Thus a woman in her bath received a summons to unlock the door: stupefaction, resistance, and the order was reiterated until she had unlocked the door. Later her maid found her in a faint in the bath tub, and she would certainly have been drowned had it not been possible to open the door.

There is no subconscious explanation which gives a reason for these things that can also present themselves under other forms; for example, an aged lady, in a dark corridor, was about to fall into the open shaft of an elevator, in which the car had descended. A phantom barred her way. Hallucination? Yes, without doubt, but intelligent hallucination, provoked at an opportune time by a guardian spirit. Every other interpretation becomes too complicated.

All this does not prevent writing, unconscious movements, automatic speaking, and visual and auditory images from appearing in their purely physiological form: but in this case the explanation is simple and does not become entangled in the difficulties encountered in the preceding cases.

I have just cited two examples of timely warnings. The following is another which seems of the same type, although it be purely physiological. Myers gives us this example as an explanation of illusions in which the spiritists fail, but his comparison is unjustified.

A lady, standing before her fireplace, held in one hand a bank note which she was preparing to put into her drawer: in the other, a letter which was to be thrown into the fireplace. Mechanically she reread the letter: then, when she had finished it, and without paying attention to her act, she made an inverse gesture. The letter was going in the drawer, the money into the flames. But her arms stiffened and could not execute the movement. They had received a general inhibition. Perhaps this lady believed in the intervention of a protective intelligence, but the physiological process is rather clear, nevertheless. There is in each functional organ a sensitive consciousness. Consciousness A was given an order to grasp the bank note: consciousness B, equally expectant, was ready for the execution of a different order - to put the letter into the fire. Unknown to the lady, each motive center was only awaiting its final command for the execution: at the precise moment when the gesture would become executory, the lady sent a suggestion in a contrary sense that produced a contraction. The lady happened to be exactly in the situation of the drill sergeant who is confused in commanding his platoon - the order is not regular, and no one moves.

This is a purely physiological explanation. Can we apply it to the preceding phenomenon? It is very evident that the inferior organism of the other lady had no knowledge of the position of the elevator: hence the form of the phenomenon, owing to subconsciousness, would have been general inhibition - the lady would have been unable to advance. Instead, what do we find? An hallucinary and preservative form - that is entirely different: and we know that hallucinations, when they are not unhealthy, are provoked by the emotional states of the persons with whom we are sympathetic. This lady can very well, then, have seen an image created by the emotional state of an invisible friend. But it is above all when the motive agent is a living person that this statement becomes interesting.

Perty tells the following fact which is reported By Aksakof:1

Sophie Swoboda, because of a family party, had been unable to prepare her lessons. She quit the company for a moment, and while she was alone found herself, mentally, face to face with her teacher. It seemed that she spoke to the teacher, explaining her neglect and expressing her regrets: and then, rejoining the party, she imparted to the guests what had just happened to her. At the same time the instructress, who was a writing medium, took a pencil and communicated with her husband: the communication stopped short and a handwriting, that she recognized as Sophie's, warned her that the lesson was not prepared. She carried the original writing to her pupil. It was the same text, with the same pleasant expressions, which Sophie had employed in her fictitious conversation with the instructress.

From this example, and many others, we are entitled to reject the conclusion of those who claim that automatic writing emanates always from the one who produces it. The secret depths of subconsciousness are certainly possible sources: but it is not safe to generalize from that, since cryptomnesia is out of the question in many cases whose motive agents are known to us.

Aksakof cites as well the example of [Thomas Everitt, whose wife was a medium, and who by her mediation, corresponded with one of his friends. Florence Marryat, moreover, reports that she wrote with her own hands a communication coming from a sleeping person: and W. Stead, the great journalist, corresponded at a distance with his son and several other living persons.

1 Animism and Spiritism, p. 478.

In closing, let us note that between a table message and a written one, there is no essential difference: these are the same forces which animate either an organism, or inanimate matter, and the effects differ only by reason of the imperfection of the means.

An example which discloses, with the same evidence, the motive source of a communication obtained with a table, is taken from the ninth volume of the Proceedings of the S. F. P. R., p. 48. We can give only a resume.

Case of Mrs. Kirby.

Mrs. Kirby lived in Santa Cruz, California, on a ranch, where was employed an illiterate young English sailor named Thomas Travers.

While they were trying an experiment with a table among the family, the table spelled the name of Mary Howels, entirely unknown to those present. Mary Howels, however, declared that she was the sister of Thomas Travers, which implied a contradiction because, having also stated that she was not married, she would have borne the same name as her brother. The latter, on being questioned, admitted with embarrassment that he had changed his name since leaving the service of a whaling-vessel, fearing that he would be recalled by the maritime draft.