568 A. The subject of these experiments in telepathic hypnotisation was Professor Pierre Janet's well-known subject, Madame B. ("Léonie " see 230 A, etc.) and the first experiments were carried out with her at Havre, by Professor Janet and Dr. Gibert, a leading physician there, and described in the Bulletins de la Société de Psychologie Physiologique, Tome I., p. 24, and in the Revue Philosophique, August 1886.1 I summarise those relating to hypnotisation at a distance.

October 3, 1885

M. Gibert tries to put her to sleep from distance of half a mile; M. Janet finds her awake; puts her to sleep; she says, "I know very well that M. Gibert tried to put me to sleep, but when I felt him I looked for some water, and put my hands in cold water. I don't want people to put me to sleep in that way; it puts me out, and makes me look silly." She had, in fact, held her hands in water at the time when M. Gibert willed her to sleep.

October 9

M. Gibert succeeds in a similar attempt; she says in trance, "Why does M. Gibert put me to sleep from his house ? I had not time to put my hands in my basin." That the sleep was of M. Gibert's induction was shown by M. Janet's inability to wake her. M. Gibert had to be sent for.

It is observable, however, that MM. Janet and Gibert can now (April 1886) operate interchangeably on the subject; her familiarity with both seems to enable either to wake her from a trance which the other has induced.

1 See also Phantasms of the Living, vol. ii. pp. 679-83.

October 14

Dr. Gibert again succeeded in inducing the trance, from a distance of two-thirds of a mile, at an hour suggested by a third person, and not known to M. Janet, who watched the patient.

In February and in April, 1886, Madame B. was again brought to Havre, and some successful experiments (tabulated below) were made before my arrival on April 20th.

I give next extracts from my own notes of experiments, April 20th to 24th, 1886, taken at the time in conjunction with Dr. A. T. Myers, and forming the bulk of a paper presented to the Société de Psychologie Physiologique on May 24th (also published in Proceedings S.P.R., vol. iv. pp. 131-37).

Dr. A. T. Myers was present at the experiments throughout. Other observers were Dr. Gibert, Professor Paul Janet, Professor Pierre Janet, Dr. Jules Janet, Dr. Ochorowicz, and M. Marillier.

In order that the phenomenon of sommeil à distance may be satisfactory, we have to guard against three possible sources of error, namely, fraud, accidental coincidence, and suggestion by word or gesture.

The hypothesis of fraud on the part of operators or subject may here be set aside. The operators were Dr. Gibert and Professor Pierre Janet, and the detailed observations of Professor Pierre Janet, elsewhere published, sufficiently prove the genuineness of Madame B.'s somnambulic sleep.

The hypothesis of accidental coincidence would be tenable, though not probable, did the events of April 20th to 24th constitute the whole of the observed series. But the number of coincidences noticed by Dr. Gibert, Professor Janet, and others has been so large that the action of mere chance seems to be quite excluded. It is to be observed that, as Professor Janet tells us, the subject has, during an observation of several weeks (maintained by Mile. Gibert when Professor Janet is not present), only twice fallen spontaneously into this somnambulic sleep, when no one willed her to do so; once before our arrival, on looking at a picture of Dr. Gibert, and once on April 21st, as narrated below. On the other hand, the observed cases of sleep deliberately induced from a distance amount, I believe, to at least a dozen.1 I exclude, of course, the very numerous occasions when sleep has been induced by an operator present with the patient, by holding her thumbs, looking at her, etc. This, however, brings us to the third source of doubt, whether the sleep may not on all occasions have been induced by some suggestion, given perhaps unconsciously, by word or gesture.

It was thus that I was at first inclined to explain Cases I. and II. among those that follow, but the other cases here given seem to negative the supposition....

I. I pass on to describe the first case of sommeil à distance, April 21st. At 5.50 p.m. (an hour which was selected by drawing lots among various suggested hours) Dr. Gibert retired to his study and endeavoured to send Madame B. to sleep in the Pavilion, at a distance of about two-thirds of a mile. She was to fall asleep in the salon; whereas she habitually sits in the kitchen of the Pavilion (a house occupied by Dr. Gibert's sister).

It was supposed that the command would take about ten minutes to operate, and at about six Professor Janet, Dr. Ochorowicz, M. Marillier, my brother, and myself entered the Pavilion, but found that Madame B. was not in the salon, but in the kitchen. We immediately went out again, supposing that the experiment had failed. A few minutes later Professor Janet re-entered with M. Ochorowicz, and found her asleep in the salon. In the somnambulic state she told us that she had been in the salon, and nearly asleep when our arrival startled her, and had then rushed down to the kitchen to avoid us; had returned to the salon and fallen asleep as soon as we left the house. These movements were attested by the bonne, but it of course seemed probable that it was merely our arrival which had suggested to her that she was expected to fall asleep.

1 This number, as will be hereafter seen, has since been increased.

On this day she was ill and exhausted from too prolonged experiments on the previous days. In the afternoon she fell asleep of her own accord, and in the late evening (11.35 P.M.), when she had long been in bed, M. Gibert willed that her natural sleep should be transferred into somnambulic, and that she should dress and go into the garden of the Pavilion. Nothing followed on this attempt, unless an unusually prolonged sleep and complaints of unwonted headache next day were to be in any way connected herewith. On the whole, had I left after these experiments only, I should have referred the phenomena to suggestion of the ordinary hypnotic kind.