowledge emerges in accordance with the laws of psychic processes, of a natural order, rather than clairvoyant powers. If, as in a case quoted by Abercrombie, a father should appear to his son in a dream and acquaint him with the name of a witness who could testify as to a certain payment, and thus free the son from prosecution, are we to consider such as evidence of the return of a spirit? Rather are we to regard it as the emergence of an old idea, dormant in the unconscious mind, another testimony that the mind forgets nothing. And if we credit telepathy to thought transmission how are we to explain other allied phenomena which cannot be dependent upon human agencies? For instance, a physician friend, whenever he has a dream dealing with water, notes that it rains the following day. Doubtless, his unconscious mind became aware of the changed atmospheric conditions and was responsible for the dream. The dream is prophetic indeed, but we can hardly say that some human or spirit sent him the idea of rain in symbolic form. However, if the dream should correspond with a shipwreck or other untoward event in which humans were concerned, doubtless many of us would be ready to accept a telepathic explanation.