We have thus nineteen coincidences and six failures • - the failures all more or less explicable by special circumstances. During Madame B.'s visits to Havre, about two months in all, she once fell into ordinary sleep during the day, and twice, as already mentioned, became spontaneously entranced, one of these times being on April 21st, a day of illness and failure. She never left the house in the evening except on the three occasions on which she was willed to do so (experiments 14, 17, 21). Trials of this kind had to be made after dark, for fear her aspect should attract notice. The hours of the other experiments were generally chosen at the moment, to suit the operators' convenience; sometimes, as I have said above, they were chosen by lot.

1 M. Gibert was not with us; but M. Janet often came to see her after M. Gibert had hypnotised her.

2 On these two occasions (V. and VI.) no one actually saw her asleep before we entered the Pavilion, since we desired Mlle. Gibert not to watch her, for fear that she might guess that an experiment was going on.

3 Cases 1 and 4 were practically successes, but I have counted them as one success and one failure.

Further experiments with the same subject were made by Professor Janet in the autumn of 1886. The results, communicated to Professor Richet, were published by him in the Proceedings S.P.R., vol. v. pp. 43-45 (also in the Revue de l'HypnoHsme for February 1888, which also contains an account of some less successful experiments by Professor Richet himself). Thirty-five experiments were made, of which sixteen were successful, Madame B. being found asleep at intervals varying from five minutes to an hour after the attempt was made; in two cases the result was doubtful, and the other seventeen attempts failed altogether.

568 B. With regard to the cases next to be quoted, it must be observed that when the operator is within sight or hearing of the subject, either the production of hypnosis by mental suggestion alone, or its prevention by "silent willing" while ostensibly trying to produce it, is inconclusive as evidence of telepathy. The subject, having been previously hypnotised by the operator, must be assumed to be familiar - sub-liminally at least - with his particular habits of unconscious physical expression in connection with hypnotisation, so that the slight unconscious indications of his intentions that would perhaps escape the notice of the ordinary bystanders might very likely be perceived by the subject.

The same objection cannot, of course, apply to the instances of hypnotisation at a distance by the same experimenters, which, if not produced telepathically or occurring accidentally, can only be attributed to self-suggestion.

The following account is from Dr. J. Héricourt, who was one of Professor Richet's ablest assistants in the editing of the Revue Scienti-fique. The observations were made and recorded in 1878, and contributed to the Société de Psychologie Physiologique, November 30th, 1885 {Bulletins, Tome I. p. 35). Dr. Héricourt's account, as well as Dr. Gley's, to be next quoted, were published in Phantasms of the Living, vol. ii. pp. 683, 685. In both cases I give a slightly abbreviated English translation, taken from Edmund Gurney's paper on "Hypnotism and Telepathy" in Proceedings S.P.R., vol. v. pp. 222, 223.

The "subject" - Madame D. - was a young widow, in whom no trace of hysteria could be discovered. M. Héricourt found her exceedingly easy to hypnotise, and after about a fortnight could entrance her by his will alone, exercised without any word or gesture, and sometimes while Madame D. was in the midst of an animated conversation with other persons. On the other hand, he found that all the ordinary physical processes remained completely ineffectual if his will was not that the trance should ensue. He soon began to extend the distance between himself and his "subject," and instead of producing the effect from one corner of a room to another, he could produce it from one house or one street to another. The first trial from a distant street was specially interesting. While concentrating his thoughts on the desired effect, at 3 p.m., Dr. Héricourt was summoned to see some patients, and for a time forgot all about Madame D. He then remembered that he was engaged to meet her on the promenade at 4.30, but not finding her, he bethought him that possibly his experiment had succeeded, and towards five o'clock he vigorously willed that she should wake.

In the evening Madame D., spontaneously, and without his having made the slightest allusion to her absence from the promenade, informed him that about three o'clock she had been suddenly seized by an irresistible inclination to go to sleep, though she never slept in the daytime. It was all she could do to walk into another room, where she fell on a sofa, and was afterwards found by a servant cold and motionless, comme morte. The servant shook Madame D. vigorously, but could not make her do more than open her eyes. All that Madame D. remembered experiencing at this time was a violent headache, which disappeared towards five o'clock, the hour when M. Héricourt willed the undoing of his work.

This experiment was the first of a series, during which a number of persons had the opportunity of arranging the conditions and testing the results. The hypothesis of expectant attention was doubly excluded; for if M. Héricourt gave Madame D. notice of his intention to entrance her, but actually willed that she should remain awake, she retained her normal condition, and imagined that he had failed.

568 C. The next case, contributed by Dr. E. Gley, of 37 Rue Claude Bernard, Paris, is a record of some observations of his friend, Dr. Dusart, published in the Tribune Médicale, in May 1875.

The "subject" was a hysterical girl of fourteen, whom Dr. Dusart found very susceptible to hypnotism. He early remarked that his passes were ineffective if his attention was not strongly directed to the desired result; and this suggested to him to try the effect of purely mental suggestion. One day, before the usual hour for waking the patient had arrived, he gave her the mental command to awake. The effect was instantaneous: the patient woke, and again, in accordance with his will, began her hysterical screaming. He took a seat with his back to her, and conversed with other persons, without appearing to pay any attention to her; but on his silently giving her the mental suggestion to fall again into the trance, his will was again obeyed. More than one hundred experiments of the sort were made under various conditions, and with uniform success. On one occasion Dr. Dusart left without giving his usual order to the patient to sleep till a particular hour next morning. Remembering the omission, he gave the order mentally, when at a distance of 700 metres from the house. On arriving next morning at 7.30 he found the patient asleep, and asked her the reason. She replied that she was obeying his order.

He said: "You are wrong; I left without giving you any order." "True," she said, " but five minutes afterwards I clearly heard you tell me to sleep till eight o'clock." Dr. Dusart then told the patient to sleep till she received the command to wake, and directed her parents to mark the exact hour of her waking. At 2 p.m. he gave the order mentally, at a distance of seven kilometres, and found that it had been punctually obeyed. This experiment was successfully repeated several times, at different hours.

After a time Dr. Dusart discontinued his visits, and the girl's father used to hypnotise her instead. Nearly a fortnight after this change it occurred to Dr. Dusart, when at a distance of ten kilometres, to try whether he still retained his power, and he willed that the patient should not allow herself to be entranced; then after half-an-hour, thinking that the effect might be bad for her, he removed the prohibition. Early next morning he was surprised to receive a letter from the father, stating that on the previous day he had only succeeded in hypnotising his daughter after a prolonged and painful struggle; and that, when entranced, she had declared that her resistance had been due to Dr. Dusart's command, and that she had only succumbed when he permitted her.